Chapter One
Derbyshire
April 1789
Ten years ago, Alex died. On this day. At this precise moment.
James Darcy glanced at the ticking clock to be certain, and then looked at his brother sitting across from him. As he suspected, George was not looking at the clock. George didn’t need to. The month, day, hour, and minute when Alex drew his final breath were embedded into every cell of his twin’s body.
As fanciful as it sounded, James often wondered if that last exhale had crossed the tiny space between George’s blotched face and the ashen one of Alex, mingled with the air as George gasped with each sob, drawn into his lungs to then be distributed and implanted into each cell. Is that why, year after year, George knew the exact second he had lost his other half? Or was it merely another aspect of the strange connection Alex and George Darcy had shared in life?
James did not know. What he did know was that before the minute ticked away, George would say, “This is the moment Alex died.”
Every year he said it. On this day. At this precise moment.
Even when James or others in the family took him away or tried to distract with a frivolous activity, he said it. Two years ago, they decided to give up trying to make him forget. That was the year they had traveled to Brighton, dragging George away from his university studies to frolic in the surf. Frolic he had, until April 17, when somberness overtook the perpetually gay twenty-year-old. He said nothing and tried to carry on for the sake of the family until 2:34 in the afternoon, when he had abruptly dropped the bucket of sand, walked toward the water’s edge until the waves lapped over his feet, and stared out at the roiling sea for the full minute before turning back to his sympathetic siblings and father.
“This is the moment Alex died.”
They had offered what consolation they could, and in a short time the worst of the grief had passed. Their Brighton holiday recommenced and had proved to be a nice memory overall. Yet they had discussed the topic away from George’s hearing and agreed there was no point in pretending.
That was why James sat with his younger brother in a sunny parlor at Pemberley, glasses of wine in their hands, and remained silent until the familiar words were spoken. Ten long years but this was the last year, for an unknown time to come, when George would be with family on this day. James had no doubt that even if lost in an Indian jungle or trekking across the barren Thar Desert, George would know it was April 17 and 2:34 in the afternoon.
So he steeled himself for the words even while feigning nonchalance between sidelong glances and sips of his wine.
George sat with his thin body slumped in the chair, long limbs stretched onto the ottoman in front and bony elbows resting on the padded chair arms. The negligent pose was familiar to James, as was his brother’s choice of clothing. Today he wore an exquisitely tailored suit of brown woolen broadcloth with a green waistcoat—quite conservative and sedate until one noted the wide ribbon of bright yellow and green tartan used to tie his wavy brown hair into a pigtail, that same fabric draped about his neck and knotted into a puffy bulge at his throat. Pinned to his lapel was a Celtic cross of polished gold with inlaid emeralds. Why the Scottish motif in April was anyone’s guess and James did not ask. It was George’s flamboyant way and barely registered upon James’s mind.
No, being surprised was not an emotion James expected on this day. But then, George Darcy was a man who frequently shocked people.
“Do you think Alex would be proud of me?”
Yes, James was surprised. And it showed.
“I have been thinking on the topic lately,” George explained, his intense blue eyes steady on James’s startled face. “Actually I have pondered the subject for ages. The irony does not escape me and that is what I wrestle with.”
“What irony?”
“That it was Alex’s death that prompted me to become a doctor. If he lived, I would not be sitting here with my formal education behind me, a licensure I treasure, skills already superior to most in England, ready to embark on an expedition to single-handedly rid the East of disease.”
James smiled. George’s flippant arrogance never failed to amuse him. “That I don’t believe for a second.” Then he laughed at the indignant expression that flickered over his brother’s face and clarified, “Not the superior skills part or that you will undoubtedly succeed in eradicating disease from the earth. Rather that the idea of you not becoming a doctor under any circumstance is ludicrous. Your fate was sealed at birth, my brother.”
“Yet it was never a thought until that quack allowed my brother to die,” George flared. “Happiest day of my life when old Wilson had his worthless carcass thrown in jail for botching Lady Messerman’s delivery and murdering a perfect infant. Don’t even think of frowning at me, James! Call it whatever you like. It was murder in my book, and not his first by a stretch.”
“Then it will please you to hear that he has been barred from practicing medicine.”
“He should have been escorted to the gallows, if you ask me. What is to stop him from relocating to another unsuspecting community? Someday, mark my words, Brother, there will be standards of medicine to prevent hacks like Wilson from treating patients, and I use the word ‘treating’ loosely.”
“I pray you are correct, Dr. Darcy.” James took a sip of his wine and then leaned forward. “Listen, I will never argue about Wilson. He has a long list of tragedies behind him and we both know it pained Father to call upon him when Alex was injured. If Dr. Meager had not been away to London… Well, you were there,” he stated unnecessarily as the cloud of renewed grief marred George’s handsome face. “The point is, even when Dr. Meager returned, he concurred that there was nothing that could have been done for Alex. And your studies”—he ignored George’s wince—“have proven the truth of that.”
“Yet, I read a study not too long ago about theories of evacuating accumulated blood or pus from the thorax to relieve the pressure on the lungs. Both de Chauliac and Boerhaave describe insertion of a tube to drain the fluid. Someday such treatment modalities shall be the norm.”
“Yes, and someday men will fly.”
“Perhaps someday they will!”
“Did you not hear the sarcasm in my voice?” James teased, happy to revert to the safety of their brotherly banter to ease the tension. “Even if men someday fly”—he rolled his eyes—“that won’t help you at the present, now will it? You still have to take a boat to India, like it or not.”
George shuddered, grief and irritation momentarily replaced by a grimace and sickly green cast washing over his cheeks.
James bent to pour more wine into George’s glass and chuckled. “Future marvels of medicine or physics do not change the present, dear Brother. No one, with the possible exception of arrogant you, would have remotely considered sticking a tube into Alex’s chest. Now, to answer your initial question, yes, Alex would be proud of you. Very much so.”
“You state that with confidence.”
James sat back with a grin. “Ha! Confidence is your failing, not mine. However, in this case, I am indeed. Who was it that treated the endless parade of injured animals Alex and Estella brought into the manor? Damned bleeding hearts. The orangery resembled a veterinary hospital!”
“Until the fallow deer got loose and destroyed Mother’s orchids. Father tanned our hides over that one.”
“And then sent you all packing to the gamekeeper compound, driving Mr. Higgs crazy.” They paused to smile in recollection of childish antics. “It was always within you, George. Alex had the softer heart and never passed by a wounded creature no matter how small. But he brought them to you, knowing you could cure them. And you always did.”
“I couldn’t let him down,” George mumbled.
“But you cured them,” James emphasized, his serious eyes holding his brother’s gaze. “Your need to submerge your grief and emptiness aft
er Alex’s death simply prompted you to do the inevitable sooner than you would have, George. Maybe you wouldn’t have been thirteen when you started tagging along with Dr. Meager or fifteen when you apprenticed with Lambton’s apothecary, what was his name?”
“Mr. Jones.”
“Right, Jones. Saint he was to tolerate your million questions an hour. Mr. Higgs also.”
“Thanks to my insatiable curiosity, Pemberley now boasts a medical section covering two wide cases,” George interrupted indignantly, “and Mr. Jones and Mr. Higgs were thrilled to have me around, especially since I did not mind doing the dirty work.”
“You thrived on the dirty work,” James again emphasized. “There is a difference. You were unrelenting—are unrelenting. Your ambition may have started as a way to forget, it may have been fed by a driving need to prevent others from suffering such a loss, that catalyst setting you on the path so young, but I know there is more to it. So do you, Brother.”
George did not respond immediately. Instead, he returned James’s hard stare, his mind flipping through the truths shared with James over the years. Vividly he remembered the day early in his clinical education in London, when after a grueling twelve hours at the hospital, he returned to the closet-sized space that served as his sleeping quarters and began stripping his blood-soaked clothes. Instead of moaning in agony and exhaustion, he had realized he was smiling. He had glanced into the mirror, noted the blood- and dirt-streaked gray skin and red-rimmed eyes incongruous with the smile, and had his first true epiphany.
He had forgotten Alex.
Not literally, of course, as Alex inhabited a portion of his soul and forever would. But he recognized that his insatiable thirst for knowledge in the healing arts had became more than a desire to cure for the sake of curing. It grew to encompass the joy of discovering new techniques and the satisfaction of solving a diagnostic riddle. Passion for medicine consumed his waking hours and filled his sleeping minutes, often taking the place of sleep or food if a complicated case presented itself. He studied diligently to advance his skills and willingly did anything for the goal of becoming a masterful physician.
All of it was as easy as breathing.
“What was it your instructors at Cambridge said?” James prompted. “That you had a ‘gift’ and were ‘naturally born to be a physician’ with an innate comprehension of the human body and disease that was ‘magical’ is what you told me.”
George nodded, his expression neither proud nor humble. “Those that weren’t jealous or afraid of me, that is. Do you know how many times I have deftly diagnosed a patient’s illness after the briefest of examinations, James?”
“As you did Gerald Vernor.”
George waved his hand dismissively. “Any fool could tell he had the croup, except for Wilson probably.”
“Perhaps. But only someone special could be one of the youngest men to obtain a doctorate of medicine at Cambridge University and also be admitted for licentiate by the Royal College of Physicians. Don’t forget that!”
“I haven’t,” George murmured blandly, “but you know it means nothing to me, James, except as a means to an end. Whether a blessing bestowed from Heaven above or the result of determined effort, I’ve done it all because of Alex.”
“Hogwash! If Alex had lived, you might have been a few years older than two and twenty before you got your degree and maybe, just maybe,” he held up his hand to halt George’s rebuttal, “you wouldn’t be so hasty to leave England and the memories that haunt you here at Pemberley, but I think you would have done that too. Look, I know this is a tough day for you. It always will be, I reckon. But really, this humbleness and self-doubt is beginning to worry me. Are you sure the strain has not addled your brains? Or does the anticipation of a sea voyage so unnerve you that your spirit is cracking? Say it isn’t so!”
George laughed and shook his head. “No. The brains are superior, as always. Not so sure about the spirit cracking, or at least splintering a sliver. Maybe I’ll ride a horse all the way to Bombay instead. You think one could swim the Channel?”
Before James could frame a witty reply, they were interrupted by the door opening. In an instant, both men stood to their feet to greet the man who entered, bowing respectfully. It was an automatic reaction that not even George Darcy, who was known for ignoring manners of propriety more often than not, would have dreamed of neglecting.
The elder James Darcy, Master of Pemberley in Derbyshire and Darcy House in London, was imposing in every way imaginable. Physically he stood well over six feet, with a broad chest that could conceivably contend with that of a gorilla. At seventy years of age, his hair was iron gray and his face creased with lines, yet he walked with the confidence and vigor of a man half his years. Power and authority surrounded him as an unmistakable aura, and if one doubted their initial impression, the first sentence spoken in his resonant rumble or focused look from his penetrating gaze clarified the matter. His eyes were a unique color that transformed from indigo to a greenish tint that did not exist on any charts to a brown resembling dark roasted coffee, yet it was the intensity of his stare that unnerved.
Women were drawn as if he were a magnet, yet since the death of Emily Darcy nearly five years ago, not a single one of the ladies who vied for the attention of the robust man with extreme wealth and prestige had gotten anywhere. Mr. Darcy ignored them and went about the business of managing Pemberley with the same drive and intelligence that had served him as master for over four decades.
He was a man no one trifled with, whether they revered him or feared him or hated him. He was Darcy or Mr. Darcy or sir, even to his children and his wife. Only his sister, Beryl, the widowed Countess of Essenton who was soon to be the Marchioness of Warrow, called him otherwise. To her, he was Jamie, and his children had never been brave enough to ask if this was a childish endearment or meant to annoy him. Knowing their Aunt Beryl, probably the latter.
“George, I apologize for being late. Of all the days for my horse to throw a shoe. The ride from Vernor’s ended up a limping walk. How are you, my boy?”
“Well enough, sir. James is doing an admirable job of keeping me entertained.”
Mr. Darcy nodded and paused to pat his son on the shoulder. George did not expect to be enfolded into a warm embrace—that sort of demonstrativeness a rare occurrence even when they were children—but he sensed his father’s concern and recognized the grief buried within his stern eyes. Losing a son had branded the father’s soul as well.
“As I suspected he would.” Mr. Darcy looked at his oldest son and heir, lips lifting in a minuscule smile. “Nevertheless, I am sorry for being detained and could benefit from some of that wine, if you do not mind, James?”
“What news from Sanburl Hall?” James asked while pouring.
“The usual business for the most part. Young Master Gerald is recovering from the croup, as I have already reported to Anne. The boys shall be playing together in no time.”
“That is good news indeed. George’s medicine helped?”
“Well of course it did!” George responded before Mr. Darcy could. “Crushed ma huang and lobelia added to the heated mist in a tent over the boy are far more effective than cold mist alone. Or mercury, which has too many negative effects. Fortunately, it was a moderate case and a tracheotomy was not necessary. As you said, Father, he and William will be terrorizing the nursery ere the month is over.”
“I said they would be playing together,” Mr. Darcy corrected, while James choked on his wine over the thought of his friend’s baby having a hole drilled into his neck. “Fitzwilliam is a behaved boy, and Miss Reese will not allow the nursery to be disorderly.”
“That is because she is a Hun, lacking anything remotely soft and feminine. Why you let Lady Catherine recommend a nurse is beyond my comprehension. I shudder to imagine who she hired to care for her daughter.”
“Anne is beginning to think a
s you, George,” James interjected. “Miss Reese does her job, though, so we cannot complain at that.”
“A few more hours with young Gerald and that imp Richard Fitzwilliam will break Miss Reese’s iron rod. William is a gentle, mannerly boy as you say, Father, but terror follows in the wake of those other two!”
Mr. Darcy grunted. “Praise to God Master Gerald will be with us to raise some terror, no small thanks to you, Son.”
George’s brow lifted at the compliment and proud paternal smile, even as a warm glow spread across his chest. It had taken years for Mr. Darcy to approve of his chosen profession and it remained infrequent that he verbally acknowledged his skill and accomplishment. “Thank you, sir,” he replied simply.
“I know I do not say it often enough, George, but I am proud of you. I recognize your talent and passion. These are traits I admire and respect, as I possess them myself. James does too, I am pleased to proclaim. I know you have your heart set on leaving England, but I do pray you reconsider. Think of the good you could do here, with your people, as you did with Vernor’s boy!”
Never had his father expressed his emotions toward George’s leaving so vehemently and the borderline pleading was affecting him more than he would have imagined. Yet George would not hurt his father, the one person he respected above all others, by telling him that while Pemberley was the only place he truly felt at home, it was also the cause of his deepest agony. The memories of sweet-tempered Alex, who had been so much more than merely a brother, remained alive and vivid, as if his ghost stalked the halls, filling the rooms with the high-pitched laughter George remembered as one of the few attributes that differentiated the identical twins.
He needed to forget Alex, at least to a degree, and while pursuing his studies or up to his elbows in blood, he did forget. The downside of this, as evidenced by his question to James, was guilt and doubt, neither emotion one George struggled with too often. It was damned annoying! Hearing James’s words of encouragement helped more than he wanted to admit. Hearing his father practically beg him to stay home after praising his accomplishments incited an irritating stinging sensation in his eyes that he flatly refused to succumb to.