by Kate Bedlow
And so he had begrudgingly encouraged the time she spent in London, immersed in society, which meant she also spent much time with his wild sister-in-law, Lydia Bennet. During one of Georgiana’s longer absences from home, he had begun to see the merits of Elizabeth’s fancy.
Perhaps his sister would prefer a quiet life near her ancestral home over being wife to a peer. Life as a society hostess could quite possibly be anathema to Georgiana.
And so he had listened to Elizabeth’s daydreams. Midwinter was a gentleman, after all, related to a baron. And clever enough that becoming bishop one day was no idle ambition. Why, Darcy’s grandfather had built St. Mary’s rectory with the aim of its housing a future archbishop!
If Georgie truly loves him, Elizabeth had said, there can be no objection to the match. After all, you married far below your expectations, and it has all turned out rather splendidly—aside from the rather opinionated mother-in-law who came with the bargain.
So true!
Midwinter’s uncle, Mr. Clackston, had been getting old even then (and more recently struggled to deliver his sermons as much as his parishioners did to receive them). One day, he might like to retire, Elizabeth had reasoned. Then Mr. and Mrs. Midwinter could move into the rectory, and they would all live within a five-minute walk of each other. Their children would grow up together.
As to the inequality of their fortunes, the living at St. Mary’s was one of the most lucrative in Great Britain and the rectory was a fine house. Georgiana would have plenty of servants, and she could stable her carriages at Pemberley, just as the rector kept his now. She would suffer no degradation there.
Elizabeth had been in raptures thinking of how it would be, as if she had taken on the guise of her mama, an infamous matchmaker.
But Darcy could not fault her. It was a seductive picture, and he was so caught up in her enthusiasm that when the Lambton living became vacant and she expressed the desire that Midwinter have it, he had used his influence to make it so. After all, there was nothing he would not do to ensure his sister’s happiness.
All for naught. After two years, the two were not engaged.
But Elizabeth had yet to let go of her object, and Darcy wished to find out for himself how things stood, so he had included the vicar in today’s shooting party. He felt quite smug about his scheme, actually. He could not lose! Even should nothing come of it, Elizabeth would reward him with kisses when she learned of his gesture.
Darcy observed Midwinter now. Everything about the man was admirable. His manners, his opinions, his competence. But apparently he was an idiot. Somehow, he had let a pearl beyond price slip away.
Despite his idiocy in the one area, Midwinter was a conscientious clergyman. Knowing he would share his kill with the poor of his parish, which bordered on but was not part of the estate, Darcy had offered the inducement in this morning’s note.
One could hardly write, Dear fellow, come have a shoot with four imposing gentlemen who have Georgiana’s best interests at heart and wish to know if you are a cad or merely a fool.
Chapter 2
In the hour and a half they had spent together, Midwinter had been fine company, and of course he had betrayed no sign of feeling for Georgiana. Perversely, this only made Darcy wish the man would do so.
In plain fact, Georgiana was getting on, long past the age when their sort usually married. This despite all her time in London gallivanting with Lydia, for the good it did her—not that he expected any more business in the way of the Ramsgate affair. Georgiana had long since proved she possessed a good head on her shoulders.
Still, the day his precious sister was safely wed and established in her own home would be the day a great burden of worry fell from his shoulders. If that home were a five-minute walk from Pemberley, so much the better. He indulged not only Elizabeth in this fancy with Midwinter, but himself.
“My wife is gratified you are able to attend the ball this year, Midwinter,” he said. “As am I.”
“I thank you and Mrs. Darcy for the honor of the invitation,” the vicar said respectfully. “I was sorry to decline last year. As you may know, my aunt in Manchester was quite ill. My sister lives with her, but Amy sometimes finds it difficult to cope.”
“No need to explain.” Prying into another man’s privacy was distasteful. Until a gentleman proved otherwise, Darcy assumed he acted for the best.
The beaters returned, having found Midwinter’s pheasant, and one of them affixed it onto the back of his horse with his other birds.
“Do you ever miss, sir?”
“It so happens I do, sir.” The corner of Midwinter’s mouth twitched and he added, “On rare occasion.”
All the men laughed.
“But then,” the vicar added graciously, “these fine long guns practically ensure success, do they not?”
“For which we have Lord Farley to thank,” Darcy said. “Richard’s advice as to my sporting gun collection has been invaluable.”
Richard had learned about such things when he was still Colonel Fitzwilliam, working secretly as a spymaster for the Crown. Always one to collect only the finest of everything, Darcy had consulted his cousin in acquiring pieces whenever he could find them in excellent condition or capable of being restored by expert gunsmiths.
“Yet again my life is improved for having found my cousin,” Quartermaine said. “Well done, Richard.”
Carleton Quartermaine was a cousin by marriage, the son of Lady Catherine’s late husband’s late sister, and more gregarious than Darcy could ever desire to be. He liked to be called Carley, which felt ridiculous on the tongue. Though Quartermaine appeared light-hearted, even frivolous at times, he was a good judge of character, a man of taste, charismatically handsome, had a stunning singing voice, and almost always won at cards. Everything appeared to come easy to the fellow.
His childhood, however, had not been easy. But rather than leave him bitter, hardship had acted upon Quartermaine as a crucible to produce a gentleman of many virtues. He and Midwinter were already getting on famously, and as Quartermaine pushed in with his usual good-natured audacity, the two had discovered mutual familial miseries to laugh over.
“The old baron was a mean article in every way,” Midwinter said now with an easy smile. “I was taught to waste nothing, including bullets.”
“Was?”
“My grandfather has long shuffled off this mortal coil.”
So far as Darcy could tell, Midwinter’s grandfather had never done him any good, for all the old man had been a baron. The connection may have, perhaps, raised his lights in Lord Matlock’s estimation when Darcy and Richard recommended him for the Lambton living, but it was far more likely the recommendation itself which had carried the day there, coming from the earl’s own son and nephew.
“Am I to understand then that you are the new baron’s heir?”
Quartermaine’s natural curiosity felt like intrusiveness to Darcy. Elizabeth always assured him that people adored being asked about themselves, but he was certain that was a mistaken prejudice on her part. At all events, it was not his own experience.
Midwinter smiled affably. “Not at all. The current baron is quite robust. My father, his brother, was a second son and something of a black sheep.”
“Ha! Another thing we have in common,” Quartermaine said. “Mine was a rogue preacher who inspired frame-breakers and Luddites. Yours?”
“Went to sea as a youth to escape the old baron, which apparently satisfied them both. When my father married to please his heart, Grandfather disowned him entirely, leaving my parents with nothing to live on but a naval officer’s pay. My mother’s people were not well pleased by the marriage either.”
His mother’s people. Meaning her brother, Mr. Fortitude Clackston, the aging rector of St. Mary’s.
“But Mr. Clackston did not disown you.” Darcy felt called to defend his rector. “He secured your position with Mr. Hanson.”
Midwinter’s mouth twitched again, but he expressed his
amusement no further.
True, the position at Lambton had been no great favor. The curacy had paid practically nothing, yet obligated the curate to perform the entirety of the vicar’s clerical duties while Hanson absented himself to take the waters at Bath.
“It was a first step toward better things,” Midwinter acknowledged. “And I was grateful to him for it.”
“Clackston must have sponsored your education, surely.” Darcy’s own curiosity got the better of him, though considering the rector’s character, he knew what the answer must be.
“He wrote the necessary letters to secure my place at university.”
“And supplied the necessary funds, one would hope.” Quartermaine again.
Midwinter did not take offense but answered quite readily. “My uncle is a careful man. He does not part with any part of his fortune if he can help it. The funds came from another quarter, my father’s sister—the aunt I visit. She is a childless widow with money of her own to spend. I was most fortunate she wished to spend a little of it on me.”
“I thought your Midwinter relatives were impoverished,” Richard joined in. “This does not fit the picture.”
“Aunt Perpetua was also something of a black sheep.” Midwinter smiled fondly. “She married a merchant from Manchester—again, against my grandfather’s wishes. Mr. Stone had retired, having made a goodly sum, but in the baron’s eyes the money was not sufficient to remove the taint of the shop.”
“Same song, another verse.” Bingley smiled affably.
“Steady on there, Bingley,” Richard said. “You do all right.”
Charles was the son of a merchant whose fortune had been sufficient to remove the taint and secure his family’s place in society. Caroline’s portion had once been equal to Georgiana’s and now must be far greater, for she added to it herself through schemes of her own.
Now he thought about it, Darcy wondered if Caroline Bingley might be a more dangerous influence on Georgiana than Lydia Bennet could ever dream of.
“My grandfather’s fastidiousness did him more harm than good,” Midwinter said. “His tyranny drove away all who might have loved him. My aunt married out of self-preservation, to get away, but I understand she did care for her husband. And through her pedigree, Mr. Stone found his entrée into the society he craved.”
“A happy ending then,” Quartermaine said.
“Not quite. We will never know if Stone would have been happy in his new life or made a good husband. His first late night supper in Mayfair, he choked to death on a quail bone. He left all his fortune to his wife. As I said, with no children of her own and more money than she knew what to do with, she supplied the funds for my studies at Oxford.” Midwinter paused, then said quietly, “Though no more than the minimum necessary.”
He appeared to add that last for Darcy’s benefit, and the two men exchanged a look.
Ah. Darcy began to understand. He nodded slightly, so that only Midwinter caught the gesture.
“Take heart, sir,” Richard said. “You may yet inherit. No one is more shocked than I to find myself called Lord Farley.”
“That will not happen,” Midwinter said. “My robust uncle has four robust sons, each ready to take on the burden of that privilege.”
“It is a burden, for all you may joke.” Quartermaine sobered. “My uncle, Lord Quartermaine, another miserly wretch, has lived a long and angry life, his bitterness taken out on his estate as well as his family. When I do inherit—though I would not put it past him to live forever out of spite—I will receive a great pile brought low and in desperate need of repair, an estate comprised of rotting cottages, depressed and abused cottagers, abandoned farms, mismanaged livestock, and a woods taken over by outlaws who fancy themselves the direct descendants of Robin Hood.”
“Egad, Carley,” Charles said. “You will have your work cut out for you there.”
“Like assuming command of a regiment too long poorly led,” Richard said in disdain.
Quartermaine smiled as if he had just sat down to a game of whist. “In truth, I cannot wait. The inmates of my uncle’s estate deserve a better master, and I believe they will rally with the right encouragement. I hold Cousin Fitzwilliam here as my model.”
“You could not do better,” Charles said with conviction, which pleased Darcy no end. He and Charles had quarreled bitterly last month over the very Corn Laws now affecting the price of bread. They had begun to resolve their differences while in Hertfordshire over Christmas, and it was good to feel their friendship on solid ground again.
“We second sons and sons of second sons must make the best of things,” Quartermaine told Midwinter. “The alternative simply will not do. Cousin Richard and I took the king’s coin. But you preferred the church. I confess that choice confounds me.”
“Of course it does.” Richard laughed. “If you were a clergyman, Carley, you would have to give up the card tables.”
“Never!” Quartermaine said in mock horror. “Whist and Commerce covered more of my expenses when I was in the army than my pay packet ever did.”
“It is debt which cannot be tolerated. A clergyman may play, so long as he wins,” Midwinter said. “I rarely play because I rarely win, and I possess not the fortune to cover the losses.”
Again, a statement seemed aimed Darcy’s way. While Mr. Midwinter might admire Georgiana (or was aware she might admire him), he apparently appreciated that he could not afford to marry her.
Frankly, the man’s good sense was to be admired. It was a reasonable, even considerate, position—which Midwinter was certainly entitled to and which Darcy would respect.
Nor would he regret his part in Midwinter’s receiving the Lambton living and elevation to vicar. Midwinter performed his duties well—better than Hanson had ever done—and was just the sort of fellow one liked in a clergyman: practical, intelligent, conscientious, genial, and gentlemanly, not given to so fervent a vocation to be alarming.
And he had taken no advantage of the close association he had enjoyed with Georgiana when he first came to the neighborhood. To his credit, he never mentioned the chandlery affair with Robert Townes and Hannah Brown.
“I would not overtax your generosity,” Midwinter said. “I had better get these back to Mrs. Pruitt and make myself presentable for tonight.”
“We’ve all shot our fill, I wager.” Darcy called for the grooms to bring the other horses. The beaters would restore the shotguns to the armory and deliver the remainder of the kill to the kitchen. Mrs. White was to have her choice of birds for tomorrow’s Feast of the Epiphany, with the remainder going to St. Mary’s parish poor. “Shall we head back, gentlemen?”
They moved quietly over the snow-covered terrain, their horses at a walk. After some time, Midwinter broke the silence.
“I prefer the church on its merits.” He spoke as if he had been seriously considering the matter. “My father died in the year five at Trafalgar, but before then I had often heard him speak of his life at sea. The battles did not at all appeal, nor a life aboard ship in general.”
“Do not let the commodore hear you say such a thing,” Darcy offered. “You will break his heart.”
“Has Harrington arrived then?” Richard said. “I look forward to seeing the fellow again.”
“Elizabeth had a letter from his niece. We expect him sometime today.”
“So begins the next skirmish in the commodore’s campaign for the redoubtable Mrs. Bennet,” Quartermaine said.
“Indeed.” Darcy chuckled.
Over Christmas, his widowed mother-in-law had attracted an ardent admirer in the person of the new tenant of Netherfield Park, Commodore Jeremiah Harrington. The retired man of the navy had lustily announced before Mrs. Bennet’s entire family his determination to win her hand. With Midwinter signaling a stand-down from any pursuit of Georgiana, perhaps Elizabeth would be satisfied with a match made between the commodore and her mama.
She was going to be unhappy to hear of Midwinter’s pulling back, but
Darcy understood why he would do so—no man wishes to feel inferior to his wife. In fact, he respected the vicar all the more for his good sense. With no little relief, Darcy put away forever thoughts of a match between his sister and the vicar.
His dear wife, on the other hand, had nurtured the idea too long to surrender it easily. Therefore, Darcy rode back to Pemberley happy in the knowledge that, despite nothing coming of it, Elizabeth would be quite pleased with her darling husband for including Midwinter in today’s shooting party.
Chapter 3
At the moment, Elizabeth Darcy was not at all pleased with her darling husband. Sometimes that man was simply… insufferable!
So far the morning had been entirely unsatisfactory. She had not slept well and had risen earlier than she liked. Breakfast was toast and tea, for sadly she could not tolerate coffee in her interesting condition. After a harrowing sledge ride wherein Mama had taken the reins, Elizabeth had arrived with her mother and sister-in-law at the Lambton vicarage only to be sorely disappointed.
Her scheme to let Georgiana and Mr. Midwinter spend a little time together before tonight’s ball—a plan put into motion with some difficulty—had been thwarted by Fitzwilliam’s interference.
Mr. Midwinter was not here.
The vicar had gone to Pemberley, invited, Mrs. Pruitt proudly informed them, to join Mr. Darcy in a shooting party, along with Lord Farley and several other gentlemen staying at Pemberley. Fitzwilliam had slept in Elizabeth’s room last night. He might have said something!
“The vicar is grateful for Mr. Darcy’s kindness, and so will the parish poor be. If Mr. Midwinter shoots four birds, you can be sure three will be provided to tomorrow’s feast.”
A mix of pride and irritation seemed at war in Mrs. Pruitt’s manner, as if she wished the vicar would keep the balance of the game for the household even as she acknowledged it far pleasanter to serve a kind and thoughtful master than a miserly one.
Uncharitably, Elizabeth thought of her cousin, Mr. Collins. Were he still in residence at Hunsford, she suspected his largesse would be reversed: one bird for the poor and the balance kept back for the parsonage.