The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy, Page 3

  Georgiana did survive the labor, and by all appearances remained in good health as Darcy held his new nephew in his arms. William Kincaid stayed with Georgiana as soon as he was allowed back in the room, even while she slept and he sat awake. It was a happy time for all of them. Only one person was missing.

  “Mr. Darcy,” Lord Kincaid said to him on the third day, “I’ve asked for a painter to come and make a small portrait of Georgiana and Robert for her brother. Do you think he would take it?”

  “I think he would love it,” he said. “I will send it with my next correspondence, as soon as you say it is prepared. Did you tell Georgiana?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I’m sure she will be glad to hear it.”

  Grégoire was missed, but by all accounts he was happy in Spain and very busy there, working with the community. When he could arrange it, he would escape the hot Spanish summer to England, but that didn’t happen every year. Surely, this year, with the birth of a nephew, he would get permission.

  The Darcys stayed for the christening and for the next few weeks. Georgiana would not be traveling for some time and was reluctant to have them leave. Elizabeth found herself unaccustomed to being without her sister, especially with Mr. Bingley abroad, but Jane was in London with her children, and the Hursts stayed with her, and of course the Maddoxes were in Town until the Prince left for Brighton. The Bingleys (sans Mr. Bingley) would be traveling to Longbourn for the summer as soon as Georgiana Bingley returned. Jane had been cajoled into allowing her daughter to accompany Princess Maddox to Ireland for a brief tour of the coast. The princess had never been to Ireland without her husband nor had Georgie been there without her father so they stuck together while Mr. Bingley and Mr. Maddox made a business trip to Japan (with a stop in India). Their last correspondence had been from a post office in Johannesburg, to say their ship had rounded Africa’s coast safely. Beyond that, correspondence would be unlikely, as it would move no faster than they would.

  The adults adjusted to the scattering of the family with the knowledge that it was brief, but the children, so accustomed to one another, complained bitterly. Geoffrey was not eager to go to Scotland. He had already lost Georgie and now he would not have Charles, only three younger sisters. Lord Kincaid, whom he had always liked, filled that void to some extent, although Geoffrey remained frustrated that the man he had to spar with was so much taller than he was.

  “One day, my boy, you’ll grow as tall as your father and you’ll be ducking under doorways and bumping your head,” his uncle said. “So don’t go complainin’ now. You’ll hit it soon enough.”

  Geoffrey scowled, but his uncle was right. Geoffrey was twelve. His voice had already dropped an octave (even if it didn’t stay there all the time) and he had cramps in his legs from rapid growth. He could pick up any one of his sisters, even Anne. But he still couldn’t look up at his father and think, That is what I’m going to be someday. Or, at least, he couldn’t believe it when it did strike him.

  And then, of course, there was the question. He knew it was awkward, but he didn’t know why. He could just sense it as he held his cousin Robert. “So babies come from stomachs?”

  His father’s immediate response was stony silence, which was what his father did when he was uncomfortable. His mother’s response was to laugh and lean into his father. “Essentially,” his father finally said, staring out the window instead of at him. And that was it. That was all he was going to get. Geoffrey looked back down at Robert. If Uncle Bingley were here, he would explain it to him. Uncle Bingley couldn’t keep a secret. When he returned, Geoffrey would ask him.

  “What did he say?” Anne asked him immediately when he left the room.

  “Nothing.”

  “He’s Papa. What did you expect?”

  And so that mystery remained unsolved. At least, that is, until Uncle Bingley came home.

  “It’s a boy,” Jane announced to her audience of the Hursts and the Maddoxes. The post had arrived after luncheon, but she had held it for dinner. “Robert Kincaid.”

  “Viscount Robert Kincaid,” Louisa said.

  “Perhaps we should give him a few years before he is required to use his title,” Dr. Maddox said.

  “And at least five before he must attend a ball,” said Mr. Hurst, raising his glass of whiskey in a gesture for the newborn.

  “Does he take after his mother or his father in appearance?” Caroline asked.

  “Lizzy says that he has Lord Kincaid’s hair and Georgiana’s eyes.”

  “Is he a lively child?”

  “I don’t seem to recall any newborns being interested in anything other than eating and sleeping,” Dr. Maddox said to his wife.

  “I believe she is asking if he is a screamer,” Louisa said.

  “She doesn’t say,” was all Jane offered. Even if he were, Lizzy would not write it to be read publicly.

  “What you don’t want,” Caroline said, “is twin screamers.”

  “Oh goodness,” Dr. Maddox said. “Yes. God, yes.”

  “Unhappy memories, Dr. Maddox?” Mr. Hurst said with a smile.

  “I remember leaving for work in the evening with both of them screaming, and then returning in the morning to the same state of affairs.”

  “But you weren’t there at night!” Caroline said indignantly. “You had somewhere else to be!”

  “Oh, hush, Caroline,” Louisa said. “Whenever you complained about Charles, Mama would remind you that you were the loudest of all of us as an infant.”

  Caroline Maddox stared down her sister as her husband covered his mouth with his napkin to prevent her seeing his expression. “I don’t recall any such nonsense.”

  “You were four—how would you? But I remember it.”

  Mr. Hurst burst out laughing, which was a godsend. Most of the rest of the room did the same as Caroline silently fumed but would not, even after much prodding, admit to it.

  “It’s so hot out,” Georgiana Bingley said, looking up at the sky. “Why is the water so cold?”

  Princess Nadezhda Maddox shook her head. “The ocean is always cold. Don’t be a baby.” She had already waded in ahead of her niece, holding up her kimono to her knees so her bare feet could soak in the salt water. “What would your father say?”

  “That it’s not proper for a girl to play in the ocean without a suitable bathing costume?”

  “Well, good that he’s in the Orient, then, and not here to say that,” Nadezhda said. Her English was very good, and she retained a charming Romanian accent. “Now come in.You get used to it.”

  “My dress will be all messy!”

  “Georgiana Bingley!” her aunt said with mock indignation. “When have you ever cared about a dress being dirty?”

  Georgie could offer no opposition, so she stepped out of her sandals and splashed into the water, which went up to her knees much quicker than it had for Nadezhda. “It’s rocky.”

  “Not if you know where to step. Look down and see how beautiful the water is,” Nadezhda said, and Georgie did so. “The first time I ever saw the ocean was in Russia, on the coast. The port was half frozen and the water was so dark it wasn’t blue. It was almost black. Not like this.” She kicked at the water, splashing Georgie, who cried out and then laughed. “The second time I saw the ocean from land was when I came to the docks at the filthy Thames. Look how beautiful this is.” All around them was green—the rocky coast and the rich shades of the Irish fields. It seemed to color the water an odd and perfect shade of blue.

  “Will yeh be needin’ anyt’in’ else, Yer Highness?” called O’Brien, their coachman, as he doffed his dirty cap. “’Sides from da towels and da tea.”

  “No, thank you.”

  He donned his cap and walked off, leaving them alone on the shore. Technically, he was their bodyguard, but Nadezhda’s sword was intimidation enough, especially when she walked as though she knew how to use it, instead of being an aristocrat carrying a sign of her office. She was a samurai’s wife, an
d she took that as seriously as her husband did. No one questioned her odd dress when they heard her accent—how were they to know the difference between a Hungarian princess dressed as a Hungarian and a Hungarian princess dressed as a Japanese?

  Nadezhda and Georgie eventually tired of standing in the water and played on the shore. Nadezhda set up a branch in the sand as a target and had Georgiana hurl coins at it. Few of them hit their target. “Some did,” Nadezhda said encouragingly, before taking down the makeshift tree with one good flip of the wrist to its lower trunk. Georgie picked up all the coins, large circles with pointed edges and a hole in the center, and Nadezhda put them back on the string in her pocket.Wet from the splashing of the waves against the rocks and the sea breeze, Nadezhda toweled off Georgiana’s hair. Her own was protected by her headdress.

  “Can I braid your hair?”

  “Tonight,” Nadezhda said. “Not now. Someone might come along and see us.”

  “But they can see my hair.”

  “You are not married and you are not from Transylvania,” her aunt responded. Georgiana had shot up in the past six months. She was still quite short, but Nadezhda did not have to kneel to be at her level. “My hair is for my husband, not other men.”

  “Did you let him see it before you married him?”

  “I did not. He was most curious about it,” she said with a smile as they collected their things and made their way back to the path that would take them up to their coach. “If you hide something, it makes people curious. If you show it all the time, they get bored. Men, especially. I cover it and it becomes special, something only for him.” Among other things, she added silently. “And you. But if your brother asked, I would not let him.”

  “What about Uncle Maddox?” Georgie said, referring to her proper uncle, the doctor.

  “Only if I had a scalp wound.”

  “What about Papa?”

  “No.”

  “What about the King of England?”

  Nadezhda smiled and looked down at Georgie. “It would never come up, but no. Not even for the King of England. For my husband only.”

  The sun was setting when they returned to their inn. From the room, they could see the water and hear the waves. Despite the beauty of it all, Georgie was noticeably melancholy as she watched the skyline turn red and then a deepening blue.

  Nadezhda put a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll be home soon.”

  Georgie nodded.

  “You miss your father?”

  She nodded again.

  “I miss my husband,” Nadezhda said, taking Georgiana into her arms. “But they’ll be home soon.”

  “Do you think they’re all right?”

  “I’m sure that Brian will take good care of your father.”

  “It says what?” Brian said. He hadn’t heard the first time over the din of the crowds, who were cheering as the wushu master on the platform defeated yet another opponent by pushing him off the stage.

  Mugin, who could speak Chinese but not read it, had to have it read to him by the man offering the sheet of rice paper. “It is a death contract. In case the challenger dies in the fight, it is legal.”

  “We’ve not seen a single person die in one of these fights,” Bingley said, his eyes still on the champion.

  “We’ve witnessed only limbs broken and heads bashed. Nothing serious,” Brian said to Bingley.

  “I still want to do it.”

  “Of all the stupid things I’ve let you do on this trip—“

  “I told you, I did not know the word meant ‘prostitute’! I thought I was saying that she was a dancer! How good do you expect my Punjabi to be the first time I hear it spoken?”

  “For God’s sake, man, you put your head in a tiger’s mouth before I could stop you!”

  “The handler said it was safe,” Bingley shouted. “And I emerged with my head intact.”

  “Because I saved you!”

  “Arguable. Other times, you definitely saved me. But that one is up for debate.” Bingley turned to Mugin. “Is it safe? The contest?”

  “You can’t win, Binguri-chan.”

  “Of course not. I just want to try it.”

  Brian growled. “Will you please find things to try that don’t involve wild animals, compromising situations, or experts in martial combat?”

  “Oh, Brian Maddox has never done anything daring or outright insane.”

  “Not while I was guarding a relative, no.” He paused. “Well, yes, but not this time.”

  “I will take care of it,” Mugin said, and began to argue with the official in Chinese. Eventually, money changed hands and he handed the contract to Bingley. “Sign.”

  Before Brian could lodge a protest, Bingley signed his name. The wushu master, a young man with a surprisingly pleasant disposition, given his violent trade, smiled and helped him up into the ring.

  “He’s just going to knock him around a little,” Mugin said, grabbing Brian’s kimono to stop him from following his charge, “not hurt him.”

  “I hope the bribe was big enough,” Brian said.

  Bingley stepped up on the matted dais. The announcer began to speak to the crowd of men with identical queues, and raised Bingley’s arm. “Hongmao Guizi!” he bellowed.

  There were boos from the crowd, and a little laughter. Mugin just laughed.

  “What’d he call him?”

  “Red-furred demon,” Mugin answered.

  Bingley, clueless as ever, was not put off at all as the announcer raised the hand of the current champion, and the crowd cheered. The champion bowed with a hand gesture that Bingley copied incorrectly, with his fist on the wrong side.

  “Five dago he lasts more than three seconds,” Mugin said.

  “You know I don’t gamble anymore, Mugin-san, don’t try to tempt me,” Brian said, watching as Bingley assumed a fighting position. “Though it is tempting.”

  Brian would have won the bet. Bingley succeeded in throwing a single punch, which, of course, was sidestepped by the champion, who grabbed Bingley’s wrist and pulled him forward as he kicked his challenger’s feet out from under him. Bingley landed on his back as the crowd gave their noisy approval.

  “Ow,” Bingley said. He looked up, and the champion was offering a hand. “What? We’re still going? Fine, I’m a sporting man.”

  “So do you give up?” the challenger said in broken Japanese. He assumed a different but still complex stance as Bingley slowly got to his feet and tried again. And again. After landing on his back three times (the third in a full flip, with the champion somehow sliding under him entirely as he did it), he tapped the ground.

  “Ow. Winner,” he said in Japanese, pointing to the champion. Smiling, the master helped Bingley to his feet again, and Bingley raised the master and still-champion’s hand up. That was as long as he could manage to stay standing before he collapsed again, and Brian and Mugin leaped up to help him off the stage.

  “That was…I think I need—to be ill,” Bingley said.

  Brian stifled his own smile as the cheering continued. As he helped Bingley to sit down on the stands again, he watched Mugin and the champion exchange some words before Mugin jumped off the dais and rejoined them. The official presented him with a certificate of his defeat, which Bingley probably would have appreciated more if he hadn’t been vomiting into a porcelain vase.

  The day’s fights were over, and the crowd began to disperse as people returned to their businesses. The champion stepped off the dais and approached the three of them, saying something to Mugin.

  “He says he was most interested to fight a foreigner,” Mugin said. “He would like to invite us to dinner.”

  “Of course,” Brian said, and bowed to the champion.

  “His name is Ji Yuan,” Mugin said, and translated their answer in more formal terms to the champion, who took his leave. “You are all right, Binguri-chan?”

  “I’m going to be a bit—ow,” he said, trying to stand, “—sore in the morning, but I think so, yes.
” He squinted. “Do they have, say, doctors in China?”

  An hour later, they were back at the inn, where a terrified Bingley was lying with needles in his back, a prospect he found far more intimidating than fighting a wushu master.

  “Don’t complain; you got yourself into this,” Brian said, stepping into the other room. Bingley was bruised, but not harmed, as promised. In the next room, Mugin was drinking whatever the local vintage was. “What did Ki Yun say to you?”

  “Ji Yuan,” Mugin corrected. “He challenged me.”

  “And you said no? To a fight?” Brian leaned against the doorway. “What is wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Mugin said. “I did you a favor, you know. You should give me the money.”

  “What money?”

  “The prize money. For winning.”

  Mugin was being amply compensated for serving as their translator during their visit to Hong Kong and their minor expedition into mainland China, so that was hardly the issue. “You would have won that fight, wouldn’t you?”

  “He is wushu master here. If I beat him, I take his title, his honor. His students abandon him. He has no reputation until he beats me,” Mugin said, taking another swig and launching into his meat dish. “It would have been big trouble for all of us. More trouble than fighting is worth.”

  “I never thought I would hear you say that,” Brian said. “Thank you, Mugin. But how can you be sure that you would have won?”

  Mugin took a mouthful, swallowed, and followed it with the liquor. “Ah, spicy. His technique was good, and he knows more about the use of chi than his competitors, but he doesn’t know how to use that to make himself faster.” He offered Brian the bottle, but Brian turned it down with a gesture. “I studied wushu for three years in a school in the north. I’m faster; I would beat him.”

  “Do you think he knows it?”

  “Yes.”