Kitty Bennet's Diary (Pride and Prejudice Chronicles) by Anna Elliott

the child will be coming tonight.”
    That was when I realised (belatedly) that if it is indelicate to refer to childbirth even amongst family, it is hideously improper to speak of it to a young unmarried man—and a clergyman, at that.
    Mr. Dalton at least did not look particularly scandalised.  Though I suppose when one considers that on the three occasions we have met, I have insulted him—snapped at him—asked him to carry my hugely pregnant sister—and finally made him a present of an irate and howling child, he must surely by this time have given up on anything like adherence to the conventions from me.
    He said, “I am very glad to hear it.  But in that case … may I offer to see you home, Miss Bennet?  I still have my carriage here.”
    I hesitated.  It was much later than I had realised; I heard the clock in the downstairs hall chiming half past three in the morning.  I had meant to stay with Jane all through the night, but if she was asleep, now, and had no more need of me, it was a tempting offer to be allowed to spend the rest of the night in my own bed at Aunt Gardiner’s.
    “Let me speak with Georgiana,” I said at last.  “I ought in any case to give her the latest news of Jane.”
     
     
    I thought Georgiana must still be downstairs; she would have told me if she and Edward had retired for bed.  When I reached the downstairs, I saw that the library door was halfway open and that there was a light inside.  I tiptoed closer and, looking in, saw Georgiana and Edward sitting together on the rug before the hearth.
    Georgiana wore a nightdress and pale green silk dressing gown, and she was sitting with her knees drawn up, leaning back against Edward’s chest.  Edward had his arms looped around her waist, and his chin rested on her dark hair.
    As I stood frozen in the doorway, Georgiana turned her head to look up at Edward and said something, the words too low for me to hear.  Edward brushed the hair back from her forehead with such tenderness in the gesture that I felt a hollow ache spring up under my breastbone.
    It is not that I envy Georgiana her husband.  I truly do not.  Even if he had not been engaged to Georgiana from the time I first met him, I do not think I should have ever fallen in love with Edward Fitzwilliam.  It is just—
    Never mind.  What I wrote before about there being very small, sour comfort in self-pity does not appear to have grown any the less true. 
    Whatever Edward said in response made Georgiana smile and tilt her head up so that she could touch her lips to Edward’s.  And then she caught sight of me in the doorway and scrambled to her feet, her cheeks flushing.  “Kitty!  I am sorry.”  She cast a conscious look at Edward.  “We did not want to go to sleep—because of Jane—and I did not hear you come down, and—”  She stopped and took a breath.  “How is Jane?  Is there any change?”
    I told them that Jane had fallen asleep and seemed to be out of danger.  Edward said that he would go and tell his coachman to go to bed—he had asked him to stay awake in case there was need to send for a midwife.  And I told Georgiana that Mr. Dalton had offered to drive me home.  “If you do not mind my leaving you with Jane, of course,” I added.
    “Of course not!  You are by all means free to go—you must be exhausted,” Georgiana said.  “Though come to that, Edward could drive you home.”
    “No!  I mean, no, that’s quite all right.  Mr. Dalton said it was on his way in any case.”  As a matter of fact, he had said no such thing, but he had offered to drive me back home to Gracechurch Street.  And it did not seem as though heaping one more inconvenience on Mr. Dalton—after the debt I owed him already—could possibly make much difference.
    Not when I would marginally prefer to chew broken glass than endure a carriage ride alone with Georgiana’s husband.  Recalling all the while that the last time I had any sort of conversation with