Read Online Pemberley to Waterloo: Georgiana Darcy's Diary, Volume 2 by Anna Elliott - Free Book Online

as a man of leisure in London, when he's not spending an obligatory few months on the family estate in Devon. He's always laughing and teasing and playing elaborate pranks on his London friends that get reported in the society pages of the papers. Such as the time he coated a litter of dachshund puppies in flour and unleashed them on a crowded ballroom.
    That makes Frank sound frivolous, or as though I don't like him--but I do; it's almost impossible not to. He may be high-spirited, but he's never unkind or malicious. And so far as I know, he's never grown attached or even interested in any other woman since Celia died.
    At any rate, today's surprise visit was very much in character.
    The weather this morning was cold and very clear, with a piercingly blue winter sky and the ground glittering with frost. First thing, before breakfast, I asked Edward to come for a walk with me down to the lake, because I wanted to make a crayon sketch of the woods as they look in wintertime, all shades of grey and brown, with just the occasional bright splash of colour in an evergreen or a broken cedar bough. Edward agreed to come--and as a testament to his devotion, he said, even carried my drawing box. Though he laughed and gave me unmerciful I-told-you-so 's when my ungloved fingers were too stiff with cold to draw after twenty minutes or so.
    We were just walking back to the house when a rider came pounding down the drive, drew up sharply and then swung himself down from the saddle at the sight of us.
    "Edward! Hasn't anyone ever told you that it's a gentleman's first duty to keep his betrothed from freezing to death before the wedding?"
    Edward stared at the man, who was swathed in a fur-lined greatcoat and beaver hat. And then he started to laugh. "Frank. What on earth brings you here?"
    "Well, I like that." Frank's cheeks were reddened with the cold, his hazel eyes bright as he turned to me. "Two hundred miles to spend Christmas with my only brother, and he greets me by asking what brings me here?" He let go his horse's reins and stepped forward to hug me and kiss my cheek. "Come to think of it, I've a mind to quarrel with him in any case for proposing to you, young Georgiana, before I could get a word in."
    He extended a hand to Edward, then, and Edward took it, still grinning. "Not worth trying, Frank. If she's mad enough to want to marry me, I'm afraid she's still wits enough to know to steer clear of you."
    Frank gave me a theatrical look. "Sad, but too true. Georgiana always was the sensible one."
    The two men embraced, then, laughing and pounding each other on the back. They live such different lives that they don't see each other very often--I've not seen Frank since Edward and I have been engaged, and I don't think Edward has, either. But the two of them get on well together and always have.
    We all walked back to the house, Frank and Edward still talking. Frank had been planning to spend the holidays at the family estate. But a snowstorm to the south had made travel to Devon impossible. And so Frank decided on impulse to ride for Pemberley, instead.
    At least, that's what he told Edward and me.
    The rest of the company was at breakfast when we arrived back at the house: Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth, Kitty and the boys, and Caroline. Thomas and Jack were playing at highway bandits when we walked in, and Jack had just upset a pot of hot chocolate all over the carpet, so that in the general uproar I don't think anyone else noticed Caroline's face when she saw Frank walk into the room. I saw her, though. All the colour drained from her cheeks and her eyes looked first stricken--and then, after a moment, angry. She turned pointedly away and concentrated on looking out the window all the time the cocoa was being mopped up and Frank simultaneously was making his greetings to the rest of the group.
    Finally when the spill had been cleaned up and Kitty had taken the boys out of the room, Elizabeth said, "Caroline, I don't think you've ever