by Maria Grace
Darcy probably should not judge them so severely upon their first meeting—Elizabeth warned him that not everyone made a good first impression. But the practice had usually served him well—with a few notable exceptions—for so long, it was difficult to do otherwise. Considering Anne’s recent deportment, there was little reason to think he would change his mind about these men.
Elizabeth glanced at him with raised eyebrows. “It is very good of you to be so understanding—”
Anne gasped. “You do not mean to throw them out! That would be too cruel.”
“Of course not.” Elizabeth folded her hands tightly in her lap, her voice tight as a pianoforte string. “I only meant to say that it was good of them to understand that, with such short notice of their arrival, dinner this evening might not be precisely what they would expect, and it might take a little time this afternoon to see their quarters properly made up.”
“Oh.” At least Anne had the decency to blush. “I am sorry, I spoke too soon.”
“Yes, you did,” Darcy snapped under his breath. And that was the least of her transgressions.
“Pray, would you come help me select appropriate rooms for our guests that the maids may be set to readying them?” Elizabeth rose, so elegant, so graceful none would expect the words she was probably holding in reserve for Anne.
“Excuse me a moment as well. I would speak to the grooms regarding the additional horses.” Darcy rose and followed them out.
As soon as the parlor door shut behind them, Anne began to speak. “Oh, I am so glad they are all here. Now, Sir Jasper is a baronet, so he must be accorded a room fitting for a baronet. I am certain you—”
Elizabeth drew a deep breath, but Darcy cleared his throat. “If you do not object, my dear, may I have a word with Anne first?”
Elizabeth shot her a look that would fell a lesser being. “I think that is an excellent idea. Perhaps it would be best for me to see Mrs. Reynolds alone. In fact, I think it a very good notion.” She hurried away, footfalls heavy and revealing.
“Gracious, she seems a little bit tense.” Anne bit her lower lip.
“That might be one word for it. Come.” Darcy turned on his heel and strode to his study. Anne nearly ran to keep up.
“Close the door, and sit down.” He pointed to the nearest chair and leaned on the edge of his desk.
Anne sat and looked very small. “You do not seem pleased, cousin.”
“Those young men, they are not unknown to you.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Do not take me for a fool. I will not be lied to. It is quite obvious that you know them.”
Anne stared at her hands. “I admit I have been acquainted with them. They visited Sarah at school in Bath. It was a quite proper introduction.”
“I suspect, nay I am certain of it, that you invited them along with Miss Gifford, without consulting Elizabeth or myself on the matter.”
“Please, Darcy, do not be angry with me.”
“I am angry. You have used me, and that is unconscionable! What I want to know is why.” He gripped the edge of his desk.
Anne looked up to meet his gaze with a dark one of her own. “You have met my mother, have you not? Do you know what living with her is like? Can you truly appreciate what I have been through?”
He folded his arms over his chest. “I can only imagine your subterfuge and deception has not made things any better.”
“Perhaps if I had been a man that might be true. I might have had another option. But I have used the only tools available to me.”
“You are the owner of Rosings Park. I hardly see how you are at any disadvantage.”
“You understand nothing!” She shook her balled fists. “She controls every aspect of my life. Even the staff will answer only to her. I cannot go anywhere of my own accord—the coachmen will not travel except by her orders. They will not even ready my phaeton unless she approves! All the business of the estate is handled by the steward and the solicitors. They will not deign to speak to me, either. I am a prisoner. I want to escape.”
“Why have you not asked for help? Uncle Matlock, any of his sons, myself, we have always been available to help.”
“If you must know,” she stood and faced him, “I always expected you and I would marry and then you would manage Mother. I was simply biding my time for that to happen. It seemed the better part of wisdom not to fight when I was assured escape. But when you chose not to help me, how could I have expected anyone else to?”
“I will not accept blame for your behavior. That is upon your own shoulders.”
“So, you are going to dismiss them from Pemberley.” She turned her back.
“I did not say that either. You have put Elizabeth and me in a most untenable position. We can hardly put them out without jeopardizing Elizabeth’s reputation—but you already know that. You were counting on it.”
Anne stared at her feet.
“We have little choice but to increase our house party once again. But know that you have ill-used your welcome here. You have betrayed my trust and my wife’s, and that I will not tolerate. Any more behavior of this ilk and I will have you removed from Pemberley.”
She turned over her shoulder and gawked. “You would not do such a thing.”
“Do you truly want to test that?”
∞∞∞
Though dinner was not for another hour or so yet, Fitzwilliam was dressed and on his way to the blue drawing room where Elizabeth had decided to receive their new guests before dinner. Though the room was comfortable, and near enough to the billiard room for the gentlemen to slip out for a game or two during the evening, it also signaled that they were no longer the comfortable family party they had been. A true house party was underway with all the formality that came with it.
Not the worst thing that could happen, but less than what he had hoped for when he accepted Pemberley’s invitation for Christmas. Still, even with a house party, Elizabeth would never turn Pemberley into what Matlock became under his mother’s rule when guests were in residence. That was something to take comfort in.
Soft strains of music drifted from the drawing room. He paused, closing his eyes to listen. Georgiana? No, the phrasing was just the tiniest bit clumsy. It must be Anne.
She sat at the piano in a tableau that resembled a painting. Flanked on either side by windows, fading sunlight framed her and the pianoforte. The blue wall behind her suited her well. It was a good color for her, perhaps better than the dusty pink she wore. That made her look a bit like a fading gillyflower, frilly and fancy, and tired. She glanced up at him, then turned her face away. Perhaps it was not so much tired as it was sad.
He strode to the pianoforte and pulled a small chair near, turning it backwards to straddle it. Balancing his forearms on the back of the chair, he studied her. “What is wrong?”
“Why should anything be wrong? I am away from Rosings. My friends have come to join me for Christmastide. What could possibly be wrong?”
“You are sulking because someone, I expect Darcy, has crossed you and threatened not to let you have your way.”
“He is such a crosspatch.”
“And you are a rather spoiled child.”
She winced. “You call me a child?”
“When you are acting like one, I certainly will.” But it seemed she already knew.
“You are just like him.”
“There is no one else in the whole of England who would say such a thing.” He chuckled. “There are even those who would question that we are in fact even related.”
Anne plinked a discordant chord.
“He did not appreciate your additional guests.” That was putting it mildly, considering the conversation he and Darcy had after he had dismissed Anne from his study.
“I did not invite them.”
“Do not play word games.”
“I only told Sarah that she could tell them where I was.”
“And you suggested there was plenty of ro
om for additional guests should they decide to travel with her—of their own accord, of course.”
“Was that so wrong?” She laced her hands together and wrung them.
“You are using Darcy very ill, and you know it.”
“Why are you so harsh with me?” She did not look at him, but the tears in her eyes glinted in the fading sunlight.
“Because you are better than this.”
“You have told me that before.”
He caught her chin with two fingers and gently turned her to look at him. A tear leaked down her cheek. Poor thing really was miserable, but someone had to speak the truth to her. “That is because it has been true for a very long time. You are above all this subterfuge and acting out against your mother. It is unseemly and vengeful.”
“You do not understand—”
“We have long established that I am uniquely equipped to understand! We are not so different you and I, except that I have chosen to make something of myself despite my unfortunate fate as the ‘spare’ and my brother’s continued good health and ill-temper.”
“But you are a man—”
“I am glad you have noticed.”
She slapped his arm. “You may go out and find some gainful employment for yourself. Unless I wish to be a governess or some such, I cannot. I am probably not even qualified for that. Truly can you see me with the charge of children?”
“You will be a fine mother someday.”
“If I can get a husband—and I do not want one my mother has arranged, or even approves of.” She dragged her sleeve across her eye leaving a dark streak on the light-colored muslin. “Everything she has approved of in my life has been uniformly horrid, and I am done with it. On my own merit—without any interference from mother—I have found three suitors! Three! Sir Jasper, Mr. Sadler and Mr. Wharton, they are all seeking my attention. And I like them. I like that they want to please me, that they are concerned with what I want, not Mother. Have you any idea how intoxicating that is?”
“I can imagine. But what do you really know of them? With Rosings to your name, you realize you are the kind of mark fortune hunters will seek.”
“I am not so foolish to be unaware the danger. I know you do not actually believe that, but truly I am. That is part of the reason why I maneuvered to get them to come here.”
He blinked hard. “Maneuvered to get them to Pemberley? What are you about?”
“Who can I trust to scrutinize my suitors? You and Darcy have always looked out for the best interest of Rosings—and my mother and I. I have watched you stand up to her and carry your point with her. I trust that you can and you will do the same now for me.”
“What are you asking?”
“I want you, and Darcy, if you can convince him, to meet my suitors. I want to know your opinions of them.”
“It sounds like a fool’s errand. You have predisposed him to dislike them already. I can hardly imagine that you will listen if he or I find fatal flaws in one or all of them. Truly, the way you have been since you arrived, I fear that you might run off and elope with the one of which we least approve just to demonstrate that you can.” He unwrapped himself from the chair and stepped to the window. The fiery orange rays of sunset faded into the indigo of night.
The Anne he once knew might have listened to him, but now? What had happened to his friend?
“You think that little of me?”
“I know you are capable of so much better.”
“Would you accept my promise to … to trust your opinions and listen to them?” She laid her hand on his shoulder.
He turned to look her in the eye. “You would really do that?”
“If you promise me that you will not dismiss them for silly, petty reasons, or just because you are angry with me.”
“I am not angry with you.”
“You are not? Darcy is.” She sniffled.
“Darcy is your cousin. I am your friend. I may think you are being petty and silly, but I am not angry. I want to see you happy, somehow.”
“Then you will do as I have asked?”
“I will, but you must do something for me in return.”
Her frown resembled her mother’s far more than she would have believed.
“I want you to stop playing these childish games. You have got your mother’s attention. She knows you are strong and intelligent and accomplished. We all do now. There is nothing more to be accomplished by your outlandish behavior.”
“But what else am I to do? It is the only thing that has ever got Mother to stop forcing—”
He brushed another tear from her cheek. “Let me help you. Together, I know we can find another way, we always have.”
She offered him a weak smile.
“Oh, there you are! Are you going to play for us?” Georgiana asked from the doorway.
“I should think you would be tired of that by now. Come sit with me, and we can work on a duet.”
∞∞∞
Two and a half hours later, Fitzwilliam leaned back in the small chair he had taken into the far corner of the blue drawing room. With only one candlestick in that corner, he was able to observe the occupants with few noticing his lack of participation in the evening’s entertainments. He had often done something similar in France, allowing him to spot more than one spy in their ranks, and a few sympathizers in the local populations. Observation was a highly underrated skill.
Darcy approached, carrying two teacups. “Elizabeth thought you might be feeling neglected.”
Fitzwilliam took the proffered cup. “You married a very wise woman. Pull up a chair.”
“It is not like you to sit out an evening.”
“It has been an unusual day with many things to consider.”
Darcy pulled a chair close and sat near him.
“Anne felt your rebuke very deeply, you know.”
Darcy glowered in Anne’s direction. “As well she should have. What she has done is reprehensible. I will not have her or anyone else believing they can simply use me to their ends.”
“You need not become defensive. I am not disagreeing with you, only observing that your feelings have not been lost on Anne.”
“You sound sympathetic to her.”
“Watch her there, with Georgiana and Miss Gifford.” Fitzwilliam pointed with his cup. “See how she giggled and blushed at Sir Jasper’s compliments? How they are drawn by Mr. Sadler’s fine dress?”
“What of it?”
“Do you not find it odd how a girl who is closer to your age than Georgiana’s, older than your wife, who is no girl, but a woman, would act so very child-like? She has had so little proper training, so little exposure to society. Mayhap it would be reasonable to set expectations of her more in line with what you would expect of your sister. Georgiana has had her share of problems, no?”
Darcy grunted. He did not like to be reminded of that ghastly affair with Wickham. None of them did, but it did not change the reality of the situation. “Are you suggesting we should excuse her—”
“No, but perhaps she deserves the exercise of patience—at least a little—on her behalf.”
Darcy clutched his temples. “Do you believe that she also needs the same protections that my sister requires?”
“It is not unreasonable to assume so. Anne described Miss Gifford’s cousins as her suitors.”
“I had gathered that much.”
“She would like to be appropriately settled in marriage. Do you think Aunt Catherine is up to the task of identifying a suitable husband for her?”
“Hardly. But I promised Elizabeth that I would not meddle in the affairs of others unbidden ever again.” Darcy steepled his hands before his face.
“I am not asking you to meddle. Only offer me your opinions when I ask for them. All the meddling can be left to me—I have been asked to do so, after all.”
“I do not see how my opinion can be of any value. Few people impress me.”
“Exactly what makes your opinion so valuable.
”
Darcy looked at the ceiling and shook his head. “You will excuse me; I fear if I spend any more time in your company—”
“Your entire character might be compromised. Go, go, I quite understand. But, do not be surprised when I demand your observations.”
Darcy chuckled under his breath and meandered back toward the chair which Elizabeth had set aside for him for reading. Lucky sot, to have her excuse him so easily from interacting with strangers.
Fitzwilliam leaned back and resumed his observations. He might not be as predisposed to disapprove as Darcy, but not just any man would be good enough for Anne.
Chapter 5
December 18, 1813
Three days later, Darcy made his way to his study particularly early. Though Elizabeth managed most of the work of having guests in the house, somehow just their mere presence was rather oppressive. One would think that in a manor the size of Pemberley, he would not feel their presence everywhere—he barely saw them yesterday apart from dinner and the time afterwards in the drawing room. But still, at times, it made his skin twitch. Perhaps, if they had been properly invited and he had time to mentally prepare for them it would be different. But this was unpleasant at best.
The door peeked open and Elizabeth looked in. “May I?”
“Of course.” He met her halfway.
She pressed a hot coffee cup and small plate with a pair of Chelsea buns into his hands.
“What’s this?”
“An apology for being so ill-tempered recently.” She looked down, hiding her face from him.
“My dear, you have hardly been that.” Actually, she had been—but their guests surely gave her good reason, did they not? He led them to the small sofa and set the dishes on the nearby table. They sat close on the sofa.
“You are being far kinder than I deserve. Fitzwilliam has been tiptoeing around me the last several days, and I think Georgiana has taken to hiding from me. I barely saw her at all yesterday. I fear I have been terrible to all of you.” She did not look at him as she spoke—she almost never did that.