Charles Bingley found himself at a loss on the Thursday afternoon. There had been the rides out into the woods, the visits to neighbouring estates – he had particularly enjoyed the company of the youngest daughter of the Warners, who was barely out of the schoolroom, but had stirred something in him that made him realise he should not visit the house again for at least two years. Then there were the recitals by the Hurst sisters, which made him long for a temporary deafness, and the games of skittles with Georgiana in the Long Gallery, which she would only win because he permitted it, or so that's how he read it anyway. But Pemberley itself was dull, Darcy was moping around completely cuntstruck by the obvious charms of Miss Godwin, who simpered and moped, and was well on her way to receive a proposal within the week. Charles Bingley had been enamoured with a lot of women since leaving the halls of Oxford, that gentleman's education that his newly-monied father had insisted upon, but he had never seen Darcy act this way before, as if all of his own mental capacities had been lost, and it made him feel quite uneasy.

"Charles, what are you doing?"

Caroline's voice was shrill, as always. He had been absentmindedly flicking through a book in the library, eating biscuits sent up from the kitchens. He might have eaten them all if he hadn't been interrupted.

"Trying to avoid going out of my mind, sweet sister."

"Well, you ought to do it somewhere where you are not lolloping about like an untucked schoolboy. Did your valet even dress you this morning, or did you have the undue notion of trying to do it yourself?"

Charles looked down at the misbuttoned waistcoat, which appeared to have a stain; the gap on his hose, where the coarse hairs on his knee were peeking through. Maybe she had a point. His sister always looked perfect. From the dyed satin pumps on her feet, to the matching dyed flowers in her hair, she prided herself on always looking immaculate, just in case one of the gossip pages deigned to write about her… which they never did, much to her chagrin. Instead, she was overlooked in favour of younger girls with older money, and titled ladies who could trace their lineage back to William the Conqueror. It made her resentful, he found, and this resentment painted itself across her face, giving her a pinched look and a premature frown. It also made her hard to like, which was unfair, because his sister was loyal, generous, and bitingly funny.

"I tried to tie the cravat myself, didn't think I had done a bad job of it myself," he said jovially, moving over the journals he was reading so she could sit next to him on the sofa. "Where's Louisa?"

"She went for a ride with Fitz," Caroline said with a sulking lip, "I never get invited to ride with Fitz."

"You would not be able to ride with Fitz unless you had a chaperone, you know that." He passed her a biscuit, and she took it, nibbling at the edges miserably. " Besides which, why would you want to go and ride with Fitz? He's awfully dull since Jemima bloody Godwin became his main topic of conversation. I swear, if I have to hear one more sentence about the colour of her eyes, I may actually go insane…"

Caroline giggled, to which her brother took umbrage.

"I'm serious, you can throw me into Bedlam for I will be glad of the respite."

"Oh, Charles…" she laughed, "when can we leave for Hertfordshire?"

"Why, as soon as the house is ready… and we can hold a ball upon our arrival ingratiate ourselves in the local society. Yes," he nodded to himself, "we will make friends with all of our neighbours."

Caroline rolled her eyes, she had absolutely no intention of mixing with tradesmen, merchants, and the plodding local gentry, whose last visit to court had been before the last King went mad. There would be no eligible men there, there would just be the mothers of country-raised daughters desperately seeking men from outside their own society. Any remotely suitable gentleman in Hertfordshire would already have tied into matrimonial arrangements with girls from local estates, for Caroline, spending the end of the season was merely a diversion for a few months, a chance to hone her skills as hostess, before returning back to town and the real hunt for a husband. Louisa would be there too, of course; but the odious children that she had inherited from Mr Hurst's first wife would be back at school. Both the Hurst girls were miserable in their own ways, and Caroline thought it lucky for them both that they had considerable dowries to make life with either seem more palatable.

"A ball?"

"Yes, of course, and I'm certain Darcy and his new bride will lead the dancing," he said pointedly, them both fully aware that Fitzwilliam would always try to avoid dancing if he could help it.

"What a splendid couple they will make," Caroline stated, rather dramatically she thought, with a long breath and a loud voice. "Miss Godwin is very beautiful, is she not, brother?"

Charles sighed, it was enough that he was forced to listen to monologues from Darcy about the beauty of Miss Godwin, he did not fancy it from his sister for the afternoon.

"She is fair enough," he said, "a nice smile, pleasant. I heard once that she was in favour at St James', but you know I never keep up with society. Don't have time for that nonsense… but, what about you Caroline? Have you finally decided against Darcy once and for all? You know he will only commit for a love match; I did try and convince him of your own suitability."

"No," she shook her head, " I have no desire for Darcy in that sense, you are fully aware that if he was to be your brother through marriage it would be because of Louisa- "

"-or Georgiana."

"Georgiana?"

"She would be a suitable bride for me, would she not? And she does have thirty thousand of her own."

Bingley hadn't really thought of Georgiana Darcy as a serious marriage proposition before, but she had blossomed over the last year; developing from a loud and somewhat disagreeable child, into a well-behaved and thoughtful young woman, and there was always the thirty thousand and the Darcy name to think of too. Any union with that honourable family would help the Bingleys ascend into the upper echelons of society, and if neither of his sisters was able to secure Fitzwilliam, then Charles Bingley had no issue at all with offering his hand to Georgiana Darcy once she had been presented.

"Georgiana is still a child, Charles, she is also far too clever for you now and given a few years of marriage and childrearing, she would be bored of you. You know that as well as I, Miss Darcy is not the wife for you."

"I hope Miss Godwin is not the wife for Fitz, and he gets bored of her! I, for one, will be glad to not have to listen to him spout raptures about her fine eyes."

"Are you serious, Charles? Do you think this might a schoolboy infatuation that will pass?"

He looked up quickly, unable to hide anything from his sister if he looked at her directly, "I have never seen him like this, and I don't like it. Darcy is a sensible man, and Miss Godwin makes him… not sensible. That is not a good situation for a man like him to be in. She has nothing at all, he will be the one risking everything. For, if he marries her, and she turns out to be an illusion… then there is no going back."

"Darcy is always so calculated, though, even his entanglement with the widow was forgotten fairly quickly."

"Aye, but the widow was never a marriage prospect."

"Not like Miss Godwin."

"Definitely not like Miss Godwin, which makes her very dangerous indeed. Or, if she does permanently join our circle, makes her someone we need to be on the right side of."

Caroline didn't say anything, but it was written across her face in a way that made her brother immediately question the expression, in the physical shorthand reserved for those who are very close.

"You know something."

"I do."

"Can you tell me?"

"I cannot."

Charles looked immediately put out, wanting to know the secret, but not wanting to ask.

"Miss Godwin…?"

"Cannot be trusted."

"And Fitz...?"

"Unaware."

"Oh," he said. "What a predicament."

"Indeed."

"And I thought I would be the one coming unstuck before we left for Hertfordshire."

"We all did, I think Louisa even had a shilling on it."

Charles wasn't surprised at this, even though he feigned an annoyance, which rested his brow.

"We need to protect our friend."

"We do."

Charles slumped back onto the settee and took a bite of his biscuit. Darcy was notoriously decisive, hated people meddling in his affairs, and took a stern view of those who did. He was darned secretive, that was the problem, but he guessed that when you had grown up with George Wickham as your closest confidante, there were bound to be things that you would keep close to your chest.

"Right, Caroline." He was unsure about this, but Darcy would do the same for him. "What do you need me to do?"

And she told him the plan of how his friends would rescue Fitzwilliam Darcy from the most catastrophic of marriages.