B006O3T9DG EBOK

by Berdoll, Linda

  Cupping the pearls in her hands, she gently rubbed them together. Then, she gifted them a great exhalation.

  “They must be warm,” she explained.

  Sitting before him cross-legged, her gaze was exceedingly persuasive. (He looked at her as expectantly as she looked at his virile sceptre.)

  “I rarely question your methods...,” said he.

  “Shush,” she whispered. “I shall beguile it.”

  Holding the pearls above him, she slowly allowed them to undulate around his ever-engorging member. As she was intent upon watching his burgeoning erection, she did not see that his eyes were trained upon the edge of her nightdress. (It crept higher upon her thighs with every twirl she made with the pearls.) With his wife’s pearls decorating him as if a... er... maypole, his manhood was quickly at full attention.

  Pleased with herself, she threw back her head in triumph, crowing, “My adornment is compleat!”

  Ignoring what delighted her, he reached for the sentient seat of his own desire. As his hand moved up her thigh, she capitulated compleatly. In a fit of exultation, she whipped her hair across his chest and fell back in compleat surrender.

  Clutching her hip, he drew her leg about his. The pearls did then begin to unravel. Neither noticed. Having encouraged a tumescence of exceeding magnificence, it was only right and good that she should enjoy it as much as did he.

  “Darcy,” she cried.

  “Lizzy,” he gasped.

  It was an acknowledged fact that the fire that burns most fiercely, flames out first. It does not necessary follow that it remains doused. Given time and attention, love at leisure is just as fulfilling.

  And pearls can be restrung.

  Chapter 34

  Lady Millhouse’s Confidant

  A carriage betook Sally Frances Arbuthnot from Pemberley to Pennyswope Manor that very day.

  Once there, Sally’s plan took a surprising spin. Indeed, what had been a bold but simple scheme, wholly unconnected with the Darcys. altered rather hastily. In the end, Sally was beside herself with anticipation—and Lady Millhouse was tickled to her toes to have part in a new adventure.

  ———

  Surprising no one except Sally, Lady Millhouse had been quite delighted to aide in an endeavour that she herself had inspired.

  “Dearest child!” said she, her trumpustuous voice reverberating throughout the house. “You are courageous and good!”

  The lady had florid cheeks and a clumsy wrist, making it quite obvious that she was far happier on horseback than serving tea. In her enthusiasm, her ladyship reached out and engulfed Sally in her considerable bosom. Sally grimaced (for she was unused to affection), but not noticeably. Poverty was a keen teacher and through its agency, Sally was quite precocious when it came to adapting to her circumstances. She yielded to the stronger force, knowing it was to her benefit to do so.

  “I see a girl before me with my pluck, Lord Millhouse!” Lady Millhouse exclaimed.

  Holding the office of his wife’s foremost approver, he nodded his agreement. Sally admired the praise—such as it was.

  Lord and Lady Millhouse resided at Pennyswope; they lived for the hunt. It was months before the season would commence. When not on horseback, Lord Millhouse was happy in his library. Lady Millhouse, however, had little to occupy her time except to complain how long it would be until the kits would be weaned. With no daughters to marry off or sons to badger, it pleased her to bring the sad little urchin from town into her sitting room—particularly one who bid her retell the rapturous story of retrieving her dear nephew’s bones from across the water. In each successive telling, the bribes they paid to sentries were bigger, the boat they made off with was smaller, and the daring altogether greater. As she spoke, she became more enlivened. She was so taken with her own adventure, she was in want of a part in young Sally’s too. Rather than be her advisor, she decided that she must escort the girl instead. As Lord Millhouse was not disposed to tell his wife what not to do, she went merrily on her way—and he with them. All her ladyship asked of Darcy was a letter of introduction to his uncle in whose family plot John Christie was laid to rest.

  The burial of John Christie (and all that it encompassed) was an episode Darcy was most desirous of putting behind him. Time did not improve the notion of digging up the evidence of a history of troubling family events. Elizabeth patted his hand, for she knew that his compliance came at great cost to his sensibilities. As Lady Millhouse was a friend of longstanding, Darcy wrote the letter. He did not want to write it, but he was disinclined to give a reason why he should not.

  The Millhouses and their young consort set out for Dover with surprising haste.

  Sally had never set foot on a boat. She had watched many a ship dock up the Thames. The wharves were thick with stories about shipwrecks and lives lost. Hence, Sally looked at the channel crossing with trepidation. Once they set sail, she stood on the balls of her feet and looked down at the swells of the sea as they churned beneath her. Directly, she made herself sick. Thenafter, Lord Millhouse joined her at the rail and both of them emptied their stomachs over the side. Neither could bear look at Lady Millhouse as she clung to the bowsprit, glorying in the stinging spray. After they moored, it took Sally and Lord Millhouse half a day to be fit to climb into a carriage. When they were, Lady Millhouse had already commandeered a coach and a coachman.

  “Make haste you silly geese!” she called.

  They were a merry band until they arrived at the little cemetery where John Christie had been laid to rest. Sally had not thought of flowers and began to pick some running wild amongst the grass. When she knelt next to her brother’s grave sniffling, Lady Millhouse would not have her give way to sentiment, at least not yet.

  “That is a waste of good flowers, girl,” she said. “For they shall die and we must take your brother’s humble remains with us.”

  “Well,” thought Sally. “The lady was right about that. It was a rare gentlewoman who was both plain spoken and sensible.”

  Sally nodded her agreement and stood aside as a half-dozen men bearing shovels went to work. For some, the exhumation would have been too gruesome to watch. Lord Millhouse walked back to the coach holding a handkerchief to his face (one not meant for tears). Sally Frances and Lady Millhouse were too engaged in overseeing that the task was done right to be off-put by the earthiness of the activity. Lady Millhouse disliked how the men were doing the job and was in a pother because of it.

  “Stop you fuddle-headed oaf!” Lady Millhouse boomed as a shovel hit the crumbling wooden coffin. “Shall I do it for you?”

  The diggers spoke French and the string of oaths they issued was uncomplimentary to the English race in general and to the English lady in particular. Sally knew enough French (at least of the sort she just heard) to know her ladyship had been deeply maligned.

  To her, Sally said, “I think they just said you got brass whennymegs, m’am.”

  Lady Millhouse sniffed, “I dare say I have more stones than the lot of them together.”

  With no blows thrown or shots exchanged, John Christie’s bones were extricated and brought home. Although Sally Frances knew the intimate connection her brother had to the Darcy family, she kept that confidence. (She had a notion that Lady Millhouse knew something about it anyway.) Despite his qualms, Mr. Darcy had been kind enough to let it be known that because her brother had once been employed there, he would not oppose the boy’s remains be committed to the Pemberley cemetery.

  That, however, was not Sally’s intention. She wanted all her loved ones together. How to go about it was a conundrum. John was no kin to her Grannum and having him interred in the little churchyard cemetery in London did not seem right. The closest connection he had was to the Pemberley horses he so loved. Lady Millhouse understood. Herself a horse-lover, she could think of no finer place than to share the earth with those magnificent beasts. So she insisted that there was but one place for John—on the hillside where Pemberley’s finely-bred animals we
re laid to rest.

  Mr. Darcy was initially opposed to it, pronouncing it unseemly. But in time, he relented. After all, John Christie was not only sired at Pemberley, he was a heroic grenadier of The Wars. Sally, so difficult to please in many ways, was satisfied with that. Her kin might not be together, but they would lie where their souls would be content.

  Lady Millhouse had looked with a keen eye as Sally Frances dutifully counted out repayment for all the expenses she had incurred along their journey. Her ladyship was taken with the girl’s singular pride and diligence. Impetuously, her ladyship said that she was much in want of taking her home that minute.

  “You shall have a bath and I will call the seamstress....”

  Sally was grossly insulted.

  “I ain’t like no dog to come lay by your fire.”

  Seeing she had overstepped, Lady Millhouse bethought her design. Sally was wilful; Lady Millhouse more so.

  “Do not be obstinate. I have need of your assistance. It is an employment that your brother would particularly approve.”

  Lifting her chin, Sally was all ears.

  Chapter 35

  What Duty Demands

  When she had learnt of the turn Sally Frances and Lady Millhouse’s scheme took, Elizabeth had been quite happy with her portion in it all. She had been so pleased that she veritably beamed when she had told her husband of it. Mr. Darcy, however, was a good deal less pleased than everyone else. Indeed, he was quite vexed when his wife told him.

  “Is she mad?” he spat out before he caught himself.

  He had not designated which female’s sanity he questioned, hence; his wife raised an inquiring eyebrow and waited patiently for him to do so. With one flick of his head in her direction, he both apologised for his curtness and told her his pique was directed elsewhere. His vexation should have been anticipated. Although he had not shared the particulars of the many tribulations he suffered to save John Christie’s body from being committed to a mass grave after the great Battle of Waterloo, she knew enough of them to see that his fit of temper was understandable. Before she could offer him her commiseration, he attempted to voice his reservations more succinctly. (In truth, it was more of a complaint.)

  “I went to a great deal of bother to see to it that the boy was buried properly. I am not altogether happy to learn all my trouble was for naught.”

  Suddenly, Elizabeth was not half so pleased with herself. Not only had she erred in encouraging the venture, the whole plan had stirred her husband’s recollections of exceedingly dreadful days. She did not speak in self-rebuke. That would imply justification and possibly beg further gentlemanly apologies. Rather, she went to him and pressed her forehead against his breast. This expression of regret meant far more to him than mere words.

  His enfolded her in his arms, saying, “Once our Miss Arbuthnot and good Lady Millhouse put their heads together, no mere mortal has any say in the matter.”

  In truth, the introductions may have been made, but a word from Darcy and Lady Millhouse would have abandoned the business altogether. They did not believe that it was theirs to thwart a sister on such quest—or a brother on his either. He withdrew his objections.

  “We must bear that which is inescapable,” he said.

  ———

  That past bid for shouldering one’s own travails became quite well-used.

  After the unexpected (and altogether) unnerving interruption of her Aunt and Uncle Gardiner’s connubial exchanges, Elizabeth feared facing them again. The first moments of breakfast were exceedingly uncomfortable. Her husband (as was his nature), remained entirely composed. Unknowing of the incident, the Bingleys and the Colonel Fitzwilliams conversed with ease and amiability. Elizabeth was pleased to believe that the Gardiners were unaware of her intrusion, just as they were pleased to believe she did not intrude.

  It was a great consolation to know that passion, as the Darcys knew and enjoyed it, could endure even after twenty years of marriage. That tenet was one she reminded herself of with regularity—and Darcy as well.

  Before, during, and after that visit, young Geoffrey Darcy had his own tribulations. They were small, but insistent, and he did not bear them well.

  As it happened, he had meant for his baby brother to be his (if not literal, at least spiritual) second when he lorded over his sister Janie. Regrettably, Janie claimed William as her own particular ally. She solicitously combed what there was of William’s honey coloured curls, oversaw his meals, wiped his chin, and generally hovered over him, whispering conspiratorially as she did. As he could not yet speak (but jabbered quite well), she usurped his will whenever she needed furtherance in her schemes to thwart Geoff’s increasing dictatorial behaviour.

  Somewhere, somehow, he had come by the information that he would one day (and forever more) hold the whip-hand over his sister.

  “You must do as I say, sister,” Geoff announced. “One day I shall be your master.”

  Flipping her hair defiantly, Janie refused him with one single, disobedient word.

  “No!”

  “You must do as I say!” demanded Geoff.

  “No.” she said.

  Witting that he should never hit his sister, he pulled a ribbon from her hair.

  “You must,” he pronounced evermore adamantly.

  “I shall not! I shall do as I want!”

  “You shall do as I say,” he said stiffly, his demeanour strikingly similar to his father’s own. “I am to inherit. You must do as I say or you shall be cast out.”

  Putting her ear to William’s jabbering little mouth, Janie pretended to interpret.

  She replied just as curtly, “Willy says that you are not anything unless Papa says so.”

  Geoff sputtered, “I heard William! He did not tell you that....”

  Airily, she replied, “You cannot hear him, for he speaks only to me.”

  “That is not so.” Geoff countered.

  His voice did not rise, but the colour in his cheeks did. William babbled happily.

  Wearing stately hauteur, Geoffrey Darcy claimed the office of William’s interpreter.

  Bowing next to the baby’s ear, Geoff said, “See there, he told me I am to be the master.”

  As Mr. Darcy overheard this conversation, he was of two minds upon it. He admired his oldest son in all ways (for he was, in all ways, quite like his father). He was also quite impressed with his daughter’s ingenuity. Quite probably this discourse was a precursor to many more arguments to come. He was also quite astonished that young Geoffrey, not only knew that he was to inherit, but that he had an elementary understanding of what that meant.

  Darcy intended to lead his son by example. However, he saw that an instructional talk was necessary. The Master of Pemberley was required to exhibit unfailing decorum and a certain level of humility. (If he was of true Darcy strain, decorum should come far more easily for him than reining in his pride.) To converse with his son it was necessary for Darcy to recall another conversation between a boy and his father—the circumstances whereof he would have liked to forget.

  Darcy had been considerably older when his father instructed him upon what it meant to be master of such a vast estate as Pemberley. He had been remonstrated only after he had engaged in a serious affront to his station with a very willing upstairs maid. (As the upshot of that seemingly innocent tryst was reverberating about the great halls of Pemberley still yet, he did not try to justify that youthful indiscretion.) He had admired his father above all other men. Therefore, that verbal switching stayed with him always. When he learnt that his father was just a man and not a god, he loved him no less. He could only hope that he inspired the same loyalty in his own son.

  Calling to Geoff, Darcy drew him to his knee. It was a test not to tousle the boy’s head, but the solemn expression upon his small countenance begged otherwise. It was evident that he knew his father meant to engage him in manly conversation for he stood with his hands folded behind his back.

  “Begone, sister,” Ge
off said over his shoulder, lest she interrupt them.

  Had her father looked in his daughter’s direction, he might have observed the rude gesticulation she gifted her brother. He would not have approved. (It would remain for her mother to explain to her what was expected of a gentlewoman.) Her gesture did not escape Mrs. Heff’s notice—nor Franny’s (whose look of disapproval was ignored by her young ward). Both the nurses scurried to Janie’s side and Franny took her by the hand.

  Margaret mumbled, “Law, where do these babes learn such foul business?”

  Darcy disregarded that small contretemps and recollected the very words his own father employed in elucidating how he must never be ruled by anything other than the highest of motives and the worthiest of principles. His son was but four, so he paraphrased.