Chapter Two

The Darcys, father and daughter, returned to Pemberley several weeks later. Darcy, though he would not admit it, could not help feeling disturbed at the picture the Gardiners had painted of their niece.

Four years — a great deal could happen in four years. He smiled gently at Anne, who eagerly pressed her face against the window as they climbed the incline that hid their home from them. Her eyes flashed with pleasure as the beauty of it appeared beneath them, highlighted by the last rays of the setting sun, and she smiled in a moment of perfect contentment.

His life had been utterly changed, transformed beyond recognition, long before Rosemary's death; there was no doubting that Anne was his daughter, naturally, but often he could only observe her in wonder, uncertain as to how she had come to be, lost in that peculiar rapt adoration he had only felt twice before in his life. Sometimes, he thought he could feel the echo of their names reverbating through his blood: Georgiana. Elizabeth. Anne. It was almost beyond words, like lightning out of a clear sky. He knew that others' experience of parenthood had been wildly different; even those who loved their children, Bingley, Georgiana, Henry, seemed to do so — moderately, as he had expected he himself would. Yet nothing in his life ever turned out quite like he expected.

As they walked in, he allowed Mary to divest him of his greatcoat, and Anne of her coverings. Halfway through her part of the procedure, Anne stopped and shrieked, 'Nana!' and flung herself at her aunt, her coat still dangling from one arm. Georgiana smiled and held out her arms to her niece.

'Give your aunt a moment,' Darcy chided, as Anne showed no signs of stopping her chatter, and she giggled and came to a halt halfway through her latest sentence. Georgiana shifted her to the other arm and looked at him gravely, her eyes as wide and dark as those of the little girl crouched beneath his covers, hiding from monsters under her bed. His instincts alerted him to her distress, and he was quickly at her side, his long strides easily making nothing of the distance.

'Georgiana?' he said quietly, gesturing for the housekeeper and other servants to go with a sharp jerk of his head. 'What is it?'

She drew in a deep, steady breath, and summoned forth a serene smile. 'We should put Anne and Stephen to bed first, then we can talk.'

He was not certain why, at that moment, he was overwhelmed by admiration for the beautiful young lady who was his sister; he was almost more proud of her than he could say — her presence of mind, her composure, the capable, quietly indomitable, lady she had become. Not that he would say. For her part, Georgiana's childhood belief in her brother's flawless consistency of word and deed, her immense gratitude coupled with great affection, remained almost unabated with the passage of time. She did not speak of it either; but they understand each other well enough, and had only grown closer and more like since the day she was first exposed to the fallacies and cruelties of the world, so ably represented in the form of George Wickham.

'Aunt Nana, Papa,' Anne said sleepily, 'stay with me —'

'We won't go until you are safe and asleep,' Georgiana assured her.

'I am right here,' Darcy added. Anne smiled blissfully as they spoke in low voices; in the room across the hall, Stephen slept peacefully. Both, unable to rid themselves of a deep-seated expectation of loss, vacillated between the children's rooms, simply watching as they slept.

'She is so like you, Fitzwilliam,' Georgiana said, smiling at her brother tremulously. Her hand trembled slightly, and without thinking, he reached out and stilled the irregular motion by clasping his own around it. This time she caught a shallow, quavering breath, and in the dark he heard a suspicious sniffle.

'Georgiana?'

She gasped suddenly, and turned, clinging tightly to him with her head against his shoulder, the slightly cold tip of her nose against his neck startling him into jumping a little. 'I'm sorry —'

'No, dearest, I was only surprised; now tell me what is wrong.' He winced slightly at his tone, which could not be called anything but autocratic; but as if she were a child again, Georgiana replied with instant and unwavering obedience.

'We quarrelled.'

He was not entirely certain what to say to this. He and Rosemary had not really ever quarrelled, as such; even when they disagreed, they discussed the matter civilly, or stayed out of each other's way until their emotions had simmered down again. Of course, an attachment such as Aldborough and Georgiana's must be rather different in nature, even after nearly four years of marriage.

'Is that unusual?' He had always respected his sister's privacy in personal matters; but he was beginning to feel privacy rather overrated in certain circumstances.

'No — yes — I don't know.' She caught a sob in her throat. 'Fitzwilliam, I — we — were going to have — I conceived again.'

'Yes, I know.' Georgiana had spoken, in passing, of her regret at her inability to so much as conceive another child; Stephen was all the more precious because of that particular trial. Yet it had never seemed to give her what could properly be called grief; her rocky relationship with her grandmother-in-law, and the difficult transition from Miss Darcy, free to do whatever she liked, answering only to him, to the constrained Lady Aldborough, occupied far more of her time and attention.

'I thought you did. Her ladyship finds it terrible irksome of you to be so observant about such things.' She laughed lightly. 'Of course, anything that irks her is praiseworthy in my eyes.'

'Georgiana . . .'

'I lost the baby, Fitzwilliam. And he didn't care!'

Darcy flinched. He adored his sister, naturally, but it felt terribly awkward to be privy to another couple's personal concerns. He had interfered once and once only, and sworn off it after that; human relationships were not rational, not like chess or even the riddles he took a slightly surreptitious pleasure in. Those could be won, with strategy and reason and logic; not so human beings. He wondered if Georgiana had made the same mistake; or perhaps it had been Aldborough.

'Are you certain he did not?' he inquired gently.

'Perhaps he did; but he only said it would be all right — and then that he had urgent business in town.' She sighed, the painful grip of her fingers on his shoulders relaxing a bit. 'And you know how she is.'

He knew it was a bad sign when she started referring to people only by pronouns. 'Yes, dear,' he agreed cautiously.

'I couldn't bear it, we quarrelled and he went away and she insisted upon dictating everything down to when I slept; she insisted that I walk more rhythmically.'

His eyes widened. 'Is she that dreadful?' he asked sympathetically. Georgiana knew better than to take offence at the implied disbelief, and only nodded, pressing her face more tightly against his neck, her fingernails digging into his shoulders once more. He sighed.

'She says I cannot keep running away from my responsibilities.' Georgiana stepped back and grimaced.

'You are not running away,' he protested immediately. 'We are re neighbours and I am your brother. What else am I here for?'

The slightly sharp look which had entered her eyes as she spoke of her grandmother-in-law vanished. With a soft smile, she reached out and pressed her hand against his cheek, shaking her head. 'Fitzwilliam, you oughtn't say things like that.'

Darcy looked at her blankly. 'I beg your pardon?'

'Papa!' Anne sat up in bed, sobbing brokenly, and both siblings raced to her side.

'Anne, Anne,' Georgiana said soothingly; Anne quieted a very little.

'Papa, please — please — Papa!' she cried incoherently, and he picked her up, rocking her back and forth.

'Stay,' she said insistently, 'stay — Papa — '

'I am right here,' he said, interrupting her fearful rambling, 'I'm not going anywhere, I promise.'

She rubbed her eyes with her fists and looked up at her father and aunt plaintively. 'Papa stay?'

'Yes, Papa is staying,' Darcy said, pressing a kiss on her forehead. She put her arms around his neck and climbed into his lap, then turned around.

'Aunt Nana stay?'

'As long as I can,' Georgiana promised. 'And I shall always come back.'

Anne sniffled. 'Mama not stay.'

'Mama was sick,' Darcy said quietly, 'but she would have stayed if she could.'

'You sick? Aunt Nana sick?'

Georgiana took a step closer, and pushed the child's dark hair out of her eyes. 'No, darling,' she said softly, 'Papa and Aunt Nana are not sick, and we are not going anywhere, do you understand?'

Anne smiled, then laid her head on her father's shoulder, letting her eyelids drop. 'Tired,' she confessed. 'Bad sleep.'

'Very bad,' Darcy agreed, settling her back in her bed with a final kiss. After several minutes, her breathing calmed and slowed. He sighed, raking a hand through his hair.

'You don't mind if I stay longer this time?' Georgiana asked abruptly. 'Lord Aldborough said he would not be back until after Christmas, and I would like to spend it with my family.'

'Of course not,' he said, silencing the uneasiness that welled in his breast. Something niggled at his consciousness, and both siblings fidgeted for an awkward moment as they tried to pinpoint the latest internal disturbance.

'Stephen!' gasped Georgiana.

'It's been over two hours.' In a burst of parental paranoia, they raced across the hall to find the young Lord Courtland sleeping in perfect contentment, and could not keep from smiling at one another ruefully.

'They think I am very foolish,' Georgiana said distantly.

'They do not understand,' Darcy replied, briefly brushing his finger along his nephew's round cheek. Stephen was so like Georgiana at that age, it was positively uncanny. For a moment the brother and sister looked at one another, remembering those long, cold, grey days after their father's last illness struck, when they had clung to one another, all that was left of the family that had been. It had not, perhaps, been a very good family, but it had been theirs, and until Mr Darcy and Lady Anne joined the nine lost brothers and sisters, they themselves could not understand, what it was to be left alone, with only one another to anchor themselves.

Georgiana sighed. 'Thank you, Fitzwilliam. Not just for this — everything. You know.'

He did not pretend to misunderstand; they were far beyond that. 'You are welcome, my dear.'