Miss Darcy's Companion: A Pride and Prejudice Variation Read Online Free

turned in his seat to glance at his younger cousin.
    “On second thought, little one, maybe you should leave us for a while and let me talk some sense into your brother.”
    There was no dissent this time, not even from a slightly uncomfortable Georgiana, and before long the gentlemen had the dining room to themselves. Darcy refilled their glasses and, nursing his, he grumbled:
    “I wish you would not undermine me before her with this sort of flippant talk.”
    “Honestly, Darcy! Nothing I say could ever undermine you in her eyes. Have you not noticed that she worships you? In fact, if you ask me, I think you should hop off that pedestal someday, before you fall off, but that is a wholly different matter.”
    “I did not ask you. But that has never stopped you, has it?”
    “Not that I can remember,” Fitzwilliam grinned, then sobered. “So, to return to the matter at hand, what are your objections to Miss Bennet?”
    “The first of many is her inexperience. This is her first position, I am told. What would she know about guiding and protecting a young woman of good fortune? Admittedly she is very good with Margaret and Hetty, but Georgiana’s companion must have a great deal more to recommend her than a kind heart and a cheerful disposition.”
    “For my part I find that her cheerfulness and open manner would be a sterling influence. You said yourself that Georgiana needs more friends her own age.”
    “Her age is an impediment as well – Miss Bennet’s, that is. She seems far too young, barely out of the schoolroom herself. I cannot imagine she is more than four or five years older than Georgiana.”
    “Very likely,” Fitzwilliam nodded. “What of it?”
    “How can she act as chaperone when she is but a few years older? I would have to engage another, to chaperone my sister as well as her companion.”
    “What is to stop you? You can certainly afford to. As I see it, Darcy,” he added, before the other had a chance to interrupt, “with Georgiana but fifteen, she does not need instruction in the niceties of the ton , nor in standards of ladylike behaviour. Mrs Rossiter’s finishing school has already seen to the latter and as for the first, ‘tis premature. She can have an older and more experienced lady at her side when she is preparing for her coming-out. But for the next two years or so she will be at Pemberley or, when in town, she will spend most of her time in the library, the music room or in the garden. Do you not think it would be greatly to her advantage to do so in youthful and light-hearted company, rather than with yet another person decades older than herself?”
    Darcy toyed with his wineglass as he considered the reasonably valid point. Many were taken in by Fitzwilliam’s swagger and easygoing manner, and few knew that underneath there was sterling commonsense along with fierce loyalty and a will of iron. He had always had a way of cutting straight to the heart of the matter, which must have been one of the reasons he had been chosen as the second trustee of Georgiana’s welfare.
    Bowing to his departed father’s wisdom and to Fitzwilliam’s as well, Darcy looked up.
    “Very well. I shall consider her as an option. Tell Miss Bennet to come and see me on her day off, if you would.”
    “If Lady Stretton grants her one,” Fitzwilliam snorted, then added, “I will do better. I will bring her myself.”
    Darcy eyed him warily.
    “Pray tell me you are not about to make a fool of yourself over a damsel in distress,” he urged, but Fitzwilliam merely chuckled.
    He reached for his glass and drained it, then offered blithely:
    “Georgiana must be worried that we are at each other’s throats. Let us put her dear heart at ease.”
    Another suspicious glance was his only answer, as Darcy stood to follow his cousin out of the dining room.
     
    * * * *
     
    Fitzwilliam returned a few days later, bringing not Miss Bennet but Lady Malvern, who lost no time in sitting them both down for a