Darcy's Match

by Kate Bedlow

  The physician must not be married, Drake thought, watching Gowan follow the maid, or else his wife must be exceedingly understanding—an essential requirement for happiness in a physician’s wife. In the wife of a conscientious clergyman as well.

  His own stomach growled, and he peeked hopefully into the breakfast room. His aunt was there, spreading jam on a piece of toast.

  “Drake, dear.” She poured him a cup of coffee. “You are just in time. Everything is hot.”

  He loaded a plate with eggs and sausages from the sideboard, then sat down and caught her up on all Mr. Gowan had said.

  “I will send Mrs. Darcy our regrets for the Feast of the Epiphany.”

  “You may send mine, my dear.” Aunt Charity refilled his cup and her own. “But you must go, surely. What would Miss Georgiana think if you surrender her to that lord so easily?”

  “Miss Darcy is not mine to surrender.”

  “I know you like her.”

  “I… do. She is lovely. In fact, she is perfection. But Aunt, she is also far beyond anything I could hope for. Lord Somersea—”

  “Lord Somersea fiddlesticks.”

  “You heard last night as well as I did that Lord Somersea and Mr. Darcy are old friends.”

  “What of it? You and Mr. Darcy are friends.”

  “Hardly.”

  “You were not invited to shoot with him and his cousins as an act of charity.”

  Drake chuckled. “As a matter of fact, Aunt, the invitation was out of charity. And I was grateful for it, as will be the parishioners of All Saints fed by the birds I was allowed to take.”

  “Well…” The old lady frowned, then brightened. “But Mrs. Darcy is your champion. Remember how cleverly she maneuvered to deliver you from Miss Grenway’s claws at the supper last month?”

  “Your imagination does you credit, dearest, but it is no good. Miss Darcy of Pemberley is destined to marry someone far grander than I.”

  “That may be false, that may be true,” the old lady said with a mischievous twinkle.

  “True. Depend upon it.” There was no wining the argument. She would nurse her fancy until the day Georgiana Darcy married.

  “But Drake, I so enjoy it when all the young people are gathered at the great house. It becomes an entirely different place—so lively! So gay! Do say you will attend the Epiphany feast, my dear, and then you can tell me all about it.”

  “Aunt Charity…” His sweet old aunt did enjoy her gossip.

  “Besides.” She brightened. “Mr. Bonney will be there, who helped with Mr. Clackston last night—and a very nice young man too, for all the shocking flame of his hair. He is a curate, is he not? You might persuade him to stand in tomorrow for the rector.”

  “That is a good thought, Aunt.”

  “I am always right about such things. And do give Miss Darcy my personal regrets for not attending the feast.”

  Chapter 14

  Drake passed the stables, the world silent but for the nickering of horses and the crunch of his own boots on the snow. He dragged the empty winter cart behind him, a forlorn-looking apparatus when put to no use. That is what my uncle fears, becoming of no use.

  The sudden insight cast a new light on the rector’s behavior earlier. He had been less than keen on the notion of Mr. Bonney replacing him in the pulpit for even one Sunday. The old gentleman had protested from his bed, knowing his time of usefulness was coming to an end, yet grasping for a semblance of power over the world. Some accepted Fate’s ultimate gift when it finally came, but Mr. Clackston now railed impotently against it. He was not to be resented, but pitied.

  The conversation had ended with Drake agreeing to attend Pemberley’s parish tomorrow. He would ask Mr. Bonney to take over at All Saints. A vicar in my pulpit is at least better than a curate, the rector had said, while expressing the conviction he would be fit to return to his duties within the fortnight.

  If only it could be so! Drake had never had a smooth relationship with his uncle, but he had no desire to see the old man die—nor to see Aunt Charity lose her home of over five and twenty years.

  At the great house, he navigated the heavy cart awkwardly down the outside stairs to the kitchens and servants’ hall and was cheered to see celebration of the Epiphany already underway. Above the door, the lintel was chalked with 18 † C † M † B † 16. The numbers denoted the new year, and the crosses represented the Savior. Some said the letters signified the Latin for may Christ bless this house while others swore they stood for the names of the Magi: Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. Both traditions were lovely, and Drake saw no reason to disbelieve either.

  The cart was heavy and awkward, and when one of the runners scraped his boot, leaving a mark, he uttered a quiet oath—and then another at himself for his lack of self-control. He might have left the thing at the top of the stairs, he supposed, but down here it would be somewhat shielded from the weather. I am of use to somebody, at least. A man to return winter carts, procure curates, and collect gossip.

  He was not in a mood to be genial. He would prefer to let Mrs. White know he had returned the cart and be done, forgo the Epiphany feast. He was self-aware enough to know the source of his irritation, and it was not his uncle’s ill health.

  In all the tumult last night, he had not missed the very fine-looking fellow his aunt had referred to, a man who had gazed at Georgiana so appreciatively, and no mistaking his intent.

  Lord Somersea. Watching Mr. Darcy greet the man heartily and welcome him to Pemberley with such delight had evoked a territorial, even animalistic, fury within Drake’s breast. Even now, he wanted to growl at the fellow, to challenge him to… to what? The uncivilized response was unnerving, to say the least.

  And uncalled for. Of course such a gentleman would be welcomed by Georgiana’s family. A man with a title. A friend of Mr. Darcy. Even Mrs. Darcy had smiled at the handsome and gregarious lord. It was now truly over.

  And what was Drake about, brooding like this? He had some cheek to regret what he himself had wished for Georgiana. Lord Somersea was everything the lady deserved. Everything Drake was not.

  Perhaps Mr. Darcy had invited his lordship to the festivities with the intent of making a match. For all Drake knew, that had been accomplished last night after he left the ball. He knew how this day would enfold. Mrs. Darcy would arrange it so that Somersea and Georgiana sat beside each other at table, all the better to discover their finer qualities.

  All as it should be.

  The thought of watching any other man make love to the woman he adored made Drake’s heart ache. Perhaps at the feast their engagement would be announced, with a toast to the happy couple. He could not bear it.

  And he would have to. Aunt Charity would be disappointed if he did not return with reports, and the sweet old girl sorely needed cheering up just now. Drake had been given a list: What did the ladies wear? Had the commodore yet secured Mrs. Bennet’s hand? Was there was music afterward and, if so, what piece did Miss Georgiana play? Did Colonel and Mrs. Quartermaine sing a duet?

  It would be cruel to frustrate such eager anticipation, and his dear aunt deserved what pleasures she could have in this uncertain time.

  “How kind of you, Vicar.” Mrs. White thanked him for returning the cart. After asking about the rector, she said, “Now you come right in here, young sir, and warm yourself by the ovens. Mrs. Crealy only just finished icing her orange scones, which I know you like.”

  “I was going to collect a ripe orange for my sister-in-law.”

  A smile tugged at Drake’s lips as he was thrown back into a memory: Miss Darcy standing in the snow, having waylaid his sledge on her way to the orangerie, Pemberley’s huge hothouse of brick and glass yet some distance away.

  “A bit far to walk in the snow.”

  “Yes.” How darling she looked when she wrinkled her nose. “It is only just beyond the rose garden, but it does seem farther away in the snow.”

  “Let me take you in the sledge then.” A clergyman
was allowed to offer rides to unaccompanied young ladies.

  Reaching down for her… her small gloved hand in his… the feeling of being quite manly and useful… the surge of happiness hitting him like a blunt force as she took a place beside him on the driver’s bench.

  Nothing clerical in his response.

  “Ah, how wonderful!” Her boots on the foot warmer… her little groan of pleasure. “I did not realize how cold my toes were.”

  “Then I am doubly glad to have come along when I did.”

  Only a minute to reach the orangerie, and he was in danger of becoming a total fool over her.

  That was the moment he should have closed down his feelings and got away. Before he said or did something ridiculous. But he had wished to stay with her for the rest of the day.

  The rest of my life.

  “Come in! Come in for a taste,” Mrs. White said again, pulling him from the memory and back to the present. “So long as you don’t turn my girls’ heads with your smile and put them off their work. We still have much to do.”

  “As I can see.” The maids were going at it, engaged in a mad whirl of chopping, whisking, beating eggs, and pounding dough. “What are these great articles that smell like heaven? Twelfth cakes?”

  Two round baked monsters sat in the middle of the worktable, not long from the oven by the looks of the rising steam.

  “I wonder where the bean could be.” He waggled his eyebrows impishly, as if anybody would tell him! “It might be pleasant to be king for a day.”

  There would be several objects baked into the cakes. Whoever got the bean in his or her serving was sovereign for the day. Who got the clove was the villain. There would be a twig for the fool and a rag for the tart—though, Drake remembered, in the cake for upstairs the rag was omitted, as decreed by Mrs. Reynolds. No guest of Pemberley would ever be so insulted, even in jest. (Drake supposed the housekeeper wisely wished to avert the unfortunate event of a rag going to a young lady whose reputation might be questioned not in fun but in truth.)

  “Good day, Mr. Midwinter.” A tall, well-dressed young lady with a smidge of red jam on her cheek smiled at him, appearing simultaneously out of place and quite at home here in the kitchen. Drake had been introduced to Miss Kitty Bennet last night when she and Falcon Whittle made up a part of his and Miss Grenway’s square. “I am glad to hear that your uncle is resting.”

  “Thank you, Miss Kitty.” He gave her a quick nod, sensing a bow would put a damper on the informal goings-on. Then he saw what she was working on and forgot all about formality. “Why, is that an Epiphany tart? I never saw one so marvelous.”

  The jam tart was shaped with six points, to represent the star that led the Magi, with their gifts, to the Holy Family. Today’s feast celebrated that visit, and there would be several dishes and drinks to symbolize the Wise Men and their gifts: ginger snaps and spiced ale, the twelfth cakes, and this six-pointed jam concoction for the Star of Bethlehem.

  “Thirteen colors of jam Miss Kitty has rendered too,” Mrs. White said in wonder. “For good luck on this day.”

  “I have tried to make it look like the stained glass of a church window.” The artist frowned at her project and added a dab of orange at the end of one point.

  “You have succeeded, and admirably,” Drake said. “Your reputation is well deserved. It is beautiful.”

  “Miss Kitty’s cakes ain’t the only thing of beauty in our kitchen at the moment,” Mrs. Crealy said with a leer. She was Mrs. White’s first assistant and opposite number in personality and appearance, the cook a model of propriety and order, the assistant a caricature of ribald crudeness. They were an odd pair, but they rubbed along.

  “Our tender hearts may not be up to the challenge,” Susan Brown chimed in, and the girls all laughed—including Miss Kitty!—but all in the spirit of a kindly jest.

  Drake knew that females found him attractive more often than not, and he had long ago inured himself to their admiring glances. But now he played along with the banter for selfish reasons. Perversely, he could not pass by the opportunity to take the measure of his rival (though it was folly to think in such terms). The opinions of the kitchen maids were bound to offer as frank a gauge as any.

  “Now, now,” he said modestly. “There are several gentlemen upstairs far better-looking than I. Surely last night you all stole a peek at Lord Somersea.”

  “Oh, he is a pretty fellow!”

  The immediate admiring murmurs of agreement from the other maids did not set a man at ease. You would ask, you fool.

  Mrs. Crealy pointedly ignored Mrs. White’s raised eyebrow—whether a judgment on the assistant’s lusty grin or her having admitted to going upstairs for a look, Drake did not know.

  “Never you mind, Vicar,” Susan Brown said. “You are every bit the looker as the marquess, even without his title or his fortune.”

  A marquess then. He had hoped for no higher than a baron. But why should it matter? Had he not already, in his mind, surrendered Georgiana to him? As though she was ever his to let go.

  “You could get a wife by snapping your fingers,” Susan added.

  “Last night Miss Alice Grenway seemed hopeful you would snap at her,” Miss Kitty said helpfully.

  He wished she had not, especially when all the oohs and aahs erupted.

  “Not likely, luv,” Mrs. Crealy assured Miss Bennet and glared at the others. “That one is too hoity-toity for the likes of our vicar.”

  “Titles and fortunes are handsome things in their own right.” Drake ignored the subject of Miss Grenway entirely, hoping to make it clear she meant nothing to him. “Which nobody of sense can ignore.”

  “Never believe it, Mr. Midwinter.” The cackle was almost unseemly, but that was Mrs. Crealy for you. “Beauty and kindness are their own kind of gold. Especially beauty.”

  The kitchen maids giggled and agreed, all in good fun. Though most of them lived at Pemberley, many attended All Saints with their families who lived in his parish. As their social superior (not to mention their parish priest), he had a right to more respectful treatment, and in any other setting he would expect it. But the kitchen was their domain and—thoughts of Alice Grenway aside—he enjoyed rather than suffered the friendly impertinence.

  He was something of a hero to them, for they credited him with helping Miss Georgiana save the reputation of Susan’s sister Hannah when his uncle attacked her character—unjustly, as it turned out, the rector having been misled by another young girl intent upon stealing away Hannah’s beau.

  All had ended well, with Hannah and Robert Townes now married and Hannah expecting for the third time.

  “How is Mrs. Townes?” he asked Susan, ready for a change in subject.

  The maid’s smile brightened, but her joy was tinged with fear. “The new baby will be here any day. It will be a relief when it is over, especially after…”

  Last year, Hannah had lost her second child seven months into the pregnancy. Of course she and Robert must be anxious. Drake pressed Susan’s arm gently. “I will visit her as soon as I can—perhaps tomorrow, after church.”

  “Try this, Vicar.” Mrs. Crealy handed him a warm scone dripping with orange icing as she gave Susan a comforting hug. “The footmen are still setting up the dining room. It will be a while before you’re offered anything more to put in your stomach.”

  “Good heavens.” An involuntary gasp of pleasure escaped him. “Mrs. Crealy, this is marvelous.”

  “The orange in the icing is my receipt, but the scone is Miss Kitty’s,” the assistant cook said. “These have always been a favorite of Miss Georgiana, but I think she will enjoy the improvement.”

  He felt all eyes on him, watching for his reaction to Miss Darcy’s name, and tried mightily to maintain a neutral expression. By their indulgent and pitying smiles, he failed.

  “We are all pulling for you, Vicar,” Susan said gently. “None of us believe the gossip for a minute.”

  The gossip?

  “Which is
why we do not repeat it.” Mrs. White gave Susan and Mrs. Crealy such a stern look that the assistant took a step backward and the girl blinked.

  What gossip?

  Before it could go any further, Mrs. White blanched a little, looking past Drake. She automatically wiped her hands on her apron and curtsied. “Lord Farley, I did not see you there.”

  The kitchen fell silent in the presence of the future Earl of Matlock.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Forgive me for pushing in while you are so busy, Mrs. White, but I wondered if I might have a word?” Lord Farley seemed oblivious to Drake’s presence, and Drake was content not to be seen. “Ah, Miss Kitty, good day. Have you ever met a kitchen you could resist?”

  “Not as yet, my lord.”

  The two laughed as old friends might. When Lord Farley was still Colonel Fitzwilliam and a spymaster for the Crown, he had used the Bennets’ tea shop in Hertfordshire as a meeting place for his activities. Had Kitty Bennet known at the time what adventures were unfolding within her own establishment? Or that her sister Lydia was helping to expose the infamous George Wickham as a traitor?

  Drake looked around the kitchen. In this one room, there was a squadron’s worth of skill, strength, cleverness, and courage. How could any man think females were the weaker sex?

  His lordship said, “I believe your sisters and Mrs. Bennet are already in the salon.”

  Miss Kitty gave her Epiphany tart one last embellishment, then removed her apron and kitchen maid’s cap. “I had better go up and dress or Mama will give me no end of grief.”

  She smiled at the maids wistfully, as if there was no place she would rather be than in this kitchen, working with this crew. Falcon would get nowhere with the young lady if he continued to comment that no wife of his need ever set foot in a kitchen.

  Only then did Farley notice Drake. “Oh, hello there, Midwinter.”

  “My lord.” Drake nodded.

  His lordship did not inquire as to the vicar’s business in the kitchen or explain his own. He stepped aside with Mrs. White for a private conversation, and the maids immediately returned to the organized chaos of chopping and pounding that Drake had earlier interrupted.