Page 23 of Dear Friend

Richard raised a brow. “Where, then?”

“Somerset.”

The name had been in Darcy’s mind since the journey from Ramsgate, though until that moment he had not spoken it aloud.

“My father left a small property in Somerset, known as Willowbrook House, near Wells. It has been let these past several years, but the tenants vacated near four months ago. I had meant to visit before now and so kept a man there to look after the place in the meantime. I have since sent word to Pemberley for servants to go ahead and make the residence ready for my reception.”

Richard regarded him thoughtfully. “You mean to bury yourself in Somerset with as little company as you can contrive.”

“I mean to give Georgiana room to recover without my hovering over her, and to find a little peace for myself.”

Richard nodded, apparently satisfied with the answer.

“I will write when I am settled,” Darcy said. “Until then, I ask that you say nothing of Ramsgate. Not even to your parents. Georgiana has suffered enough without becoming an object of family concern and speculation.”

“You need not ask twice.”

After a while, Richard took his leave and rose to go. At the door, however, he paused with one hand upon the handle.

“You are not to blame for this, Darcy.”

Darcy swallowed against the sudden tightness in his throat but said nothing.

“Whatever else you may find with which to reproach yourself when you are alone, remember that much,” Richard added before stepping past the door and closing it quietly behind him.

Darcy remained where he was for some moments, listening to Richard’s footsteps recede along the passage. Somewhere above, Georgiana remained in the care of her maid, awaiting Mrs. Reynolds’s arrival and believing, perhaps, that her brother could never look upon her in quite the same manner again.

Richard was right in one respect. Darcy could not allow that.

Whatever blame he chose to lay at his own door, Georgiana would not be made to bear it.

Chapter Seven

14th August 1811

Longbourn

Elizabeth

"You have not yet received any response, have you?" Jane asked as she entered the room, her attention immediately drawn to her sister bent over the writing desk in the fading afternoon light.

Elizabeth's countenance must have answered for her, for Jane did not wait before adding, more gently, "It has been five months now, Lizzy."

"Yes." Elizabeth occupied herself with folding the last page of the letter she had just finished. Her movements had become practised in a way they had not been in March, when every letter sent to Somerset had seemed an act of hope rather than a habit. She reached for the wax and fixed her seal before looking up. "Five months tomorrow, if you are determined upon accuracy."

"I did not mean to press you."

"I know."

Jane crossed the room and settled into the chair beside the desk. "I only wondered whether there had been any word at all."

"None."

There had been a time when Elizabeth could not have spoken the word so calmly. During the first weeks she had watched every post with an eagerness painful to remember now. By May, expectation had begun to give way to disappointment before the letters were even distributed, and by June she had ceased hurrying downstairs to enquire. Now, when a letter came for anyone at Longbourn, she could hear the announcement without that sudden leap of hope which had once made every disappointment fresh.

She had not, however, ceased writing.

Jane's gaze rested upon the newly sealed letter. "And you still send one every week?"