Page 97 of The Difference of a Darcy
“Well, now, Mrs. Wickham—what would you like to discuss?”
The girl slumped in her chair slightly. “I… I am not sure. I have not… that is, I have never…”
Georgiana’s words trailed off, her hands twisting together in her lap. She stared at them as if they might somehow finish the thought for her.
Elizabeth sat across from her—not too close, not too far. “That is quite alright,” she said lightly. “We may talk about anything—or nothing at all. I am content just to sit with you.”
A long pause followed. Then, tentatively: “You have spoken of your sisters before. What… what was it like, having so many people of the family living in the house?”
Elizabeth’s heart squeezed. She smiled, soft and genuine. “It is like having built-in friends… and sometimes built-in enemies. A house full of secrets and noise and hair ribbons gone missing. A battlefield one moment and a sanctuary the next.”
Georgiana blinked. “I think I would have liked that. Will you… will you tell me about them?”
Elizabeth smiled—then blinked, startled by the sudden sting behind her eyes.
“I do not mind,” she said, her voice quieter than before. “Though I ought to warn you—my sisters are all dreadfully silly. Except when they are not.”
And then she began to talk of her sisters.
Of Jane’s gentleness, and her way of listening without ever judging.
Of Mary’s solemn lectures and the way she always misquoted scripture.
Of Kitty’s eagerness to laugh—even when no one else was laughing.
Of Lydia’s noise, her wildness, her chaos—and her joy.
She told of rainy afternoons squeezed five in a row on the settee, of arguments over bonnets and gowns and lace, of whispered jokes at the dinner table. Of long walks and shared secrets and slammed doors. Of growing up in a house always half-broken and half-full.
And then, without warning, her voice caught. She turned slightly away, dashing a tear quickly from her cheek.
“I am sorry,” Georgiana whispered.
“No—do not be.” Elizabeth smiled through the blur. “I would rather remember them—even all their maddening imperfections—than forget they existed at all.”
A long silence settled between them.
Then Georgiana said, “I think they must have been wonderful.”
Elizabeth let out a quiet breath. “They were. They are.”
And Georgiana reached, very gently, for her hand.
It was not healing. Not yet.
But it was hope.
And in that moment, it was enough.
Chapter 19
The next morning, as the fire warmed the drawing room and frost silvered the windows, Georgiana surprised Elizabeth with a quiet laugh.
“I have no idea what I am supposed do in society or say in a drawing room,” she admitted, fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve. “I know what ladies are meant to—embroider or write letters or discuss the weather—but I never learnedhowto do any of it. I was always in the nursery. Until I was not.”
Elizabeth tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
“I went to my aunt and uncle’s home after my father died,” Georgiana said. “I remained upstairs in the nursery until they could send me away to school. It was a horrible place. Well, the school was alright, I suppose, but it was so very lonely. I was not titled, you see, as most of the girls there were. And I never left, not even on holidays—the earl and countess thought it disruptive.”
