"I just want to leave. I don't belong here."
"You do belong here. Let me talk to Elizabeth, see-"
"No. Please don't talk to her. I don't want her to know."
"All right," Darcy agreed. He didn't particularly want Elizabeth to know about this discussion, either. "But I'm not letting you run off to the aunt just like that."
"I want to go to London or to Kent. Can we go visit Richard? I miss him."
"In a few days. I want to stay as long as I can, to be here when the baby comes."
His sister nodded, fiddling with the bridle but not really focusing on it.
"It won't make any difference, whether you're here or not."
"What won't make any difference? You said something about Elizabeth dying. Are you just upset or has Lillian put that idea into your head too, or is it something else?"
"I don't know."
"Please try, Georgie. Try harder."
The girl paused, trying to concentrate. "I don't know. I can't tell. There's just so much noise here. It gets inside my head and I can't think."
"All right. It's all right. We will travel to Kent in a few days and figure things out there. And I won't mention this discussion to Elizabeth but I want you to be polite to her. Do we have a deal?"
One last nod and then Georgiana sat down heavily on a bale of hay while Darcy finished unsaddling the horse.
When he turned around his sister had face in her hands, struggling not to cry. He stood over her uncertainly but sat next to her, both arms around her shoulders as she sobbed. Darcy expected Georgiana to jerk away and run, but she didn't, so he sat holding her, looking around the stable for some explanation as to why the sky was falling.
*~~*~~*
He spun the stem of his wine glass to make a whirlpool, watching the wine slosh against the crystal sides and accidentally over the rim and onto the letter on his desk. The ink ran purple as he tried to dry it, but he put it in the drawer anyway, knowing no one would ever read it.
He heard a noise in the next room and found Lillian holding her son and explaining to him what the Christmas is about.
"Jane's up for good, Mrs. Darcy is with her now," Lillian said tiredly noticing her master. "And Georgiana's awake."
"Is it that late already? That early?" he asked, looking at the wall clock. It read six-thirty. He'd been drinking, writing and staring at the sky all night.
"You want to come with me, Master Francis?" he asked suddenly the little boy, taking him from Lillian who had a lot of work anyway and swinging him high into the air. "Will we see what Jane is doing?"
"Papa." Suddenly the boy called. It was the third time in last week and he asked Lillian to explain the boy he isn't his father."
"Why he still calls me that?" He asked angry. He knew that the boy was too small to understand things but Darcy couldn't allow anyone to hear that. "Lillian, what about his father?"
"He's yours."
He snorted.
"Lillian, you can't go around saying that," he told her seriously, jumping as a Francis threw away book from Darcy's writing table. "Easy," he reminded him.
"I'm not telling anyone."
He sat on the sofa and turned his head to look at her. "I mean it. That's not something I want you joking about. Elizabeth wouldn't find it funny and neither would Georgiana."
"I said I won't tell," she insisted.
"But I am not his father. We-" He gestured back and forth between them. "Have never been together. You will not tell people he's my son."
"You don't remember?"
"Remembered what? I wasn't even at Pemberley when, uh-…"
"No, you were in an inn in Derby." She was standing beside the window, arms folded; acting like this was a normal conversation. "With me. You remember you were sick you had that your headache and after Anne left your room, I stayed with you. I took care of you."
"Yes, that I remember. I also recall I felt like I was floating."
She nodded.
He wet his lips and then intoned, "Lillian, I guarantee we've never been together. I may have been drugged, but… No. Your dates don't quite match. If you're playing a joke on me… this isn't funny. This is hurtful. Do you realise how many people you could hurt?"
"I won't tell anyone." He opened his mouth to protest, but she added gently, "Fitzwilliam, you don't owe me anything. It happens. You didn't force me. You asked and I wanted to."
He stared at her in disbelief, still a little tipsy. Jesus Christ, she seemed to believe it, and he couldn't think of any way to prove her wrong. He exhaled, hearing Elizabeth leaving nursery with Jane who was calling her papa gaily.
"Did you tell Anne?"
It bothered him that she hesitated, studying him and calculating her answer for half a second. If she said she had, she was not only fired, she was about to be the first woman he'd ever hit. Once again, Elizabeth was right. He was getting tired of his wife being right.
"Did you tell Anne you and I were lovers? Before she died, did you tell Anne I was the father of the baby you were having?"
"No. No, course not. Fitzwilliam, I'm not tryin' to cause problems. You asked who her father was. I didn't know you didn't remember. I thought you just weren't saying anything. You had Jane and Elizabeth, she trusts you, and this would hurt her. Especially now."
"Are you trying to blackmail me? Is that what this is about?"
"No," she insisted innocently. "No, Fitzwilliam. Never."
"What have you told Georgie?" He demanded, but she didn't answer. As the floorboards squeaked overhead, he considered his options. "If you breathe one word, to Georgiana, to Elizabeth, to anyone, I will fire you. Whether you think you're telling the truth or not, I don't care. You'll be out of Pemberley forever. And no nice family will hire you and you know where you'll end up. Am I making myself clear?"
"I won't tell anyone," she repeated, backing away, shivering a little.
"I want you to go downstairs. You will work there for now."
He got up and without looking back, left the library and went to his wife and daughter.
To his surprise, Georgiana was carrying Jane on her hip and strolling the stairs with Elizabeth, offering her arm in case she lost her balance. For a girl who'd been discussing her death twelve hours earlier, Georgiana was being a perfectly solicitous escort.
"Good morning. Merry Christmas," he greeted them, forcing a smile and taking Elizabeth arm.
"Merry Christmas," Georgiana answered while Elizabeth caught her breath. The midwife kept coming by to check on her and promising it would be "any day now, Mrs. Darcy." From the look of her, any minute was more like it.
"Cwith-mas," Jane added happily, giving Georgiana a wet kiss on the cheek.
The family had eaten the Christmas breakfast before they sat in the music room. The small candles tucked among the branches twinkled and the larger candles glowed gently along the walls. Elizabeth sat down slowly on the sofa, tucking a cushion behind her back. Jane leaned against Georgiana as she sucked her thumb sleepily.
Darcy stood beside the window and watched the idyllic scene, feeling further removed from it than one bottle of red wine should have allowed. Elizabeth rested one hand on her stomach and gave him a tired smile. He grinned back automatically and hollowly.
Georgiana left the sofa and sit beside the pianoforte and Jane laid on the soft furniture, wrapping lips around her little thumb .
"You never came to bed last night. How much have you had to drink?" Elizabeth asked quietly her husband when he sat next to his daughter. He held up his hand, measuring an inch between his thumb and index finger. "Just a little bit."
When he worked up the nerve to look from Jane at his wife, her lips were drawn into a thin, angry line and he hunkered down a little more. Georgiana's pianoforte accompanied an otherwise long silence between them until she found another song to play.
He couldn't imagine how to explain to Elizabeth the mess with Lillian, especially when he'd told her specifically he'd never been with her, and Fr
ancis wasn't his child. As much as he wanted to dismiss her far-fetched story, there was still a nagging doubt. And that was enough. He felt dirty, angry, used, but without the energy to yell or hit anything. He was so furious that his insides quivered but he wasn't sure whom he was angry with besides himself.
Then there was his sister. His enigmatic, fragile Georgie versus his enigmatic, self-reliant Elizabeth. Darcy's greatest fear from the moment Georgiana came back home, was that he'd have to choose. His wife or his sister. They were two separate lifetimes overlapping only through him, like oil and water, never meant to occupy the same place at the same time.
"Elizabeth, forgive me. I didn't think everyone would be up so early. Maybe we could go upstairs and sleep a few more hours," he told her, feeling his brain filtering out the haziness of the wine and leaving emptiness behind. "Then have a nice Christmas."
"You go upstairs and take a nap," she whispered, speaking softly for someone gives a direct order. Across the room, Georgiana had stopped playing and was watching them, unhappy about all the whispering.
"Fine," Darcy said, standing unsteadily and silently leaving the music room.
*~~*~~*
He knew he was awake but he couldn't move until he saw the hem of Elizabeth's dress in front of him. Then he looked up at her, safe in his hiding place between the dresser and the bed. It was one of Anne's favourite places to huddle and it was quite nice. He'd never tried it before.
"What are you doing down there?" She asked, puzzled.
He sniffed and answered, "Hide and seek?"
"I win. Did you have a bad dream?"
He nodded, catching his breath. His chest felt tight and he could still taste the bloody traces of death in his throat. "Yes."
"About Anne or your mother?"
"Father."
"Tell me about your dream."
He shook his head. "You wouldn't understand."
"That is a coward's excuse. Saying no one can understand your pain. You have not cornered the market on pain, Mr. Darcy, so tell me about your dream."
"Are you calling me a coward?" he asked sharply, looking for something to argue through. "The Queen of Fine is accusing me of cowardice because I don't want to talk about it?"
"That is a good point," she answered thoughtfully." And when I am drunk in front of children on Christmas morning and then woke from a nightmare crouched beside our dresser, I will talk about it."
He got to his feet, watching her carefully. Elizabeth's belly kept expanding but the rest of her didn't, and she had to lean back a little to keep her balance.
"Have you seen someone die?" he asked hesitantly.
"Yes."
That was a stupid question.
"No, I mean have you been alone and seen someone you care for die? Slowly, painfully?"
"Yes, I have."
"Your sister. I forgot. Yes, of course, you have." He shook his head again, then turned away and dipped his face in the washbasin.
"My parents would not let me near my sister for fear I would fall ill as well. But I was spending near her bed every night when everyone was sleeping. At one night, she died." Elizabeth sat carefully on the bed. "My sister was the sweetest, kindest, generous person I have ever known. And I loved her so very much. For a long time, I wished I had died with her. I thought I would feel nothing except the emptiness and ache of losing her. I was so young and felt so lonely, and I thought my life was over. But it was not," she added softly.
"No," he agreed, again unsure what else to say.
She got up, which was a difficult exercise, so he hurried to help. As she straightened her dress, he studied her, trying to find a miserable nineteen-year-old village girl underneath her calm, dignified exterior. He tried to visualise her as a studious teenager, all dark eyes and hair, and questions, but couldn't quite do it. But then, Elizabeth probably wouldn't recognise the lanky, awkward seventeen-year-old who'd stood beside father's grave for an hour, staring at it until his uncle finally persuaded him to leave.
On impulse, he kissed her, leaning over her belly. Her mouth opened and arms went around his neck, fingers running through his hair. He closed his eyes, letting everything else fade away for a few seconds except her.
*~~*~~*
He had a plan that would fix everything. It just changed every two minutes.
The easiest choice was obvious. He and Georgiana would stay in Kent and Elizabeth would stay in Pemberley until she and the baby could travel. That was assuming Georgie calmed down but Darcy wasn't certain she would. Rather than sounding like an angry whim, Georgie's pleas had a frighteningly dispassionate quality, as though her brother's leaving Elizabeth was one solution, but Georgiana putting a gun to his own head was equally acceptable.
Or it could be a permanent arrangement with Darcy living with Elizabeth and children at Pemberley in the spring and summer and with sister the rest of the year. In that scenario, it worried him that Georgiana would be alone in London for months at a time and that she'd been very specific. She wanted her brother to divorce Elizabeth, not just live apart from her.
Or he could legally separate from Elizabeth and see her without telling Georgie, which was begging for disaster. Even if he'd wanted to divorce her, he had no grounds. And to answer Georgiana's question, no, he couldn't keep Jane. He couldn’t do that to Elizabeth. He not only had to choose between his wife and sister, he had to choose between his sister and daughter.
The man startled back to reality as his little girl crawled on his lap and offered him her slice of apple. He bit off a tiny, fuzzy piece, then kissed the tip of her nose as he chewed, thanking her. Elizabeth was on the sofa but Darcy and Georgiana were on the floor opening the Christmas gifts.
"Do you like it?" Darcy heard Georgiana ask and saw Elizabeth examining a sheet music. It was a symphony of Mozart Georgie had performed a few months ago.
"Thank you, Georgiana," she responded. "I hope I didn't forget how to play on the pianoforte."
"It is Number 31. Mozart was twenty-two when it premiered," Georgiana answered politely. "He wrote to his father after the concert. About the musicians, the audience, but he never mentioned his mother, who was with him, died that day."
"Oh," Elizabeth responded, seeming unsure if that was just an explanation or a veiled message.
"You got Elizabeth the present but not me?" Darcy asked. Georgiana produced a slim package wrapped in silver paper and neatly tied with white ribbon.
"Really?" Darcy asked. He'd been jesting. He still thought of Georgiana as eleven. Old enough to expect presents but too young to think to give them. "What is it?"
Georgiana shrugged, telling him to open it. He peeled the paper away, revealing a framed sketch of Elizabeth. Not a figure drawing like Georgiana usually did, but just her heart-shaped face. All eyes and hair and lips. She had captured her looking up, her mouth slightly open and her head tilted to the side as though he'd just told her a whopping lie and she hadn't believed a word of it. He could almost hear the picture exhaling and say, "Mr. Darcy, you must be little dense…"
"Georgie, it's wonderful." He turned the frame around and tilted it for Elizabeth to see. "Thank you."
He exhaled, letting a small hope grow. Maybe his sister's tearful episode the previous evening was just youthful moodiness gone too far. He and Elizabeth must have had some minor disagreement and Georgie had over-reacted. Maybe it would all just blow over.
"Open Father's," Georgiana said, passing Elizabeth a big box. "It's a dress."
"A dress?" she echoed sceptically. The last thing she was interested in these days was a new dress.
"Open it," The girl urged.
Elizabeth lifted the lid, gasping at the evening gown nestled in the tissue. It was deep scarlet, trimmed at the neck, sleeves, and hem with delicate lace the colour of old gold. The neckline was cut low enough to make men choke on their drinks.
"Oh dear," she said breathlessly. "This is lovely. I have seen nothing like it. Fitzwilliam!"
"Yes?" he asked innocentl
y.
"This is so beautiful but where am I going to wear it? With two children. I cannot wear this."
"Look at the bottom of the box."
"The Paris Opera," Darcy said as Elizabeth stared at the tickets. "Faust. You, me, and Georgiana - this time next year. You'll probably be one of the more conservatively dressed women."
She smiled again and leaned forward. He leaned back, tilted his face upward and their lips met lightly. "How do you know I will not look like this again next year?" she asked quietly.
"You won't," he whispered back. Two babies in two years were enough for a long time. He planned, once Humfrey was born, for them to learn more about prophylaxis or something but it looked like they could let his fifteen-year-old sister sleep between them and avoid contraception altogether.
Realising they'd kissed in front of Georgiana, Darcy glanced at his sister but the girl was gone already. She must have realised what the gift implied. He excuse himself and ran after the girl and catch her on the hall.
"Explain this to me, Georgie, because I'm confused. Yesterday, out of the blue, Elizabeth was the wicked sister, and then you're giving her Christmas presents, and then you can't stand to be in the same room with us?" The shrugging started and Darcy gritted his teeth in frustration. "You seem to forget to hate Elizabeth, and then suddenly remember again. Has Lillian said something to you? Has she put some idea into your head about Elizabeth?"
Georgiana studied the hall floor.
"No." That was an unconvincing lie.
"If you want to know, ask me and I will tell you the truth but I can't fix things I don't know about. If it's not Lillian, if me being remarried really is just too much and it takes Elizabeth and I living apart for a while, we will. Give me some time though. I thought we had an understanding. As soon as the baby is born and Elizabeth is safe, she and I will talk about it and she will understand-"
Mr Darcy's Second Chance Page 16