Page 44 of Colour My World
He smiled. “Fitzwilliam’s assessment was far less kind.”
“He is not subtle.”
“No, he is not.”
The light in the room had softened to amber, casting long shadows across the damask walls. Outside, fog clung to the windowpanes, blurring the world beyond.
Darcy studied his sister. Her poise, her measured grace. The tension in her shoulders had eased, but shadows still clung beneath her eyes.
“I am glad you have come,” she admitted. “It feels…safe.”
His jaw tightened. “It should never have felt otherwise.”
Her gaze dropped. “No.”
He paused. “Did she trouble you?”
“No.” She set the hoop aside. “Fitzwilliam saw to it.”
“Yes. He said as much.”
She glanced up, hesitating, then spoke. “He told me things I had not seen for myself. What I thought kindness was not. What I believed to be concern—control.”
Darcy stiffened.
“The letters she intercepted. The excuses she made on my behalf. The friends I never met. The outings she promised but never arranged.” She took a steady breath. “There were always people about me…and yet I felt apart. I did not realise until now.”
“You should have written me.”
She looked at her hands. “I did not wish to disappoint you.”
“You could never….” He looked away.
The chimes of the longcase clock echoed through the silence between them.
Georgiana reached for the teapot, filled a cup, and placed it before him. “Drink, Brother.” A small, teasing smile. “You are brooding again.”
Darcy sipped. “And how have you occupied yourself of late?”
“My music master introduced me to a new piece on the pianoforte. A sonata by a German composer—Beethoven.”
“Is it to your liking?”
“It is unlike anything I have played before,” she admitted. “Melancholy and forceful all at once.”
“Much like its composer, I imagine.”
Georgiana tilted her head. “Have you met him?”
“No, but I know of him.”
She considered this. “May I play it for you?”
“I should like that.”
She beamed. “And for the holidays? Shall we return home?”
Father is gone. Pemberley is mine now. To preserve. To make whole.“Yes, we shall.”
