A Wife for Mr. Darcy

unsuspecting man that he could not part with the Fitzwilliam estate unless he knew it was in good hands. With tears in his eyes, he explained what a great loss it would be for him and his family, when you and I know he would walk away from it if a buyer could be found who would provide for the servants and settle his accounts.”
    Darcy did not care if Antony sold Briarwood. The house was an architectural hybrid combining Jacobean and Georgian elements and doing justice to neither. Antony had once compared it to one of the Prince of Wales’s rejected mistresses: no longer young, beautiful, or wanted.
    “But Antony is looking for other accommodations? Yes?”
    “Yes. He said he could not live with you as you remind him too much of his mother.”
    “Good. Anything else I should know?”
    “Have you heard about the king?”
    “What about the king?” Darcy asked, but he already knew the answer. If Georgiana had heard of the madness of King George, then so had everyone else.
    Georgiana had first heard the whispers and rumors during a stop at an inn north of town, which meant that the news had already spread into the suburbs and surrounding countryside. By the time the travelers had reached London, pamphlets depicting the king as nearly blind and completely mad were being sold on the streets.
    Many were predicting that as soon as the prince was named regent there would be a major shift in the political landscape. Although it was true that the prince was more liberal than his father, once the Prince of Wales became regent, Darcy believed that he would see things differently. Power was intoxicating, and history had proved that monarchs never seemed to have enough of it.
    “There have already been a few changes,” Georgiana said, and she shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I might as well tell you now, Will. Sir John was here yesterday. Fortunately for me, so was Antony.”
    Darcy sat up in his chair. “Is he still angry with me?”
    “To the contrary, he said he was looking forward to having vigorous debates with you, and that he was not so set in his ways that he could not learn a thing or two from a younger man.”
    Darcy burst into laughter. The thought of Sir John, a dyed-in-the-wool Tory, listening to anything he had to say was a bright spot in an otherwise gray landscape.
    “Sir John is willing to be educated by me! I would sooner believe the prince had taken a vow of chastity,” and he continued to laugh to himself. “Just think of the irony, Georgie. Lydia Bennet goes to Brighton, delaying my return to London just long enough so that, in Sir John’s eyes, I go from being an arrogant whippersnapper who is courting revolution to someone he wants to exchange ideas with.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “I am going to go to bed, and tomorrow I will visit with Miss Montford or her father and advise them of my intention to withdraw from whatever they thought I had been doing.”
    “I do not think you should go to see either Montford tomorrow. You will still be very tired, and Antony says Sir John can be very abrasive and is known to shout when he does not get his way.”
    “That is excellent advice, and I shall take it. But I shall delay no longer than that as every day I do keeps me from Elizabeth. At this point, I do not even care what Sir John or anyone else thinks or says about me. Besides, I deserve it. The only thing I have done right since I met Elizabeth was to go to Longbourn to apologize for being an arrogant… Well, an unpleasant fellow. Since that time, it has been a comedy of errors, and it must come to an end.”
    Georgiana could hardly bear to think of someone speaking ill of her brother. But then an idea came to her that would avoid putting Will’s good name at risk. While her brother rested, she would go to see Miss Montford, and during her visit, what could be more natural than to have the names of one’s friends come up in conversation? Georgiana smiled at the thought of how Miss Caroline Bingley might actually end up facilitating the union of her brother and Miss Elizabeth Bennet.

While preparing for her visit with Miss Montford, Georgiana thought about the differences between the two families. While the Montfords refused to associate with people like the Bingleys, the Darcys befriended them. She understood from Will that this was a recent change, which had begun when their father had invited members from the Lunar Society to Pemberley. The elder Mr. Darcy had so admired