Robert sat straighter, he studied the dead face of his father once more, and then he reached forward and closed the eyes. “Goodbye, Papa. May the Lord have mercy upon your soul.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Darcy held Elizabeth’s warm small hand as the carriage turned onto the broad tree-lined boulevard that led to the grand entrance of Ironwood Hall.
Anything more was impossible because the new Lord Rochester watched them with a grin, and because Elizabeth was far too curious to see what the house she had been born in looked like to permit distraction.
“This avenue is a fine line of trees,” Darcy said, “but I have found the whole effect of the estate to be a little too carefully planned. Too many French gardens.”
“No, no, no.” Rochester waved his finger in Darcy’s face. “You shall not bias Lizzy against Ironwood merely because it was designed to a different plan than Pemberley.”
“Oh, my!” Elizabeth exclaimed as the carriage pulled out of the avenue of trees, and onto the broad carriageway that let them see the façade of the manor house. “That is quite big,” she said. Then she added, “And those are a great many French gardens.”
Rochester stuck his noble tongue out at Elizabeth.
“No, no, no,” Elizabeth replied laughing. “I hardly know what my taste in great buildings should be…I was never allowed to run about in the gardens for fear that I would trample the flowers?”
This reminded Rochester of his father, and his face fell.
The present Lord Rochester was dressed all in black, as befitted the noble lord of the manor returning home with the late Lord Rochester’s coffin.
Elizabeth wore a black silk armband on a not particularly bright blue dress. Kindness to her brother brought her that far, but she refused any further symbol of mourning. Elizabeth’ssilver locket gleamed on her neck, and Darcy wished to kiss her throat, just above it.
“At least you remember something of home.” Rochester sighed.
“Lovely gardens,” Elizabeth replied. “Not every park needs to have been designed by Capability Brown to be worth looking at.”
“I think,” Darcy said, “that my father also insisted quite strictly that I not trample the flowers in the conservatory.”
“And did you rebel to prove that you were not always subject to his will?” Elizabeth asked winsomely.
“I am afraid not. No Satan I. I think I was quite sad and sobbed on my mother’s shoulder about how Papa would not let me wreckherflowers. She was very sympathetic.”
This made Elizabeth laugh, and Rochester sigh.
“A father is an awful tyrant,” Rochester said, “because there are things he prohibits. It is all in the manner.”
Rochester clenched his fist tightly in the purple velvet of the seat cushions.
Elizabeth placed a comforting arm on his shoulder.
He wiped at his tears. “I am doing it again. I try to be firmer now, more like an earl but—”
“Earls can cry,” Elizabeth said. “There shall be points upon which you ought to be firm. But that will not harm the dignity of your name at all. He was wrong inthat. Not in all, but in that.”
Rochester nodded, sniffled, blew his nose.
He splashed a little cold water over his face and rubbed it softly with a towel that he’d decided to bring in the carriage for the purpose of not looking so much like he had just cried when he presented himself to the servants.
When Rochester stepped out of the carriage he looked painfully like a memory of Lord Rochester from when Darcy wasvery young, and the previous Lord Rochester still had much of his hair. Before he greeted the long line of servants, all dressed in black, Rochester looked back at the formal cart which carried the decayed body of the previous earl, covered in black and plastered with the coat of arms of the estate.
He inclined his head to the body of his father and then stepped forward to the butler and the housekeeper first, shaking their hands firmly, thanking them for their service, and saying all that was appropriate on such an occasion.
Elizabeth was then introduced.
The servants were not so well trained that they did not evince considerable curiosity about the returned daughter of the house, but if any of them looked askance at her refusal to wear bombazine in honor of her father, not yet dead three days, Darcy could not tell.
Given the tale, perhaps the surprise was that she made any gesture of mourning at all.
