Pemberley to Waterloo: Georgiana Darcy's Diary, Volume 2 (7 page)

I looked up at him. And then I stood on tiptoe to touch my mouth to his. "Your concerns are mine already, Edward. How could you think I would not want to hear them? Anything important to you is important to me."

Edward resisted for a brief instant. And then he kissed me back, his lips lingering on mine. He pushed me away after a moment, though, setting his hands against my shoulders. He was laughing. "Stop a moment. I want--" He pushed one hand through his hair. "While I still have wits enough to string words together into speech, I want to tell you now."

He pulled me down onto the hearth-side settle with him, sitting me at one end of the bench while he took the other. "Sit there, so I'm not in danger of stopping to kiss you again, and I'll tell you."

His smile faded, though, as he sat a moment, staring into the ashes of the hearth. At last he said, "I went to London because I meant to sell my commission."

"Sell your commission!" I couldn't help from interrupting. "But Edward, why?"

Edward's father purchased an army commission for him when Edward was fifteen. Which of course is the usual way with second sons. The first son is the heir, the second becomes a soldier. If Edward's parents had had a third son, he would likely have been destined for a career in the Church. And when a commissioned officer like Edward wishes to retire from the army, he sells his commission--usually to the family of another second son.

Edward pushed a hand through his dishevelled hair, and then looked sideways at me, his face all at once earnest and intent. "If we'd not defeated Bonaparte's armies last year--if he'd not been exiled to Elba where he can start no more wars--I wouldn't have thought of it. But he
was
defeated. There's still the war in the Americas. But that can't last much longer by all accounts. And--" Edward stopped, closing his eyes briefly, then looked up at me again. "Would you think me an unutterable shirker if I said that I feel as though I want that war--and any future wars besides--to be someone else's worry, not mine?" He let out a slow breath. "I've done my duty. I hope I've done it well. But now ... I want it behind me, the army. I want ... I want to be free of it, once and for all. That was why I went to London."

A part of me wished--still wishes--that he might have spoken to me of the decision before it was made. But he was telling me now; that was really all that mattered. And besides, I could see the tension in his shoulders, the furrow that had appeared between his brows.

So I said, "But?"

Edward let out his breath. "Is it so obvious, then, that there's a
but
?" He shifted, gazing once more into the cooling hearth. "While I was in London, I saw a man selling matches on a street corner. A miserable-looking fellow, with one leg missing below the knee, and one eye gone, and his clothes more rags than anything else. And he'd a consumptive-sounding cough, besides. I would have tossed him a few coins and passed him by--except that I saw he wore the remains of a black Rifleman's belt. So I stopped and spoke with him--asked him whether he'd been in army service."

Edward was silent another moment. "He'd fought in Spain in '09. That was where he lost the leg and the eye. He was sent home--and was supposed to be granted a veteran's pension. Sixpence a day. Which God knows is little enough to live on, even if he had it. But the colonel of his regiment was killed, as well. Some new man took his place--one who spared little thought for making sure that the former colonel's recruits received the pensions they were owed. This man was put off with excuse after excuse when he tried to claim his pension. And then he was told he wasn't owed his pension at all. Apparently this new colonel claimed the man had been called to duty and failed to report, and used that claim to deny him all further army support."

Edward's voice was even, nearly expressionless--but still, I could see how angry he was. "This man--Mayberry is his name--what can he do to argue his case? He can't read or write to know what documents might be put before him or to make a formal complaint. He has no money to hire legal aid. For God's sake, he's selling matches on a street corner just to keep himself from starving to death."

Edward stopped again, and I asked, "What did you do?"

Edward blew out another explosive breath. "Told him I'd take up his case with his battalion's quartermaster--which I will. But I can't help ... I can't help wondering ..."

"You can't help feeling responsible for your men, or wondering what would happen to your regiment if you were to sell your commission and another colonel were to take your place," I finished for him.

Edward nodded. "I was a lieutenant colonel before I was one-and-twenty, in command of seven hundred and fifty men. Barely more than half of them came back from Portugal alive. And we lost half of those men last year in France." He braced his thumb against the bridge of his nose. "Not that I believe I could have saved any of those men we lost if I'd acted any differently, given different orders or employed a different strategy. Other regiments had far fewer men return alive. Still, the ones who did survive--the men who fought and starved and in winter watched their fellows in arms freeze solid to the ground while they slept. Men who left parts of themselves buried over there on foreign soil--don't they deserve at the very least to receive what they were justly promised?"

If I am to be honest, my heart had leapt at the thought of Edward's selling his commission. Of his retiring from the army and being safe--safe from the threat of ever being once again sent off to war. But the reasons Edward had just given for remaining in his post as colonel--those are the very reasons I've been in love with him since I was six years old.

So I said, "Of course they do." I slipped my hand into Edward's and moved along the bench to sit close beside him, close enough that our bodies touched. "You don't have to make any decisions tonight--you don't even have to reach any decision soon. But whatever you do decide, it will be the right choice. I know it."

Edward looked down at me, the candles' yellow glow still deepening the shadows at the corners of his mouth. "Are you so sure of that?"

"Of course I am." I touched my lips just lightly to the edge of his jaw, where I could see the steady beat of his pulse. "I know you, Edward."

Edward's arms came round me, warm and solid and strong, and he said against my hair, "What did I ever do to deserve you?"

Saturday 24 December 1814

We had a pleasant surprise arrival today at Pemberley: Edward's brother, Frank.

Or rather, it was a pleasant surprise to most of us. For Caroline, I don't think Frank's coming to Pemberley was so much a surprise as an out-and-out shock--and not at all a pleasant one.

My cousin Frank--his proper title is Lord Silverbridge--is five years older than Edward. He's not very much at all like Edward to look at. Edward takes his dark looks from his father's side of the family, while Frank has his mother's colouring: dark-gold hair and hazel eyes.

Two years ago, Frank was engaged to be married to a Miss Celia Lambeth--but she died, tragically, of typhoid before they could marry. And ever since ... it's a bit hard to describe. Grief takes everyone differently, I suppose. Some descend into depression and despair, some people seem to grow angry at the whole world. But Frank--he was always high-spirited, but ever since Celia's death it's as though he's determined to take nothing seriously, to find all life one endless joke.

As his father's heir, of course, he needs no profession like the army--so he lives as a man of leisure in London, when he's not spending an obligatory few months on the family estate in Devon. He's always laughing and teasing and playing elaborate pranks on his London friends that get reported in the society pages of the papers. Such as the time he coated a litter of dachshund puppies in flour and unleashed them on a crowded ballroom.

That makes Frank sound frivolous, or as though I don't like him--but I do; it's almost impossible not to. He may be high-spirited, but he's never unkind or malicious. And so far as I know, he's never grown attached or even interested in any other woman since Celia died.

At any rate, today's surprise visit was very much in character.

The weather this morning was cold and very clear, with a piercingly blue winter sky and the ground glittering with frost. First thing, before breakfast, I asked Edward to come for a walk with me down to the lake, because I wanted to make a crayon sketch of the woods as they look in wintertime, all shades of grey and brown, with just the occasional bright splash of colour in an evergreen or a broken cedar bough. Edward agreed to come--and as a testament to his devotion, he said, even carried my drawing box. Though he laughed and gave me unmerciful
I-told-you-so
's when my ungloved fingers were too stiff with cold to draw after twenty minutes or so.

We were just walking back to the house when a rider came pounding down the drive, drew up sharply and then swung himself down from the saddle at the sight of us.

"Edward! Hasn't anyone ever told you that it's a gentleman's first duty to keep his betrothed from freezing to death before the wedding?"

Edward stared at the man, who was swathed in a fur-lined greatcoat and beaver hat. And then he started to laugh. "Frank. What on earth brings you here?"

"Well, I like that." Frank's cheeks were reddened with the cold, his hazel eyes bright as he turned to me. "Two hundred miles to spend Christmas with my only brother, and he greets me by asking what brings me here?" He let go his horse's reins and stepped forward to hug me and kiss my cheek. "Come to think of it, I've a mind to quarrel with him in any case for proposing to you, young Georgiana, before I could get a word in."

He extended a hand to Edward, then, and Edward took it, still grinning. "Not worth trying, Frank. If she's mad enough to want to marry me, I'm afraid she's still wits enough to know to steer clear of you."

Frank gave me a theatrical look. "Sad, but too true. Georgiana always was the sensible one."

The two men embraced, then, laughing and pounding each other on the back. They live such different lives that they don't see each other very often--I've not seen Frank since Edward and I have been engaged, and I don't think Edward has, either. But the two of them get on well together and always have.

We all walked back to the house, Frank and Edward still talking. Frank had been planning to spend the holidays at the family estate. But a snowstorm to the south had made travel to Devon impossible. And so Frank decided on impulse to ride for Pemberley, instead.

At least, that's what he told Edward and me.

The rest of the company was at breakfast when we arrived back at the house: Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth, Kitty and the boys, and Caroline. Thomas and Jack were playing at highway bandits when we walked in, and Jack had just upset a pot of hot chocolate all over the carpet, so that in the general uproar I don't think anyone else noticed Caroline's face when she saw Frank walk into the room. I saw her, though. All the colour drained from her cheeks and her eyes looked first stricken--and then, after a moment, angry. She turned pointedly away and concentrated on looking out the window all the time the cocoa was being mopped up and Frank simultaneously was making his greetings to the rest of the group.

Finally when the spill had been cleaned up and Kitty had taken the boys out of the room, Elizabeth said, "Caroline, I don't think you've ever met Edward's brother?" She turned to Frank. "Frank, may I present to you Miss Caroline Bingley--"

Caroline interrupted before Frank could say anything--before he could even finish his polite bow of acknowledgement in her direction. "We've met," she said. Her voice was angry, too, hard and clipped.

Sunday 25 December 1814

It seems wrong to be so happy myself, when everyone else is so very distressed just now. Of course, come to that, I
am
distressed as well, and worried, too. And I'm sorry for Kitty, which I wouldn't have expected. I suppose I ought to be angry with her for spoiling an otherwise perfect night, but I find I can't be.

I ought to tell this in the proper order, though.

Between Edward and finding Ruth's letter and everything else that's happened, I completely forgot to mention before that despite our Christmas celebrations being so quiet, we were to hold a ball here at Pemberley, just as we have done every year--ever since my grandfather started the tradition more than fifty years ago.

I know my brother would have been happy to cancel the celebration this year, for Elizabeth's sake. But she wouldn't hear of it, only said that this baby was after all a Darcy, and as such, it couldn't dream of disrupting a fine old Pemberley custom by choosing the night of the ball to be born. Which made my brother laugh--and so the preparations for the ball went on.

At any rate, the ball took place tonight. Or rather last night, I suppose I should say, since I've just looked at the little clock on my mantle and found that it is in fact two in the morning.

Elizabeth came to my room, just as I was finished with dressing and about to go downstairs to greet the guests. She looked a little pale, I thought--but she smiled when she saw me and said, "Good heavens, Edward had better put his name down on your dance card quickly--every gentleman in attendance will be clamouring for a dance with you tonight."