The footman brought Mr. Selwyn’s letter into the music room at Netherfield just as Georgiana tried the difficult passage again.

She had stumbled over the same passage since breakfast. Darcy knew the place by now: a rising phrase, a hesitation, then the careful return to the beginning. He had come down expressly to sit with her. Thus far he had succeeded in making her apologize to him twice.

“Let the gentlemen attend to their business, my dear. Begin at the turn.”

Mrs. Annesley indicated the place upon the music before resuming her seat by the window. Georgiana put her fingers to the keys. The footman held out a silver tray, and Darcy took the packet with his father’s solicitor’s seal upon it.

“Is it from Pemberley?” Georgiana asked.

“From Mr. Selwyn.”

“He has found us here, then.”

There was pleasure in her surprise. She had unpacked her workbasket that morning; yesterday she had asked whether there was any use in doing so. Darcy had answered something about the convenience of keeping her things in order. He could recall his own voice, perfectly reasonable, giving her no answer at all.

“I left directions for my letters to follow me.”

“All of them?”

“Even the disagreeable ones. Mr. Selwyn would come himself if I attempted to evade his correspondence.”

That earned him a smile. He wished he had thought of it before breakfast.

Georgiana lifted a loose sheet from the instrument. “Mrs. Annesley says there is room for my duet here. If we are staying long enough to have it out.”

“There seems to be room for the whole of your music. Bingley has engaged a house in which a family might lose one another for a week.”

“I know where everything is in this room already.”

He glanced about it with her. The instrument stood between the windows, its rosewood warmed by the autumn light; the tea table had been drawn close enough for her to reach from the bench. Beyond the open sash came the scrape of a gardener’s rake upon gravel. Her shawl hung over a chair, and an embroidery basket stood at Mrs. Annesley’s feet. Georgiana had begun to occupy the place. It was a modest achievement to feel responsible for, and he was grateful for it.

He slipped his finger beneath the ribbon round the packet.

“You may tell Mr. Selwyn we have found you very useful,” Georgiana said. “He need not send for you yet.”

“I shall mention the recommendation.”

The solicitor had enclosed a copy of an instrument, with a covering letter and another sealed paper folded inside. Darcy read the explanation beside the tea table. Some direction of his late father’s had now fallen due; Selwyn begged leave to place the matter before him in accordance with the precise terms of that direction. His father had been dead four years. Darcy had thought the last of these obligations discharged.

The rake outside caught upon a stone. He turned the sheet.

Should Fitzwilliam Darcy remain unmarried upon attaining eight-and-twenty, or die unmarried before that date, the estate held in trust shall pass to my son, George Wickham.

George Wickham.

His thumb covered the name. He moved it. The name remained.

“Brother?”

Georgiana had left the instrument. Her fingers touched his sleeve, and he folded the sheet so abruptly that its edge struck her hand.

“Forgive me.”

She drew back. “I only asked whether you wished me to stop.”

“Stop?”

“Playing.”

The open music stood behind her, and she was watching him with the strained attention she had brought home from Ramsgate only a few months ago, ready to discover a fault before anyone was obliged to tell her of it.

“Pray go on. I am attending to this very badly.”

“Then let me fetch a chair.”

“I have one.”

He caught the chair at the table and sat. She remained close enough to see the uppermost page. He set the covering letter over it.

Mrs. Annesley rose to put the music straight. “You have left your place, Miss Darcy. Here; the passage your brother liked yesterday.”

Georgiana looked from the instrument to him. “You are very pale.”

“The day is close.”

It was not. A cool draft lifted the end of the black ribbon and carried it against his wrist. Georgiana glanced toward the open window. Her lips parted; then she took up his untouched cup.

“At least drink your tea.”

He accepted it because she was holding it out to him. She waited until he had drunk before returning to the bench.

He set the cup down where it would hold the solicitor’s letter over the copy of the settlement. Beneath it lay the sealed enclosure. The wax bore the impression he had watched his father make upon a thousand ordinary letters.

He had known that hand before he could read. His father had guided his fingers over the first awkward attempts at his own name, steadying the pen when the child pressed too hard. The same hand had written this provision, entrusted it to another man, and gone into the ground leaving Darcy to receive condolences for the loss of the best of fathers.

The seal broke under his thumbnail.

George Wickham is my son. Susan Younge was his mother.

His father’s son. His brother.

At Ramsgate he had found Wickham beside Georgiana and believed he understood the whole of that man’s offense. Her fortune, her youth, her trust; there had been enough in any one of them to make him murderous. Now memory supplied the rest. Her hand upon Wickham’s sleeve. The look with which she had turned to Darcy, begging him to understand before she had found the courage to speak.

He had saved her in time. He had held to that through the weeks in which she could scarcely meet his eyes. He had saved her, and the thought had allowed him to sleep.

He put the confession face down.

Across the room Georgiana began the passage Mrs. Annesley had chosen. She played it correctly, reached the end, and looked over her shoulder to see whether he had heard.

He made himself nod.

His father had known. He had possessed this knowledge while the boys grew up together, while Wickham was welcomed and indulged, while Georgiana learned to regard him as a person whose affection had the sanction of the house. Darcy sought some remembered warning, some precaution he had been too young or too stupid to understand. His father had left him a duty and withheld the very fact by which he might have performed it.

The eight-week date swam back into view.

Eight-and-twenty. His father had liked that age. A man should have chosen his wife and settled his household by then; he had done so himself. Darcy could hear the maxim over the wine after dinner, delivered with the comfortable authority of a man whose own decisions had become rules for everybody else.

He had listened. He had smiled. Once he had promised that Pemberley should have no cause to complain of its next mistress.

So the promise had been provided with a penalty. Marry before his birthday, or lose the estate to Wickham. His father had arranged even the man who would benefit from his refusal.

“Shall I ring for fresh water, sir?”

Mrs. Annesley stood at the other side of the table. Darcy drew the confession toward him as she reached for the cold pot.

“Leave it.”

She withdrew her hand. Georgiana’s playing faltered.

He forced his attention back to the tea. “I beg your pardon. Fresh water would be welcome.”

Mrs. Annesley rang, then gathered the cups upon the tray. With the table clear, he could put the papers in order. He laid his father’s confession beneath the copy of the settlement and returned to Selwyn’s covering letter.

In obedience to your late father’s direction, I place this before you eight weeks prior to the birthday named. I urge you to consult with me immediately upon the settlement and all papers connected with it. The sealed volumes lodged at Pemberley, being of a delicacy no ordinary family paper can claim, should remain under your particular eye. If they have passed into any other keeping, the mischief might exceed even the estate’s loss.

The three volumes. He had last seen them in the cabinet in spring, wrapped and sealed as his father had left them. He had respected the seals. At Pemberley, a closed door had always been sufficient instruction.

“Is something wrong at home?”

Georgiana had shut the music. This time she stayed upon the bench.

“It is business concerning the estate.”

“Mrs. Reynolds is well?”

“As far as I know.”

“Then why must you hold the letter like that?”

The papers had bent beneath his hand. He eased his fingers and smoothed the fold against the table.

“There is a matter I must discuss with Mr. Selwyn.”

“You will go to him.”

“I must write first to Pemberley.”

Pemberley. The cabinet ought to be examined by someone who knew what stood in it. Mrs. Reynolds could be relied upon for vigilance, but the trust must be understood, the papers seen. He ought to take Georgiana north. He could have the books brought to his own study, examine them while she was safely occupied with her music, speak to Selwyn without contriving an explanation for Bingley’s household.

“We shall go home,” he said. “Tomorrow, if the horses can be managed. Today would be better.”

Georgiana gripped the edge of the bench.

“Both of us?”

“Of course both of us.”

“You said we might stay until I knew somebody.”

“I expected to have more leisure. You should have been settled at Pemberley for the autumn. This visit was...”

She had lowered her head. An indulgence: he had been about to call it an indulgence, as though she had asked for an expensive trinket and exhausted her right to it.

“My brother has been very good to bring me,” she said to Mrs. Annesley.

“You may speak to me, Georgiana.”

“I am.” Her voice shook.

“Miss Darcy slept well last night, sir.” Mrs. Annesley set down the bell she had moved to admit the tray. “She has begun to find this house agreeable. Perhaps Mr. Selwyn might travel more easily than we could. The road has scarcely dried since our arrival.”

“The distance is not my concern.”

“Then you will judge best. My dear, your shawl has fallen.”

Georgiana stooped for it and began folding the fringe into place. The unwelcome question could be put away as neatly. He had been arranging her comfort all summer. Every arrangement carried her somewhere she had never asked to go.

“Would you rather stay?”

She looked up. “If you wish me to go, I shall go.”

“I know you will. I am asking what you wish.”

Her hand rested upon the shawl. “To have unpacked for a reason.”

He waited.

“And to know, when you leave a room looking like that, whether you mean to come back to me or send somebody with instructions.”

The rake sounded again beyond the window. Darcy could have ordered the horses and been obeyed before luncheon. Instead he put the letter down, came to the instrument, and sat in the chair beside it.

“I had not intended...” He had intended precisely what he had said. “You were to have time here. I remember.”

“You often tell me what has been decided.”

He caught the edge of the music with his sleeve and steadied it before it fell. “I have made a poor business of this morning.”

She rubbed the fringe of the shawl between her fingers. He had once been the person to whom she brought a broken toy before anyone else could discover it. He could remember her running along the passage with the pieces held in her skirt, certain he would know what ought to be done. He had been home for Christmas. By Twelfth Night he had gone again, leaving her a repaired doll and a promise to write.

There had been so many departures that he could not have said which one she remembered. Since Ramsgate he had scarcely let her out of his sight, and had expected her to find the change reassuring.

“Mrs. Annesley is right,” he said. “Selwyn can travel. Mrs. Reynolds can examine the cabinet until—until I am able to go. We shall stay.”

“You are sure?”

“Yes.” He began to reach for the letter, and left it where it lay. “Here, if you still wish it.”

“Here with me?”

“With you.”

Her smile arrived cautiously, then held. She reached for the music book, and a folded sheet slid from it. Mrs. Annesley caught the paper against the bench.

“Then I may have the duet unpacked after all,” Georgiana said.

“After tea, my dear.” Her companion smoothed the sheet and replaced it. “Let me have the trunk key. That lock catches, and you will hurt your fingers struggling with it.”

Georgiana took the key from her pocket and gave it to her. “The second part was missing yesterday.”

“Folded inside the first. We shall keep them together now.”

Darcy returned to the table. He could send instructions at once, with a reply through Selwyn in town; the solicitor would then bring him both the legal instruments and Mrs. Reynolds’s account. There was a way to do the necessary thing without taking another choice from his sister. He seized upon it.

“I shall want writing paper.”

Mrs. Annesley turned toward the door.

“I know where it is,” Georgiana said. “Mr. Bingley showed me.”

She crossed to a cabinet between the bookshelves and opened it with the confidence she had claimed for the room. Paper, a penknife, the sand shaker: she brought them to him while her companion admitted the servant with fresh tea.

“There,” Georgiana said. “Now Mr. Selwyn may have you without taking you away.”

He made room for the things she had brought.

“A very proper arrangement. Will you play the passage again while I write? I have yet to deserve yesterday’s favorite.”

She returned to the instrument. Mrs. Annesley poured his tea, and this time he thanked her before she was obliged to offer it.

He wrote to Selwyn: come to Netherfield, bring the relevant instruments, explain the visit as ordinary business. To Mrs. Reynolds he gave directions for the cabinet in the muniment room to be examined and the sealed volumes left undisturbed. Her reply was to go through Selwyn. He referred to the books by their shelf and binding; that would be sufficient for her and reveal little to another reader.

When the letters were ready, he took his father’s confession upstairs and locked it in his traveling desk. The three private journals remained at Pemberley, unless someone had already done what the solicitor feared. He tried to picture the cabinet exactly as he had last seen it. His memory gave him polished wood, sound seals, and his own incurious hand turning the key.

“Darcy, you are saved.”

Bingley stood in the library with a newspaper in his hand and the air of a man who had discovered a cure for every defect in the English constitution.

“I should like to know from what, before I express my gratitude.”

“Dullness. Sir William Lucas has supplied me with enough intelligence to furnish us all winter. The militia are coming to Meryton. Officers, Darcy, the entire bright box of them. Mrs. Lucas assures me they are very gentleman-like, by which I understand her to mean that they dance.”

“A powerful recommendation.”

“For an assembly, the first. We are to attend one in two evenings, and you are to arrive prepared to enjoy yourself. I have given my word.”

“Upon which of our accounts?”

“Both. Mine has always been good enough to carry yours.”

Darcy took the chair by the window. Beyond the lawn, a gate stood open to the road. A cart passed through it with sacks for the kitchen; the driver raised a hand to someone out of sight. People came into this house every day whose names Darcy had no reason to learn.

“There is one fellow particularly spoken of,” Bingley continued. “Wickham. George Wickham. Handsome, brave, accomplished, and, if Sir William is to be trusted, grievously misunderstood by somebody. He appears to have charmed the neighborhood before entering it. You know him?”

Darcy set his hand flat upon the arm of the chair.

“We grew up together.”

“Then you can settle all our doubts. Is he so very agreeable?”

“He has pleasing manners. I cannot answer for his dancing.”

“You might try to recommend a man without sounding as though you had been subpoenaed.”

Darcy looked at him. Bingley’s smile faded.

“Have I said something unfortunate?”

“I have letters to attend to. I am poor company today.”

“So I perceive. Come to the assembly nevertheless; there will be enough of us to conceal it. Your sister might join us when she is ready. A dance with a handsome officer would do more for her spirits than another evening over her music.”

“No.”

Bingley lowered the newspaper.

“She is not ready for public evenings,” Darcy said. “Pray leave the matter to me.”

“Gladly. I had only thought she might be happy among people nearer her own age.”

“She is happy here.”

Bingley folded the newspaper. “Then I shall try to keep her so. If she asks for anything I can give her, she shall have it.”

“Thank you.”

“As for you, I can offer a horse, a bottle, or my attention. The first two require less talking.”

Darcy smiled. “You are certain of the name?”

“Wickham? Quite certain. What ought I to know?”

He could have told him enough. The money taken instead of the church living his father had intended for Wickham, the renewed demands, the character concealed beneath those agreeable manners: none required Georgiana’s name. Yet each fact would invite the next question. Darcy heard the whole possible conversation, step by step, leading toward the paper upstairs.

“If it becomes necessary, I will tell you.”

Bingley placed the folded newspaper upon the table between them.

“Tell me before I do something you must forgive me for. I would rather be trusted than pardoned.”

He waited for an answer. Darcy turned toward the window.

Beyond the open gate lay the road to Meryton, where Wickham would be quartered for the winter. Upstairs, Georgiana was having her duet unpacked because her brother had promised they would stay.

“Darcy?”

“There will be unmarried ladies at this assembly, I suppose.”

Bingley unfolded the newspaper again, though he held it upside down. “Quite a number. I had almost despaired of interesting you in them.”

“I asked a question.”

“And I mean to answer it thoroughly. Lucas has daughters; Mrs. Bennet, five. I am told the eldest is very beautiful, and if the others resemble her...”

Five daughters. Darcy tried to attend. Bingley was saying something about introductions, about dancing with a lady before deciding whether he liked her. Eight weeks had become a room full of strangers, any one of whom might ask him the reasonable question of why he was in such haste.

He turned the newspaper the right way up in his friend’s hands.

“You had better tell me their names.”