As she sipped her hot chocolate, she prattled on to him about the morning service and how kind everyone had been and about the pretty flowers. However, her speech became quieter and her words stilled completely the moment he began undressing for bed. He possessed a magnificent figure, the viewing of which she never tired, and his regimented routine always fascinated her. It rarely varied.
He first loosened his neck scarf and waistcoat, then sat erectly upon a chair to remove his boots. Next he stood and unbuttoned his shirt and cuffs, careful as always to place any jewelry on the nightstand beside the bed. His waistcoat, scarf, and shirt were next removed in that order, folded and draped with the utmost care across the back of his chair. After unbuttoning his breeches, he sat at the edge of the bed and yanked them off, folded them, and laid them neatly across her old dresser.
“Oh, bravo.” She clapped, grinning impishly.
He turned and arched his eyebrow at her.
“You zany scamp—you have unhinged me with your recklessness.”
His eyebrow went somehow higher.
“You unbuttoned your pants before you sat on the edge of the bed, and not after, as is your usual order. Such extreme behavior—whatever possessed you to such flights of abandon?”
“Are you quite finished?” His lips twitched with humor as he lowered himself back onto the bed and let out a heartfelt sigh. “Now please be quiet. You are exhausted and need your sleep. All I ask is one uninterrupted hour, Elizabeth.”
“Did you see who was at the grave site?”
He groaned.
She was snuggling farther down into the covers while motioning toward her aching back, so he slipped his hand down within her chemise and kneaded and rubbed until her tense muscles began to relax, the warmth and firmness of the back rub quickly beginning to loosen all the anxiety of the sad morning. Giving her shoulder a quick kiss when he finished, he pulled his wife’s backside against him, and they then easily fell into their normal spooning position from home, fingers intertwined together, arms laced, and hugs secured.
“Did you hear what I asked you?”
“Yessss.” He sighed, no immediate sleep in sight. “I imagine you are speaking of Lady Catherine and Fitzwilliam. I saw them only briefly, and they were gone before I could approach.” In truth, he felt very guilty that he had not contacted her directly during her illness, only receiving reports from Fitzwilliam and her doctors. The sight of her there today shamed him and brought to the forefront of his mind the folly of holding this grudge. Life was short, he was learning, and never to be taken for granted.
“She looked very pale and fragile, did she not?”
“Yes, she did.” She could feel him shift uneasily. “I’m not that surprised that she was there, really,” he said quietly. “In some fuzzy area of her brain she has accepted that you are part of her family, and family obligations are paramount to her.”
They were silent for a moment. He pulled another cover over them.
“Did you remove your stockings?”
“Elizabeth, I beg of you to be quiet.”
She was, for a moment.
“If you don’t remove them, your feet will become very warm, and then you shall have nightmares. And your boots will smell.”
His teeth ground for an instant, but he contained himself. “I never have nightmares—largely due to the fact that I seldom sleep anymore. And my boots do not smell.”
They were silent. He suddenly sat up and removed his stockings, again placing them with the utmost precision atop her dresser.
He’d make a fine valet, she thought briefly. Best not to voice that opinion out loud.
They were silent.
“Did you see Caroline Bingley?”
Darcy fought back an unpleasant curse. He was learning that infinite patience needed to walk hand in hand with marriage. “Yes, dear, I did. Will you be all right with Caroline there today?” he whispered.
“Yes, of course.” It was so quiet in their little room. “The real question is, will you?”
Gently he turned her chin, tilting her head back toward him.
“Elizabeth, let sleeping dogs lie.”
She smiled and nodded, kissing his mouth tenderly, but her heart and her newfound insecurities were fighting a silent battle with logic. She gave out a noncommittal “mm-hmm.”
Darcy sighed. This is going to be a long week.
***
The prior evening, Fitzwilliam had dreaded another lecture from Aunt Catherine. For two hours, she had vacillated between arguments for going to the funeral to pay her respects, or for not going and continuing the family conflict. In the end, as he knew it would, family duty won out over personal pride, and her carriage took them the long thirty miles to Meryton for the funeral, returning them back to Rosings almost immediately afterward.
Upon their arrival back to Rosings Park, Fitzwilliam barricaded himself within the business office with orders to all who would listen that he was not to be disturbed, unwilling to admit the fact that he was thoroughly mystified by his own accounting methods of a previous visit. He pulled at his hair and muttered vile obscenities, searching through what seemed like hundreds of receipts and reports and tenant requests. Everything looked the same, and nothing added up or made any sense.
Lady Catherine’s daughter, Anne, was in her bedroom suite, fearful that somehow a remnant of the illness that had felled Mrs. Bennet would return doggedly attached to her mother or cousin. She breathed into a boiling pot of clove-and-basil ointment, clutching a towel around her head, allowing only her paid companion to accompany her.
So it was that Lady Catherine sat alone that evening, her memories agitated, her ire poking the embers of her thoughts into flames as if bringing a dimming hearth fire to life on a winter morning.
It is insupportable…that he should look so well, never missed me at all, the ingrate! Where is the loyalty among the young these days? He’s even gained a little weight! Dread flooded her confused brain. Or, perhaps that is water retention. Oh no, the poor dear is retaining water. Oh, dear God, he probably has developed serious heart ailments of which he is not even aware!
Fitzwilliam burst into the room. “Do we grow peas?!”
She was startled, her thoughts still agitated. Already mourning the passing of her beloved Darcy, she stared at him several moments before she could respond. “What… yes, I believe we have lentils, peas, and barley on some farms to the north.” She gulped back the sense of foreboding that always arose when Fitzwilliam attempted anything agricultural. “Why do you ask?”
“Nothing… nothing…” He began to close the door then stopped, staring intently back at her, nearly obscured within the deep shadows of the doorframe. “By the by, have you ever heard of gray mold?” She could see he was clutching a written report her estate manager had prepared shortly before the accident that had incapacitated him for nearly eight months. She let out a whimper.
Chapter 9
The day following the funeral an exceedingly kind note was delivered from Elizabeth to Rosings Park. Among many pleasantries and concerns expressed for her health, Elizabeth thanked Lady Catherine for attending the funeral and expressed her sincere hope that they would see her again soon.
Very courteous, very proper, Lady Catherine thought to herself, so pleased was she that her heart began to thump again, the cavernous labyrinth of her rather bizarre mind beginning to expand and contract with plans and machinations.
“It is as I have always said,” she spoke aloud to her daughter, Anne, as the young woman sat testing her vision by placing one hand alternately over each of her eyes. “Breeding is inbred, Anne, remember this. It cannot be crushed by paucity of means. A gentleman is a gentleman to his bones, and his offspring cannot help but absorb this.”
Anne gave an involuntary shudder and checked the pulse on her left wrist. She compared this to her right. They differed. She was doomed.
“Perhaps I was too harsh on the girl, even though she rudely spurned all my attempts t
o help her. The poor thing must be in want of a mother’s direction now. It really never was her fault that she was so impertinent or ill mannered; after all, she never had the advantages that should have been hers, had she had a more civilized upbringing.” Catherine glanced toward her daughter for verification, a daughter who now held two fingers against her neck to verify her previous pulse readings. “Anne, you have such exquisite posture, and you know you look absolutely glowing in that shade of lavender.”
Anne wheezed.
As excited as Catherine was becoming, she was hard put to retain any sort of dignified expression. “Imagine that mother attempting to raise five daughters without a governess! My goodness, how can a young girl possibly be expected to acquire any polish in that havey-cavey sort of atmosphere? I always felt that was odd, didn’t you? Her mother alone was obviously not up to such a task. Yes. Well, I can understand now how dear Elizabeth could have resented my kind offers of assistance.”
Catherine turned sharply toward her butler, the man innocently bringing in her afternoon tea and cakes. “It was never her fault, after all. I hope you realize that now!” she snapped.
Jamison automatically inclined his head for forgiveness.
“The poor dear had no training. None whatsoever! Think on that, Jamison, and try to show a little compassion in the future!”
“I am desolate, your ladyship.” The penitent Jamison bowed and backed out of the room.
***
“Fitzwilliam, are you in there? Fitzwilliam!” she called out as the footman forced the business-office doors open. “Why has this door been bolted?” When she looked closer at her nephew, she saw that he looked like death itself, his hair standing on end, a half-empty bottle of whiskey at his side. “Whatever is the matter?” She saw nothing but disaster in his bloodshot eyes.
“Evidently we took care of that gray mold, but now—brace yourself, woman—now we may have leaf yellowing. Damnation for this cursed bad luck of ours!” He took a giant pull straight from the bottle. “By the way, what the hell is leaf yellowing?”
“Do not tell me that you spent two hours last Easter boring me to tears with your explanation of Linnaean taxonomy and you cannot figure out what leaf yellowing is. They are leaves that turn yellow, and we eliminated them last month.”
He growled, slamming his hand down on the desk in exasperation.
Crossing to his side Catherine began to rummage wildly through a disordered pile of receipts from the desk. “Are you still trying to do those books?” she demanded incredulously.
“I am not altogether convinced that your estate manager had an accident.” He snatched the receipts back. “He was more than likely taking the easy out and attempting suicide.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! I would never allow him to commit suicide before he finished the books! You must be mad.” She promptly walked around to the front of the desk.
“We are going to visit Longbourn tomorrow morning. Please arrange for the carriage to be ready at nine.”
Fitzwilliam grimaced and rubbed his hand raggedly over his face, slouching farther into the chair. She had a scrawny old neck that he could break like a twig. Tossing his pen onto the desk, he cast a malevolent look at her.
“Gracious, toughen up, will you? Why, when I was your age, I was a wife and a mother and the most brilliant hostess in all of London. I could throw a party for three hundred, go without sleep for days on end, and yet be ready at a moment’s notice for Lord Louis’s political meetings. I will have you know, young man, that in those long ago days, my opinion was greatly regarded in the highest circles of government.”
“Excellent,” he said as he handed her the ledger and walked from the room. “Then you finish up—I’m going to bed.”
***
Late the following morning, Elizabeth and Jane were resting in their mother’s room, looking through some of her keepsakes. To Elizabeth’s amusement, there was little to be found among them of her childhood or, for that matter, the childhood of any of her sisters, but Jane’s life was on display from birth until her marriage. Locks of hair, notes on her progress, dance cards from assemblies.
“I seem to have been somehow misplaced in here”—she smiled and indicated the albums—“along with my poor sisters, save but one.”
Jane was humming a lullaby as she sat in her rocker, nursing her baby. “I was the first born, Lizzy. Firstborns are always fussed over more.”
“I am not offended, Jane. I only wish I could have had the kind of closeness with my mother that you enjoyed.”
“I truly think she would have wanted that, too, but then you were always much closer to Father, weren’t you? You and Father were both cleverer than the rest of us. I imagine it probably intimidated her.”
Lizzy leaned over to stroke the head of the baby as it nursed, then touched her own stomach absently. Darcy and she had decided that no one would be told of her pregnancy until they were reasonably certain that it would be successful.
They sat in silence for several minutes, Lizzy poring over old letters and Jane staring contentedly out the window.
“Lizzy?”
“Yes, dearest?”
“I noticed at luncheon yesterday that you avoided Caroline but spoke with Mr. and Mrs. Hurst. Do you still feel a strained relationship with Charles’s sister?”
Lizzy broiled inside at the very thought of that wanton but schooled her appearance to appear complacent. It was neither the time nor place to have her talk with Jane about Caroline.
“I am sorry if in any way I offended you or Charles. It was not my intention. I was only lost in my own thoughts.”
“I don’t think anyone noticed.” Jane placed her baby across her shoulder to rub its back. A small burp, one of a mother’s greatest rewards, quickly followed. She settled the child at her other breast. “Darcy was attentive to her, kind and thoughtful as always, so I don’t think she noticed anything untoward.”
Lizzy froze. “Was Darcy speaking with her? I hadn’t realized.” She spoke evenly as she refolded the letters. At that moment, a terrified-looking serving girl knocked on the door. With a pale face and a trembling voice, she whispered that there were visitors downstairs.
Chapter 10
Since purchasing his commission in the spring of 1806, Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam had been involved in the worst battles of the Peninsular War, from the Battle of Vimeiro in 1808 through Coruna, Porto, Talevera, counter attacks at Fuentes de Onoro, Ciudad Rodrigo, pushing eastward to Salamanca, Vitoria, Maya, and into France. He had suffered through unthinkable deprivations, unbearable heat and mind-numbing cold, sloshed through mud and ice storms, fought savagely amid the slaughter and brutality of men driven insane with hatred and revenge.
And yet… all these seemed preferable to sitting across from his aunt Catherine for the two-and-one-half-hour carriage ride from Rosings Park to Lizzy’s family home, Longbourn. If she poked his knee one more time with that bony finger of hers, she would be retracting a bloody stump.
“Cut line, Catherine!” he finally hissed.
“I beg your pardon! I realize I am old, Fitzwilliam, and feeble…” He snorted his opinion of that. “…and feeble,” she yelled, indicating with a circle of her finger her heart area, “but I do believe that as matriarch of this family I have a right, nay, a certain obligation to point out the error of your excesses. Never mind that you are involved in illicit relationships with opera dancers and shop girls. Never mind that you cuckold titled members of the aristocracy…” Suddenly she halted midscreech, looking confused.
“Well, please don’t stop there, Aunt. That cannot be the end of your tirade, surely. We have another hour yet to go sealed within this tomb of horrors, and you have not even begun to mention my excessive drinking, my indifference to my heritage, or my disloyalty to Somerfield House.”
“Yes!! Oh, thank you, Richard, thank you. I knew there was something I had forgotten!” She laughed. “La, my mind sometimes…”
Fitzwilliam moaned.
The demon reentered her body. “You do realize that idiot brother of yours has yet to marry and produce an heir. Of course, I have tried to reason with him, but he’s nonsensical, prancing about with those artist friends of his. You have obligations, young man, to your family, and yes, to your heritage. Heaven knows what you see in these loose women…” She flung up her hand. “Do not even dare to speak of it to me. I can interpret an eyebrow waggle when I see one! Only destruction and misfortune can come from this behavior. There is no future with harlots, as well you know. You are behaving like the very worst rakehell of Carlton House.”
“Forgive me, but is there a very best type of rakehell?”
“This amuses you? If your sainted mother were alive today, this would kill her. Your health is failing you, Richard. Your career will be affected. I demand that you settle down and marry immediately. Why can you not select from the daughters of the many excellent families that are within our circle? My goodness, Pamela Tyson Briggs must be nearly twenty years old and has the hips of a good breeder.”
“She has the hips of a good rhinoceros,” he mumbled.
And the discussion began its inevitable spiral downward after that.
***
The carriage arrived at Longbourn at nearly half past noon. It was a vastly improved Longbourn from when Lady Catherine had last visited, that horrible day when she confronted Elizabeth, shouting out her views on the unsuitability of any sort of relationship between the poor country girl and Darcy.
Both Darcy and Bingley had together refurbished and beautified the old household of their in-laws. The garden was once again fine-looking, the house itself painted, the roof repaired, the drainage problem that had flooded the front yard and back was easily solved by Darcy, and the inside saw new wallpaper, sofas, tables, and draperies courtesy of Bingley.
It was an elegant little manor house that now stood before Catherine as Fitzwilliam handed her down from the carriage and they began to walk up the drive.
“Well, it seems quite an unexceptional home,” she offered kindly. “Much better than I remembered.” Perhaps the girl was not as much beneath her nephew as she had believed. Guiding her by the elbow, Fitzwilliam proceeded to lead her down a lovely little walkway through the front flower garden, a path that was lined by a beautiful low box hedge. It was a lovely day, the quiet interrupted only by the chirping of the blackbirds, the robins, the Tits—Blue, Great and Coal.
Darcy and Fitzwilliam: A Tale of a Gentleman and an Officer Page 6
