by J. L. Ashton
As the couple left the room, it struck Darcy that Anne had likely no opportunity to introduce her husband to anyone whose approval mattered. Although the man had received no blessing before the vows, he still was due their interrogation. And that was not all.
“By the looks of him,” Richard observed acidly, “the beau nasty might have benefited from a bit of advice before the wedding night.”
Darcy scowled in reply. “Have you not seen Anne’s…um, figure? They have been wedded but six weeks, and that babe she carries is much further along. She has had the…what is it called…the quickening?”
“Damn it to hell! We are trapped in a parsonage filled with books, cobwebs, and page after page of discarded sermons but not one bottle of brandy?” Richard looked to Darcy. “Gadzooks, we are spending the night here. I must forage for supplies.”
Darcy watched through the window as his cousin mounted his horse and rode off. When he turned, Dumfries was standing behind him.
“Sir, I believe we are due a conversation,” the man said, peering up at him with narrowed eyes.
Darcy flushed with anger. “Do you? I believe you have a long list of past due conversations. Let them begin with me.” He strode into the study, which was filled with reminders of Collins’s dull piety and lacking any warmth or comfort—though it smelled faintly of fish. Darcy leaned against the desk, folded his arms, and faced down Anne’s husband.
“Who are you? How is it that this series of events has unfolded—my cousin with child, married, and turned out of her home, and her mother telling wild tales of her death?”
Dumfries sank onto the small, worn settee and stared up at his wife’s angry, imposing cousin. “If I might begin at the beginning?”
“Oh, I think the beginning and the middle would be advisable. Only then shall we determine whether there is a reasonable ending.”
Dumfries nodded.
“How did you meet Anne? Who is your father, your mother?”
His father, Dumfries said, was a surgeon who, years ago, had consulted on Sir Lewis de Bourgh as his health failed. Peregrine and his older brother, Percival, had accompanied him. Percival was now a surgeon as well, and he, Peregrine, worked with him as an illustrator for a book of surgeries. Earlier this year, Percival had examined Anne during one of her bouts with fever and cough. She was especially ill with a lung ailment at that time, and the two men spent more than a fortnight at Rosings. As Anne’s health improved, she took an interest in his drawing.
“I gave her a few lessons. I made sketches of her.” He smiled in a manner that recalled a milk-sated pup. “Some are only for my eyes.”
Darcy bit back the bile rising in his throat. Thankfully, Richard is not here. There would be blood on his fist by now.
“And over the course of a few weeks, we fell in love.”
“In love. With Anne.” Darcy peered at the man. “Forgive me, but this is incomprehensible.”
“You have known your cousin all her life. Do you not see her intelligence and wit and how those manifest into beauty?” Dumfries rose and stalked to the window. “You, sir, have not valued my Anne.”
My Anne? Darcy stared at the man’s back. “I have always esteemed Anne as my friend.”
Dumfries whirled around, his colour high and voice pitched sharper than seemed natural. “I have to ask you, sir. Are you here to challenge me, or is it as Anne assures me? That you never planned a proposal.”
Darcy’s jaw dropped. “What kind of jest—?”
“Anne’s mother. Her fury was directed at me, and among her accusations was that I compromised her daughter in order to steal her from you, her promised suitor.”
“He was never Anne’s promised suitor,” growled a grim voice. Richard entered the room carrying a bottle in each hand. “You, Mr. Dumfries, are the only suitor our cousin has ever known. And a skulking one at that.”
He set down the bottles, pulled three glasses from his coat pocket, and poured them each a generous serving. Darcy took his gratefully but Dumfries demurred. Richard gave him a bemused stare.
“The larger question is: Why Anne? Her fortune?”
“Her fortune?” Dumfries sputtered. “No, her mother controls that. It is her eyes—her lovely eyes—her dimples, and the glow of her gentle spirit.” He looked at them solemnly. “I am a painter. She is a goddess. Neither of you sees this?”
Neither did. They tried, earnestly, as the evening wore on, replete with lovesick murmurings, tepid tea, and a tasteless dinner. Anne was sorely correct in missing Rosings’s cook. Mrs. Jenkinson had little talent in the kitchen and relied upon the help of a local girl to put together simple meals. If there was one dish an army man never wished to taste on a night out of uniform, it was mutton stew.
Richard, never at a loss for words, made clear to Anne that her cousins might not fully understand her current entanglement but would do nothing to fight it. Wedded, consummated, in whatever haphazard order, it was futile to fight it.
“We must get you back in your mother’s good graces so your child can have a decent meal.”
Anne beamed and laid her head on her husband’s shoulder. “You see, Peregrine? They are wonderful boys.”
Dinner behind them, the two men chose to forgo further conversation with the couple and retired to the chambers they would share. “Ye gods, I could swear that was bow-wow mutton in that broth,” Richard muttered. “Awful stuff. I wonder whether all the dogs have gone missing.”
Darcy chose not to think on their thin, foul-tasting repast. Tomorrow would be another dreadfully long, unpleasant day. There were papers to be examined and decisions to be made here, then violent arguments to be had back in London. First, he needed sleep. “I never knew our cousin so cared for her possessions,” he said after peeking into the spare room packed floor to ceiling with crates, boxes, and trunks of Anne’s paraphernalia. “I feel I never knew her at all.”
Settling into the room, they tiredly removed their boots. “What are we to do, Darcy? Our cousin is happy, never mind that she is immodestly in love with, and married to, a fop.”
“And carrying his child.” Darcy’s voice strained with disgust as he struggled out of his jacket.
Richard groaned. “Please, no more! How is it that our aunt shirked her duties and did not call out instructions through the doorjamb? Mayhap, she left a note?”
“What did you say?” Darcy asked in a tired voice, pulling off his cravat and unbuttoning his waistcoat.
“I had always imagined her hovering about on the wedding night.”
“You did what?”
“Er, nothing.” Richard threw his vest and cravat on the chair and looked around for an extra blanket. “Good lord, they are an awful pair. They never stopped touching each other in our presence. Imagine their behaviour when alone.”
“Oh, I think I shall not.” Darcy shuddered. “It is remarkable how much Anne is under his sway, and her mood is far more pleasant than I can recall since…ever.”
“What has he done to her, besides the obvious?”
“Love?” Darcy folded his trousers and slid under the covers. Blast! The mattress was, as he had anticipated, from a prior century and had rarely seen re-stuffing.
“Hardly. He is a saucy bugger, is he not?”
“That hardly bears comment, Richard. You are the more knowledgeable military man.”
The colonel’s eyes widened, and he chuckled. “Aren’t you the filthy one?” He uncorked the remaining brandy and took a swig. “I shall need to be drunk to sleep in this house.”
Darcy agreed but declined the liquid assistance. “By the way, how did you get to town and secure brandy so quickly?”
“Oh…I had forgotten that one of my secret hiding places was close by.” At Darcy’s raised eyebrows, he rather sheepishly explained. “Lady Catherine would always hav
e our rooms searched for liquor and engagement rings, you know. I have found hollow trees to be extremely useful things while visiting her.”
Too tired to be shocked any further by his aunt’s behaviour, Darcy laughed in understanding. He shifted under the thin blanket and observed aloud that Dumfries’s chin mole slipped while he chewed, which sent Richard into a coughing fit of laughter.
“The man is an artist. He needs to study his paints a bit better or find a bigger mirror!”
“Think on it, Richard.” Darcy held up a hand to quiet his cousin. “It was good of God to let Anne and Dumfries marry each other, thus making only two people miserable and not four.”
Richard sighed. “If they get a foothold back into Rosings, it is likely that the steward, housemaids, and footmen will be miserable as well.”
“Yes, but they at least are recompensed for their misery. I would assume a happy Anne and a sweet baby would alleviate some of the gloom for the servants.” Darcy heard Richard’s chuckle. “We must ensure to raise their wages from whatever Lady Catherine was paying them.”
“Darcy, what was that woman thinking, closing the house and lying about her daughter’s death? How do we fix this?”
Suddenly, both men heard high-pitched squeals of laughter, followed quickly by a prolonged guttural moan and the creaking of springs. Within seconds, the wall behind them began to take abuse from an oak headboard.
“There is not enough brandy in two counties to erase this night from my memory,” Richard groaned. He threw a pillow over his head.
Chapter Ten
The meeting with Peter Fitzwilliam, Earl of Matlock, was only the first of three colloquium horribilis. Lady Matlock and Georgiana were visiting the shops when the two cousins arrived at the house, allowing them to be as frank and, in Richard’s case, as bawdy as necessary. Lord Matlock, not a man known for repressing his anger, sat completely still as his son and his nephew told the long, twisting tale of their cousin Anne: her secret swain turned husband, her delicate yet oddly robust condition carrying the impending heir, the couple’s less than luxurious living conditions, and the pitiable state of Rosings.
Richard watched his father carefully for signs of apoplexy. Anne’s presence above ground and her stomach swollen with child belied long-held notions about the weakness of the Fitzwilliam constitution. It was a shocking turn of events, and his father was known for his volatility. The fireplace was swept often for shards of the brandy glasses thrown there during arguments with his sons, friends, peers, and neighbours. Only his wife’s calm presence could mollify him once his wrath was fully engaged. At times, Richard wondered whether his father was cognisant of his similarity to his only living sister.
However, this time, his response was unexpectedly delayed. Cool and collected, Lord Matlock asked for the specific details of their journey.
“Did you see the wedding licence?”
“Yes, sir. Legally, all was as it should be.”
“So…” The earl leaned back in his chair. “We have a wedding licence and no death notice.”
Richard saw Darcy glance at the table where a decanter and two glass tumblers awaited their sacrifice to the fireplace bricks. He seemed uneasy with his uncle’s tranquil demeanour.
“So…”
Oh, this is truly odd. Mayhap he will simply fall over. Richard braced himself.
“Anne has found herself a husband—a man of a lower social sphere who proclaims to love her but married her in secret and impregnated her.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And thus Anne—wan, sullen, sickly, sneezy, wheezy Anne—will bear the first Fitzwilliam grandchild.” The earl looked hard at Richard.
“Sir, if you recall, I am unwed. My brother, however, married these three years, could be called to task on the issue. Or, mayhap, the lack of an issue.”
He smirked. The fuse was lit. His father jumped out of his chair.
“Damn it, Richard! Anne was left vulnerable to the arts and allurements of a foppish painter. Rosings Park lies exposed to the machinations of whatever this man might have planned.” The earl paced the floor, one fist punching the air, the other free to arm itself with glassware. “He busies himself doing the rumpity-pumpity with Anne in that rotting excuse for a parsonage, and my sister has fled, rejecting the marriage, denying the child, and claiming her daughter dead. This is madness!”
Never a small man, the earl loomed over the two men who were three decades younger and made smaller by hunger and fatigue. “Could neither of you boys do your duty and marry her? Beget an heir or two and take a mistress who has the fleshy figure and pointy dugs any man craves?”
“Uncle, you know that is not fair.” Darcy cringed, seemingly aware that he sounded like a ten-year-old.
“From the cradle, Darcy, as my sister claims. You could have honoured that promise, and we would not be in this bloody predicament!”
Richard’s head spun; his father’s much-anticipated apoplexy seemed imminent. But Darcy was livid.
“I did not honour it,” Darcy spat, his hands fisted and shaking, “as it was neither my mother’s promise nor the truth! It was another of your sister’s prevarications. You know this, and now all of this matters. All of it.” He glared at his uncle, obviously furious that the blame for choices and mistakes made by Anne and Lady Catherine were being laid at his door.
“Father, what is done is done. Anne is married and has consummated her vows. Repeatedly.” Richard closed his eyes for a moment, willing away the sickening memories of the cries, moans, and thumping springs that had kept him awake the night before. Whoever thought a cock robin could enjoy a woman—a woman like Anne—so robustly? Or that she would enjoy it so loudly?
“Those facts, and these, are before us,” he continued. “She is carrying the child of a popinjay and appears bewilderingly happy. Rosings is in disrepair with no servants to care for it. And Lady Catherine has spread lies and slander across the countryside about her daughter’s death.”
“It is wretched, I tell you,” the earl growled, glaring at Richard. “I fear your mother’s wrath on my idiot sister.”
Darcy grimaced and implored his uncle to calm down. “We need to address those concerns that have a resolution and determine a way forward through the lies and mistruths.”
The older man nodded, but when he eyed the glass tumblers sitting a few feet away, Darcy sat up quickly and spoke with great urgency. “We have directed Mr. Beeker, Rosings’s steward, to re-hire the servants or find new people as needed. He was in possession of a key to the kitchens, and he will open the house for Anne and Pe…her husband.”
“Peregrine,” Lord Matlock said sourly. “Did the girl we thought was frail as a bird truly marry a man named for a bird?” The earl looked at the two exhausted men seated before him. “My sister is mad. Why did she not announce that Anne is off to the seaside or to Scotland? Why claim her as dead? She has placed the family in an impossible position!”
All three could agree on that point. The earl, saying he wished to drink and sulk and consider his next steps before facing his wife, dismissed Richard and Darcy until dinner the following evening. He had meetings with solicitors and lords filling his time, and he declared they would confront Lady Catherine two days hence.
Darcy said he wished for nothing more than to go home and take a bath. He smelled of fish, mutton, and perhaps spilled brandy. Richard pleaded a desperate need for sleep, sustenance, and the avoidance of his parents once his father told his mother the sordid tale, and he joined Darcy for the half-mile ride to Mayfair.
As they rode slowly towards Darcy House. Richard’s mind focused on the larder there and the good care Mrs. Hopkins would give to “the poor boys.” Yes, we few, we happy few. We band of brothers who avoided entanglement with Anne. So she caught herself a peregrine. A bird of prey. He chuckled quietly.
***
>
Darcy spent the few blocks thinking on his family’s present circumstances and wishing he had had a moment with his sister. He had left her a note requesting that she spend the following day with him at the menagerie. That thought brought a smile to his face. One small, happy thing amid all of this rot, decadence, and destruction.
And then he saw her. Elizabeth Bennet. Just as the first time he had laid eyes on her, she was holding hands with small children and laughing. Her eyes sparkled with joy as she swung their hands with graceful energy. The other woman holding hands with the older boy—Henry, was it?—must be the aunt, Mrs. Gardiner. The boy had her light eyes, not Lizzy’s flashing dark ones.
The small party turned the corner and disappeared from sight. Lizzy? He shook his head. Where did that come from? But he knew. It hit him with all the force of the moment and the emotions that had been roiling in him since he had heard of Anne’s “death.” Darcy knew he had been searching for one thing, one source of happy constancy. He had found her, paid her no serious attention in spite of enjoying her company, and assumed her to be promised away. What a rum-ned he was. But she was here, so close now. It was time, finally, to talk of more than books and ideas and butterflies. It was time to talk about love.
I love her.
The thought startled him. Warmed and frightened him. He had not spoken to her for well over a fortnight. He had gone off to Kenilworth to see his friends and left her to her nuptials. Oh, the happy confusion, needless worry, and misunderstanding! She could be his. She would be his. Tired and in need of a hot meal but jubilant with love and hope, Darcy kicked his horse and galloped around the corner after her.
Richard followed at a slower pace.
“Miss Bennet? Miss Elizabeth?”
As he approached, he saw Elizabeth, apparently startled by his fast-moving horse, pull the children tightly to her side. When she heard her name called, she looked up in alarm, which quickly turned to utter shock.
“Mr. Darcy?”