The Beginning of Hope

Part 2

My dear Georgiana...

Fitzwilliam Darcy's hand hovered uselessly over his otherwise-blank sheet of paper before he set down his pen with a sigh.

"Does something trouble you, Mr Darcy?"

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he realised that even this smallest movement had been witnessed - no doubt watched for - by one of the other inhabitants of the Netherfield parlour.

Scarcely an hour went by when he did not feel Caroline Bingley's eyes on him, and he was beginning to tire of her scrutiny. He rather prided himself on his ability to remain inscrutable, particularly around those he did not know well. But the arrival of Elizabeth Bennet into his life once more made it seem as if all of his nerves were worn raw, and it was an increasing challenge to conceal his true feelings about anything, even seemingly meaningless tasks.

"Not at all, Miss Bingley!" he replied, injecting his voice with a brightness he did not feel. "I am merely attending to my correspondence."

He lifted his pen once more, hoping it would shield him from further interrogation. Alas, it seemed Caroline took it for an introduction, leaving the settee she shared with her sister and circumspectly crossing the large, airy parlour to the corner table he had commissioned as a desk.

"Perhaps I may be of some assistance, in that case!" she let out a sharp, trilling laugh that made Darcy's smile become a grimace, matched by Mr Hurst, who buried his face in his newspaper. It was disconcerting indeed to feel a kinship with Bingley's brother-in-law, and Darcy turned his attention back to his letter, wondering how best he could dismiss Caroline's generous offer without being rude.

"Oh, that is not necessary -" he began.

"Nonsense! You are writing to your sister?" A surreptitious glance at his paper had confirmed this. "Well, then you shall certainly require my help." She beamed at him. "I know, to my detriment, what dreadful correspondents brothers make!"

"Not all brothers!" Charles Bingley remarked, from his corner of the parlour. "Darcy, you must not listen to her. I write fine letters."

"When you can be bothered to write them at all," Caroline replied, with a waspish look. "Anyway, we were not talking about you. Go back to your...whatever it is you are doing." Charles was not so easily dismissed, though, and Darcy saw the eye-roll that Caroline did not. He buried his chin in his hand to conceal his amusement.

"Now, what would Georgiana care to know about Hertfordshire?" Caroline mused. "You must tell her about the house, of course. In fact, why not invite her to stay? Charles will not mind it!"

Darcy glanced past Caroline again, wondering if her brother might like to be consulted before she committed his hospitality to distant guests.

"Charles will not mind it," Charles called across the room once more, evidently only half-heartedly attending to his singular card-game and taking great delight in baiting his sister from a distance. "But Georgiana might be quite happy where she is, Caro, and not care to travel all this way to stay amongst strangers."

"Strangers?" There was the laugh again, that made Darcy's spine stiffen painfully. "Charles, do not speak nonsense. Georgiana Darcy is no more a stranger to me than....than...my own dear sister is!"

Mrs Hurst made a noise to indicate that she was listening, although her full attention was fixed at that moment upon counting the number of stitches on her knitting needle. Darcy swallowed a sigh of relief. He could bear one of Charles' sisters prying into his affairs, he would not stand two.

"I shall mention it," he said, quickly, dipping his pen in the ink-pot and scratching out the first vague lines of a letter he had no intention of sending.

I write to invite you to travel down to Hertfordshire and join us at Netherfield, Georgiana. Miss Caroline Bingley, in particular, is eager that you come.

He glanced up to see Caroline's eyes watching the progress of his pen, her lips moving a little as she read each word. She looked away as soon as his eyes reached her, though, a slight pink staining her cheeks the only indication that she was aware of having been observed.

Netherfield is a charming place, Darcy continued, feeling strange freedom in being able to write precisely as he pleased, safe in the knowledge that the letter's only destination would be the fire. He would no more invite Georgiana to Hertfordshire than he would invite Caroline to accompany him to Pemberley. He had no desire to bring his sister into even passing contact with George Wickham again. She was safe, half a country away, and there she would remain.

We have already attended one assembly, and met some of our neighbours...

Caroline let out a choked sniff at this and Darcy realised, without lifting his head, that she persisted in reading his letter. In a perverse game, he shifted his position, tilting the letter closer to him and placing it at an angle that would make it impossible for her to read without craning her neck painfully. The ghost of a smile tugged at his lips and it was this, and not the content of his letter, that drew comment from his keen observer.

"I had no idea you enjoyed the assembly so much, Mr Darcy, that the mere memory of it should provoke a smile." Her voice was light and teasing but grew sharp as she recalled certain meetings of her own from that evening. "I would not imagine it is the thought of new friends that prompts such a response."

"I quite rejoice in some of the new friends we have made!" Charles piped up from the corner, gathering his cards together and dropping the pile back down on the table-top with a flourish. He glanced over his shoulder at the clock on the mantel and clapped his hands. "We have but an hour before Miss Bennet calls! Darcy, you may write and tell Georgiana that if you wish!"

Darcy's smile remained fixed in place, but it was not without effort. If there was one name he was certainly not going to mention to his sister, it was Miss Bennet. Georgiana had not met Elizabeth, nor known of her, for he had been careful to keep his own counsel about his short failed love affair. Nobody knew he and Elizabeth had met before and fallen in love. Certainly, nobody in this house knew it. Only Elizabeth herself - who was the first to plead him never to acknowledge it. His pen scratched across the surface of his paper as he vented some of his frustration through his scrawl. He drew a breath and continued with care. Only one other person was aware of their shared past: George Wickham, and he was likely too busy covering his tracks to spare a thought for Darcy's matters of the heart.

"Here, Charles, I have finished my letter." Darcy signed the sheet with a flourish, folding it and shuffling it awkwardly back into a pile of papers to be discarded of later, away from Caroline's prying eyes. He would concoct some response from Georgiana to put off her travelling and write his own note to his sister in the privacy of his own quarters. "I am at your service. We have time, yet, before your guest arrives. Are you ready to set your wits against me at a short round of vingt-et-un?"