I Would Adventure: Part One

"All days are nights to see till I see thee."

September 1st

Georgiana felt a sense of relief as she stepped outside. No-one in the world had a more comfortable hiding spot than her mother, surely. The warm, comfortable rooms belied the stony exterior. The Fae couple who would adopt the baby had sent a hard-working staff to look after the ladies. The foreign servants occasionally ruffled Lady Constance's feathers, but everyone was grateful for them.

What the house lacked was a place to be alone. The bedrooms were all tucked together. There was only one common living room - no music room, no second floor of the library where she could hide to consult her thoughts. Walking out with Cerimon, the herbalist among the borrowed servants, to gather plants was the best alternative. Though an enthusiastic talker, he was kind enough not to force a conversation.

As they approached the gate, they both heard a horse on the road. Cerimon stepped ahead of Georgiana and poked his head out to see what was coming. "It's only one rider," he reported. "Kicking up quite a bit of dust."

Looking down at her white dress, she hesitated. Surely, she had invited this sort of trouble, but she didn't have to welcome it. "Perhaps I should go back in for a bonnet after all, then."

Cerimon swept his hand and stepped back, asking her to lead the way. "No cause for frowning. Your vanity is safe with me." As he followed a few steps behind, he considered his own readiness. "I think I ought to pop into the kitchen myself. I'm not sure I have enough mint on hand. It does do your mother wondrous good."

Just inside, in that one common room, Georgiana's mother and grandmother were both sitting. Lady Constance, as meticulously dressed as she would be at home, was conversing with her daughter. Lady Anne looked more informal - her hair was styled as it ever was, but without a trim waistline to emphasize, she chose plain clothing. Georgiana continued to be astonished at how much better they got on in hiding as they ever had at home. Although a stray word occasionally betrayed the existence of some animosity, the majority of their time was passed peacefully.

"Did you forget something, dearest?" Anne asked.

"I reconsidered a bonnet, and Cerimon wanted to see just how much mint we have on hand."

"Your brown calico is just over there, with the sewing box. I thought I would replace the ribbon for you."

Georgiana smiled to herself as she went to retrieve it. "You shouldn't trouble yourself, Mother. I can do that myself."

"It isn't any trouble," Anne replied. "I haven't been able to do a thing for you in months. I may be enormous, but I am not so fat that I cannot refresh a bonnet."

Constance turned her eyes to her daughter. "If you call yourself enormous, I shudder to think what you would have said of me when I was carrying you or your sister. Nothing short of a bedsheet could have covered me by the end."

"I am not yet at the end, however, so we shall see who claims the title then." Privately, Anne would be happy to let her mother retain that honor. She had tried to gain not a pound more than what was absolutely necessary. "Georgiana, I-"

A knock at the door startled them all. No-one had knocked on the door in all the time Anne and her mother had been here.

Constance recovered first. "Anne, come along. Your condition and my good health are better off out of sight." As she shepherded her daughter of the room, she said to Georgiana, "My dear, find one of the servants and have them answer the door. One of them ought to always be nearby for this, you know."

As soon as the two ladies were safely out of sight, Georgiana thought it easier to just answer the door herself. She was hardly a recognizable person, much less in this quiet corner of Verona. And why shouldn't I be here, waiting on my own grandmother? Remembering how easily her aunt and uncles had agreed that her mother could shoulder everything, Georgiana banished that reasoning from her mind. Their priorities were a blessing in disguise, she had long ago decided.

Her lips struggled to part; only a thin breath passed them. She had no idea how much weight to give each emotion in the sudden onslaught. Georgiana was surprised and confused, happy, angry, excited and frightened. She knew what she ought to do, and she knew what she wanted to do. The two positions were not entirely compatible.

Just behind the door to the sitting room, Anne was on tenterhooks. She had heard the front door open and then only silence. If it was Fitzwilliam, Georgiana would have said so. Otherwise, Anne couldn't imagine it being anyone good at all. Her mind skipped from the mundane terrors - her sister, her brothers - directly to the nightmares. Oh, why did you answer the door? It could be anyone! God in Heaven, why isn't she saying anything? Why isn't anyone talking?

A sudden, muffled moan shot Anne through the heart. She had a hand on the door before her mother could prevent it and opened it halfway. The sight in the doorway shocked her to the core, and the the door slipped out of her hand. Before Constance or Anne could catch it, its creaky hinges shattered the silence. Georgiana's heart jumped into her throat, but she could hardly move her body; Tybalt's reaction had immobilized her. It was just as well to her that she couldn't see anything. The shuffling feet told her everything.

"In God's name, why are you here!"

His eyes were caught by Anne's swollen belly. "Goddamn..."

Constance scolded Tybalt for his language as she hurried over to peel her granddaughter out of his arms. "I see elocution was not part of your studies." She pushed the door closed, little good as it would do now.

"To Hell and back with his studies!" Anne cried. "What are you doing here?"

"Anne, my darling, I don't think we have any doubt of that."

Ignoring her mother, Anne moved to her next questions. "How did you find this place? Did your sister tell you where we are?" Anne knew, no matter how red her cheeks were, Georgiana had not betrayed her. She would not have thought that of Juliette either, if it was anyone other than Tybalt come to witness her disgrace.

"Not intentionally, my lady, no." He hesitated to begin the explanation he had prepared, a rehearsed statement of the truth. "You might like to sit first." He waited while Anne refused and then was compelled to sit by her mother and daughter, who sat beside her. "My sister asked me to meet her in the village up the road, when she and your son pass through the day after next. I re-read some of her letters, and it seemed likely that this village was the same she had mentioned as the one five miles out from where you and your mother were. Then, I was on the road, and I heard your daughter's voice."

"To put it more plainly, then, you were bored and decided to hunt down my daughter for sport? To come where you thought we were 'only' caring for my sick mother?"

"... Yes?"

"Oh, how very gallant," she groaned into her hands. The other ladies both tried to comfort her but to no effect. Anne didn't want to be comforted; she didn't feel deserving of comfort. The shame and anger were rising up in her like bile, eroding all of her composure from the inside out. She wanted to strangle him and herself at once.

Constance held her daughter, patting her back as she had when she was very small. "Now, now, my darling. There is no reason to upset yourself over our guest. He is hardly about to faint away or let loose his tongue. Everyone knows his mother, God rest her soul, was full of him at her own wedding."

"Grandmother!"

"Oh, hush. My dear, the world could do with a great deal more tact. However," she continued, turning her gaze to Tybalt, "there is no shame in the truth, spoken in trusted company. No-one here has anything to fear."

Tybalt caught the hint. He even felt a grudging respect for Lady Anne, toward whom he had no warm feelings. Something told him this scheme was more about her children than herself. "My word of honor, Lady Anne," he promised. "Your private business will remain private." A sentiment which would explain why her son hasn't murdered anyone yet.

"Indeed, Mother." Georgiana eased closer to her. "Please, don't cry. There's nothing wrong."

Her mother's persistent shaking said otherwise. After sharing a mindful look with her grandmother, Georgiana stood up. If she took Tybalt away, her grandmother might have better luck. "I need to collect a few things for the still room. Perhaps you could accompany me?"

"Cermion will go as well," Constance added. "Find him and take him with you, if you please."

"Yes, Grandmother." She turned cautious eyes to Tybalt. "Follow me, please."

After introductions were made, the trio endured a mainly silent outing. Cerimon only asked Tybalt once to help gather. He soon realized Tybalt was not a man gifted with an herbalist's cautious hands. Flickering between lulls of distraction and bursts of activity, Georgiana made herself thoroughly unapproachable. One of her companions was content to follow her lead. The other endured it, but he had been holding his tongue for too long. His thimbleful of patience was spent. The residual drops evaporated into the twilight as they returned to the house.

"Stay a minute with me." He should have asked; he didn't.

"We won't have long," Georgiana warned. "Once my grandmother realizes we didn't come inside with Cerimon, she will come looking for me."

"And what would talking to you be if one of your relatives didn't turn up to spoil it all?"

Georgiana had to concede the point. Although she heard a hint of levity in his tone, she felt compelled to explain. "My grandmother is a very sweet woman, but sweet does not always work well on my mother. And you mustn't think my mother was reacting to you especially. She is only very worried about anyone, anyone at all, learning of her circumstances. The isolation has worn on her all these months. It is... it is difficult."

"You knew about this in May, didn't you? You, your brother, and my sister?" He frowned when she nodded. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I couldn't."

"Rubbish."

"Tybalt, I couldn't. I know it affected my behavior and my brother's behavior toward you. But you must understand, it wasn't my secret to tell. My mother is determined that this be kept from anyone who doesn't absolutely have to know. Your sister is married into our family, lives in our house." She could see the response on his face: you don't trust me. She did. She knew she trusted him; if she did not, there would have been no liberty to indulge in mixed feelings at the door. However, she thought there was a better way to explain. "You loved your mother. If you made her a promise, wouldn't you keep it, no matter what it meant for you?"

A haunted shadow swept across his gaze, breaking its contact with hers. "Yes," he muttered toward his boots. When he looked up, his expression had reformed into subdued frustration. "Don't you ever tire of it? Don't you ever tire of carrying on for the sake of everyone else in your family?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean the morning in your uncle's garden, taking a lashing from that shrew who somehow has less right to the title of aunt than my own! I mean now. Is there anyone - anyone - who knows this secret to whom you think you can speak freely? Someone you don't consider to be too burdened already?"

"No," she confessed, "but you understand that. That same morning, you had a battered face because of your cousin. You went to that village, though you didn't want to, because it would reflect well on your sister eventually. Can you count the times you have shed your blood for your family?" She smiled weakly. "What is a little endurance to that?"

"If I could endure as well as you do, I wouldn't bleed so often."

"I think if I were a man brought up to it, I might be more like you than myself."

"Violent and careless, you mean?"

"Honorable," she replied immediately. "And brave."

"Anne, I think I'm rather too late to stop anything."

Anne rubbed her right temple, though it gave her no relief. She had brought the headache on herself with her hysterics. "This isn't right. If George was here, it wouldn't be like this." Frustrated, she waved her hand and crushed her tense fingers into a fist. "When I die, I will kill him myself."

"Now, now, my darling." Constance had a hard time pretending to be anything but satisfied that George Darcy was dead. Still, since learning of her daughter's predicament, she had put the old animosity to the side. Honesty would only aggravate her daughter's condition, and Constance would not risk losing her daughter a second time. "Surely, there is nothing here that you and the children cannot address privately. I do not see that this is any type of a disaster at all. There is clearly ample affection between them, which I know is of importance to you, and there is no real danger, I think. She is too good a girl to be persuaded to do anything truly disreputable, and he is too much under his sister's thumb to attempt it. He has a brutish streak to be sure, but the boy is of the best blood and sufficient fortune - and more to come, I'm sure, from his grandfather. And marrying him will at last give poor Georgiana a title! Naturally, a lord at the head of his own house would have been my choice for her, but things could otherwise not be much better. I would say she's done very well for herself."

"Mother, enough. You don't understand anything." How could she? She hadn't agreed to abandon a beloved husband so she and their children could escape a living hell. If Anne's mother had nightmares, they were not born of guilt and regret of an impossible choice. She surely never had days when she wished it was she who had died instead. "The day Father died was among the best of your life." Had she known, Anne would have ranked it highly herself. "I followed George halfway across the world - twice. I would venture again for him if I had any hope of finding him. I won't." She watched her daughter for a moment. At this distance, Anne couldn't see the corners of her mouth or the light in her eyes. Yet, she felt she saw more of herself in Georgiana than she ever had. "I married George because I loved him more than any title or fortune, and losing him hurt more than you can imagine. I want better for Georgiana, I want her to have happiness, and that boy has an early death hanging over him." 

"I don't know about that, darling. You and your husband evaded the best men money could buy, and that only took you to the edge of the duchy. Men can do surprising things when they fancy themselves in love, and I daresay this one is more suited to that sort of thing anyway. He may live to surprise you."

Anne felt little hope of that, but it was all too late. Georgiana had made her choice. All Anne could do right now was not ruin her precious girl's first kiss. "Be that as it may, my mother always said it was rude to stare. Come away from the door."

"Oh, yes, close it. The window will be more discreet."

"Indeed."

Next Post: "What fates impose, that men must needs abide."