The Road to Pemberley by Marsha Altman Page A

that the angel was none other than Georgiana.
    Georgiana was Will’s sister and almost ten years younger. Her mother died birthing her, and while she was a small child in the nursery, both Will and I spent hours entertaining her and seeking to make her laugh. In those days, I supposed, I’d thought of her as something between a doll and a sister.
    But then at seven she had been sent away to an expensive and reputable school for girls. Mr. George Darcy had judged it prudent that his daughter should have a more feminine surrounding than a home where everyone but a few servants was male. Two years after she’d gone to school, Darcy and I had gone to Cambridge. I hadn’t seen Georgiana in eight years.
    And what I saw now took the breath from my lungs and the thought from my mind. Even my hurt was gone. All I could think
was how beautiful she looked—this blonde lady I could not associate with the awkward child I’d once loved in quite a different manner.
    This young lady awakened in me feelings I hadn’t been sure of ever entertaining toward anyone. I wanted to fall on my knees and worship her. I wanted to hold her in my arms, protect her, and comfort her. I wanted to put a ring on her finger and call her Mrs. Wickham.
    She wore a dark dress—mourning, of course—and held a dark parasol open above her. The darkness only made her seem more beautiful, a statue made of ivory and sunlight. Her eyes were reddened. She would have cried for her father. She hadn’t attended the funeral, of course. Women didn’t.
    â€œGeorge?” she said. And a small smile appeared on her grief-pale features. “George. You came for the funeral.” Then her gaze wandered to the valise in my hand. “But you mustn’t leave. You mustn’t leave so soon. You must stay and console Will and me. We three have always been quite close, have we not? You’re family. Family draw together in times of sadness.”
    I couldn’t tell her what had happened between Will and me. It sounded so insane, even to me. Perhaps Will was insane. Perhaps that was it. It wasn’t his fault. Just an illness, a sad event. “I…can’t stay,” I told her. “I wish I could, but business calls me away to… London.” I spoke quite at random.
    â€œLondon?” She smiled. “Oh, but then you must come see me. Will is setting me up in my own household with my own governess in Ramsgate. You must visit me, George. Promise you will. I will not be denied.”
    She looked so adorable. As imperious as her insufferable aunt Catherine, but with a whispering undertone of shyness and diffidence. How could I have refused her anything?
    I promised.

    As the heavens are my witness, I swear I thought I’d visit Georgiana in Ramsgate, and we’d make stilted conversation over tea that had brewed too long—as tea made by governesses is all too prone to doing. Then I’d leave and go about my business, as free of Georgiana as I was of her brother.
    I’d never cashed the promissory note—indeed, I dared not, because Smithen was probably right, and any man willing to treat an old friend the way Will had done would be capable of any villainy. I had no intention of being jailed for extortion. With Will’s word against mine, they’d surely choose his.
    Instead, I’d found menial work in a bookbinder’s, reading the final proof before text was printed. I was familiar enough, from Cambridge, with the Bible and all holy texts to catch mistakes efficiently. It paid me enough to keep me in clothes and food and a small room. I lived.
    And then I visited Georgiana. And in those moments in her tidy rooms, in the better section of Ramsgate, I was a gentleman. I was sir, and Mr. Wickham again. I was…what I had once been.
    I think at first that was the attraction, the reason I allowed Georgiana to invite me back, and then again. Georgiana was beautiful beyond compare, but