B006O3T9DG EBOK

by Berdoll, Linda

  Her French accent was always more marked when speaking to a gentleman she cared to charm. From the cut of his coat, he was a gentleman of discernment. (He was either well-born or well-fixed.) His hair was white as snow, yet his skin was not weathered whatsoever. He leaned heavily upon his cane and as they walked the length of the room, he told her candidly that he had taken his wound as a British officer.

  “Outre mer,” she whispered. “How courageux! You must have many medals!”

  Men loved to be complimented—most especially in regards to their courage. This man was no exception, but he had sense enough not to preen.

  “I would trade all my medals for two good legs any day,” he replied. “Only a lord can make a limp distingué.”

  His French was imperfect. But as he was the only marginally interesting gentleman she had found in the political milieu, she endeavoured to look pleased. A lifetime of convincing men that they were irresistible made that easy.

  He said, “You are quite used to men losing their hearts to you, are you not?”

  She slapped him lightly on the forearm with her fan and said, “Quelle impertinence!”

  He smiled. His witty retort, however, was drowned out as the crowd on the other side of the wall exploded into wild applause.

  Mr. Thomas bowed, saying, “Your husband takes the podium.”

  Looking towards the cheers, she observed, “The people seem to admire him.”

  “And you, do you admire him as do they?” asked Alistair.

  His question was brazen. She answered it in a tone that begged neither tidings nor commiseration. Pausing briefly, she looked coyly at him over her shoulder.

  “My husband brings me great joy....” said she. “Every time he leaves the room.”

  Mr. Thomas, limp and all, reached the door before her. He opened it for her with a fascinating combination of obsequious ticks and sexual gravitas. That pleased her.

  Just as the applause quieted and Howgrave took his place before the crowd, he turned towards his wife’s empty chair. As always, her timing was superb. With the assistance of Mr. Alistair Thomas, she ascended the steps of the dais as if a grand duchess. Raising one hand, she extended two fingers and accepted a second, even greater ovation. Thus introduced, she reclaimed her chair and looked lovingly at her husband. She did not see, but knew regardless, that Alistair’s eyes were not on the prestigious man of Parliament speaking. His unabashed admiration was directed at his wife.

  She did not reproach him. It was but a harmless flirtation.

  He was beneath her, but still a man.

  With liberties forsaken and sedition at hand, Lady Howgrave was happy to have a gentleman’s undivided attention. As she looked out onto the shrieking mob, she was quite unruffled. It would take far more than a torch-bearing, rock-throwing melee to discompose her. The English were so... uninspired. When they began to chop heads off on the steps of St. James palace, she would make note. Until then, she would sit and smile in public—and in private long for her husband’s castration. All was not lost.

  “Vouloir, c’est pouvoir.” Where there’s a will, they say, there’s a way.

  Darcy would come. He was the way, the light, the beginning, and the end.

  And if he did not come, she would go to him.

  Chapter 52

  The Great Beyond

  The sad business of commemorating death had given Elizabeth Darcy ample excuse to keep from travelling anywhere.

  In the dreadful days following their loss, Elizabeth had begun to admire the simplicity of the past. When Hertfordshire was mentioned, Mrs. Bennet’s quarrelsome nature came to Darcy’s mind. However, her mother had no part in Elizabeth’s reminisces. She recalled nothing but her father’s warmth and Jane’s companionship. The thought of the twins playing in the same park she had as a child cheered her.

  Their conversation of that sunny morn was furthered that eve.

  “The children are old enough to enjoy humbler surroundings,” Elizabeth told her husband.

  His silence in no way implied acquiescence. Indeed, Mr. Darcy was aghast. He saw no reason under the sun for his children to enjoy beggarly environs. They would live their lives under the auspices of Pemberley and its largess. Those of lower station who bid audience would come to them.

  He checked those thoughts.

  It was surprisingly easy to regain his contemptuous leanings. He reminded himself that the doltish inhabited all rungs of society. Nobility was not assignable. If it would improve Elizabeth’s spirits to take their children to Longbourne, he would not object—so long as he was the overseer of the journey.

  Although Darcy would not think of his family travelling all the way to Hertfordshire without him, he did not plan to tarry at Longbourne the length of their stay. Once they were settled in with maids and footmen, he knew he must take that time to attend to certain affairs in London. He had been long from town and certain business could not be seen to from Derbyshire.

  He announced, “I shall accompany you to Meryton and thither I shall go to London. I have business in town.”

  She raised her eyebrow, inquiring, “Shall you be much engaged with Bingley’s affairs?”

  “I shall see to no one’s business but my own,” said he.

  They seldom spoke of what had occurred the last time he went to town without her. It was an escapade filled with menace and unseemly doings. They had attended locales where good intentions meant little and life was cheap. Extortion and bribery ruled the day. Indeed, they were fortunate to have escaped with their lives. London had not improved in recent years.

  “The Prince Regent’s carriage was not immune to rioters,” Elizabeth said quietly.

  She was in want—nay, in need—of reassurance.

  He reminded her, “That was well above a year ago....”

  “Calm has hardly been restored. If anything, violence has increased,” she said.

  He assured her, “I shall keep to the West End.”

  “Your coach... it shall announce your class.”

  “I shall not be alone.”

  “Four footmen,” she said firmly.

  “Two,” he countered.

  “Four,” she insisted.

  He placed his hand atop hers. As it dwarfed hers twice over, it was a comfort. Indeed, he struck a commanding figure. Few men dared challenge him. Although he was not by nature confrontational, his personal rectitude often led him unaccompanied into battles that were not his alone to fight. Her worry was not compleatly assuaged.

  To her even greater relief, he acquiesced to the four footmen, saying, “As you wish.”

  With well-practised precision, she spread her fingers. Clasping hands, they were bound together.

  He whispered, “I promise I shall stay safe.”

  ———

  Although it was often said that children are equal parts boon and bother, the Darcys were not of that mind even before their great misfortune. Mrs. Darcy came under particular scrutiny by certain ladies of condition for what they saw as an unnatural indulgence in her young ones. This accusation remained unchallenged. Although dutiful to her position in society, Elizabeth Darcy believed that the manner wherein she chose to nurture her children was of no concern to anyone else.

  As she had not relegated her babies to a wet-nurse’s care, it should have come to no one’s surprise that when embarking upon a journey of some distance, she would not consign them to ride in the luggage coach. Indeed, it was her particular wish that she have her share in their excitement upon encountering every new vista. She bid Darcy’s opinion and his approval as well, for it would mean a concession for them both.

  He said, “In this, as in all things, I trust your judgement, Mrs. Darcy.”

  In his youth, Darcy abhorred taking a coach. When he travelled, it was by horseback, unless the weather insisted otherwise. When all of society adored prancing about in a barouche, he despised it. (To him such an equipage meant being forced into a sort of indentured servitude to the other travellers�
�knee to knee with silly ladies or pedantic gentlemen.) Such reservations all changed upon his first journey together with his new wife.

  Their nuptial night was taken in London. It had been exquisite—a triumph of his stamina and her very willing lucubration. However, it was upon the journey from thence that their love was solidified. No pleasure they enjoyed in his sumptuous bed surpassed those they partook on the road north to Derbyshire as a married couple. Theirs were two parts of one heart—and it beat with love, loyalty, and unrelenting lust.

  With the children in tow, passionate liaisons within the plush coach were out of the question. In designing their upcoming journey, the romanticism of those past would have to be set aside. Not only would it be a relinquishment of some magnitude, no doubt nerves would be tried as well. She would not allow him to escape the finger of blame simply by capitulating in favour of her judgement.

  Her voice was teasing, she said, “If our children misbehave, you must have your share in it.”

  Turning her head slightly askew, her eyes did not quit him. He glanced at her and hastily looked away.

  “I have no idea to what you refer,” he said stiffly.

  “I suppose not. I am the indulgent parent. Perhaps, I ask too much of you....”

  Before she realised it, he had come behind her and slid his arms beneath hers.

  Whispering in her ear, he said, “We do not indulge our children, we love them.”

  “You do not mind them intruding upon our privacy? At one time, we enjoyed nothing above a cloistered ride in the coach. ”

  “If we cannot outfox children not five years old, we do not deserve time alone.”

  “How long, pray, do you think they will believe we have yet to find my shoes?”

  Despite their banter, Mr. Darcy’s reminisces of pleasures past were no consolation when their upcoming sojourn promised none whatsoever. Yet, his forbearance was not over-worked. He also looked forward to their children’s excitement, even at the cost of reining in his own. (His hand would not have leave to wander.) He had to suppress a slight pout over his desires being controverted, but was not altogether successful. He busied himself out of his pique by attending to the many chores attached it their journey.

  Such a trip was a large undertaking, requiring the assembly of three coaches and their drivers, twelve horses and six footmen. Darcy’s inspection of each was meticulous. No pin, rod, or bolt was left to chance. Every button on the footmen and fetlock on each horse was scrutinized. The duteousness wherewith Mr. Darcy addressed all of these endeavours was of legend. (Behind such care was a recollection of another trip, quite the opposite in all ways of their first—that ordeal was so unendurable they rarely spoke of it.)

  Elizabeth watched these preparations from a window above. She had seen him make the same verifications, examinations, and confirmations a dozen times. Fastidious in all things, Mr. Darcy was most mindful of his horses. Stamina was essential in the planning of each journey. Of primary importance was that the trip was broken in a propitious fashion. Common thought was that the horses’ exertions should be rewarded every fifteen miles. Darcy spoke to Edward Hardin and lectured the coachmen. No stone was left unturned in assuring a safe trip.

  Darcy was not the only one who had looked upon their travels with near-wanton expectation. Elizabeth had enjoyed the privacy of their coach as much as her husband. Indeed, upon their first journey to Pemberley, she had been altogether astonished what a churched couple could engage in so long as windows were covered. Gazing down upon her husband, she gave a sigh of regret for what once was.

  From afar she heard the excited exchanges of Janie and Geoff. Darcy and Elizabeth found ample recompense in their children’s delight.

  When at last they were on their way, the children were again cautioned to mind their behaviour. Both crossed their ankles and folded their hands in their lap. Mr. and Mrs. Darcy exchanged glances. Elizabeth set a penny upon the seat between them.

  She told her husband, “I wager this quiet does not last until the lodge post.”

  Of a mind that a word from him was all that was required to keep his children in check, Darcy took the penny and placed it in the pocket inside his waistcoat

  “I spoke to them most firmly,” he replied. “They have promised to be good.”

  Elizabeth smiled sweetly. “Good” meant many things to many people. She hoped that his confidence would be well-rewarded.

  It was not.

  The twins began to bicker as they crossed the bridge a half mile from the portico. This disagreement came about because each believed the other had a better view out the window. With only a glare from their father they desisted.

  Darcy told Elizabeth, “The reverberation of their voices inside this coach makes me long for deafness.”

  She smiled; happy that was merely a jest. Darcy was quite pleased that he could rein in his children so easily. He saw disciplining their children as a simple task. One only needed to speak to them firmly.

  However, once his father looked away, Geoff made faces at Janie. She glowered. Emboldened, he withdrew previously hidden paper from his waistband. Then, quite surreptitiously, tore small pieces from it and tucked them into his cheek. One by one, he began to spit them at his sister. Janie seemingly ignored him. Indeed, she said nothing. Behind her, however, she made a surprisingly solid fist.

  Because he gained no reaction from her, Geoff moved closer to his sister. Placing an even larger wad of paper in his mouth, he readied to spit it at her. His face inches away from her; he was blissfully unaware of his peril.

  Just as Janie brought her fist back as far as it could go, Elizabeth caught her daughter’s hand. Only then was Mr. Darcy witting that his darling daughter meant to deliver unto her brother a rather powerful roundhouse punch. However much he would have liked for his countenance not to register his horror, an expression of appalled incredulity overspread his face. (Then, he decided it was best for all concerned that he ignore the entire fracas.) The mother of his darling daughter had not that election. Catching Janie under her armpits, Elizabeth swung her up on her lap. It took the offering of several dolls and a great deal of soothing before Geoff was safe.

  “Do not be mean to your sister, Geoffrey,” his mother warned.

  Although he blinked more than usual, Mr. Darcy’s gaze remained upon the countryside. On the apposing seat, Geoff looked at his sister with great unease. He looked as if he was in want of making amends, but did not quite trust her not to bash him.

  Elizabeth whispered to Darcy, “Did you happen to see your daughter? I fear it might have knocked her brother senseless.”

  “Yes,” said he.

  Elizabeth inquired, “You have no other comment?”

  He answered, “I cannot imagine where she inherited such behaviour.”

  Initially, Elizabeth’s eyes sparked, but she saw quite hastily that it was a jest.

  Darcy continued, “I understand her mother is a bit saucy.”

  There was no time to retort. Janie still needed tending. In an hour her anger was finally worn out and motion of the coach lulled her fast asleep. With his sister no longer a mortal danger to him, Geoff became engrossed in every animal, shed, and stream he saw. He was so excited that his father had to hang onto his coattails to keep him from falling out of the window.

  “Geoff must be driving you to distraction,” Elizabeth said. “As soon as Janie awakes, she shall be the one full of questions and you shall have no peace. Truly, they are the most inquisitive children in all of England.”

  Neither of them spoke for a moment, perchance awaiting the other to make what to them was an obvious conclusion.

  She said, “I have heard it said that inquisitiveness is the surest sign of an intelligent child.”

  “Second only to pluck,” he agreed.

  Before either could continue admiring the many ways of their children, Geoff saw another bird. Once again, the boy lunged as he pointed out the window. This time, much to his son’s unhappiness, his father
closed the window altogether. Geoff did not cry. Rather, he frowned, crossed his arms, and stuck out his lower lip. Clearly not only were his wants denied him, his dignity was offended as well.

  Looking at Janie sleeping contentedly, Darcy said, “Your daughter is a beauty—just like her mother.”

  He took his wife’s hand and kissed it. Longing looks, however, were not to rule the day.

  Chapter 53

  Befouled

  What is that Papa? What is it?” Geoff said, beating on the window.

  Their coach was the first of their party. So when an enormous dray came to grief trying to allow them to pass, it blocked their way.