Prologue
Sir Lewis de Bourgh was the living embodiment ofdecide in haste, repent at leisure.
During the season of 1785, he met Lady Catherine Fitzwilliam, who was in her ninth season without anyone offering for her. As he thought back now, he should have recognised that fact as a warning sign.
At the time, he had been attracted to her forthright manner—which he now knew was pretentious and overbearing—and the fact she was the daughter of an earl, while he was only a baronet. The news of her father increasing her dowry from fifteen thousand pounds to five and twenty thousand pounds had also played a major factor in his decision to offer for the lady.
Lewis de Bourgh was no fortune hunter; however, his late father had been somewhat of a gambler, and a bad one at that. The family estate of Rosings Park, near Westerham in Kent, was in trouble thanks to a mortgage his late father had taken out on it to pay for his debts of honour. As the mortgage was close to fifteen thousand pounds, Sir Lewis needed an influx of funds to relieve his estate of its encumbrance. The balance would be used to replenish funds his father had lost before borrowing against the estate.
Sir Lewis decided to pursue Lady Catherine. She was not exactly homely, but she was not a very comely woman. Another warning sign should have been the now late earl’s willingness to make marriage to her more attractive by adding a further five thousand pounds to her dowry. At the time, he had ignored the fact Lady Catherine only accepted his suit onceshe and her father came to see Rosings Park. With hindsight, Sir Lewis now knew how important wealth and status were to his wife. Again, he had ignored the warning signs as he so wanted to have the estate free of debt.
They had married in July 1785. As Sir Lewis was the last of his line, he had no family in attendance when he had married Lady Catherine at Snowhaven—the main estate of the Earls of Matlock—in Derbyshire.
Friends of his attended. On Catherine’s side were her parents, the now late earl and countess, her brother, Viscount Hilldale, Lord Reginald Fitzwilliam and his wife Lady Elaine. The latter couple had two boys, Andrew born in September 1781, and Richard who was just beyond one. In addition, her sister Lady Anne attended with her husband, Robert Darcy. They had a son who had been born a little more than six months after Richard. Fitzwilliam, or William as they called him, was in the nursery at Pemberley less than ten miles from the Fitzwilliams’ estate, also in Derbyshire.
They had spent ten days at Lakeside House, the Fitzwilliams’ house overlooking some of the lakes in the Lake District. By the end of the wedding trip, Lewis knew what an enormous error he had made.
By then, it was far too late to do anything to correct his misjudgement. Yes, he had gained thirty thousand pounds, the mortgage was satisfied, and the estate coffers were once again flush, but he was leg shackled to a virago of the first order.
Too late he discovered she was an uneducated woman with no accomplishments. That fact, however, did not stop her from pontificating on every subject as if she was a genius. She was anything but. Only now he understood why his father-in-law had been willing to pay so much money to have her taken off his hands.
Sitting and thinking back on the interactions between Lady Catherine and her siblings at the wedding breakfast,Sir Lewis could clearly see how her brother and sister would listen to her pronouncements and advice without comment. Once she was done issuing her useless and uninvited advice, Hilldale and Anne—as they had invited him to call them—would go back to what they were doing before as if Catherine had not said a word.
On the way to the lakes, she had spewed vitriol against their brother-in-law Robert Darcy for being untitled. It was the first, but certainly not the last time Lewis had heard his wife pontificate about the distinction of rank and how it had to be preserved at all costs.
It was almost a year later when the family had got together at Snowhaven for Easter of 1786, where Sir Lewis had heard the truth of why his wife loved to aim her vitriol at Darcy.
Even though she decried the fact Darcy had no title, evidently as soon as Anne had begun to be courted by him, Lady Catherine had tried to divert Darcy to herself. She had gone as far as an attempted—and failed—compromise.
From what he had been told, two things had motivated Lady Catherine’s attempt to turn Robert Darcy to herself. One, she could not sit by and allow her younger sister to marry before her, and two, he was one of, if not the, wealthiest non-titled man in the realm. In fact, what the Darcys had rivalled, and in some cases exceeded, the wealth of many peers of the realm.
With her failed entrapment and Darcy’s repudiation of her, Lady Catherine had turned her venom on the man. On a visit by Lady Catherine to Pemberley not long after Darcy married Anne—where the younger sister had attempted to find peace between herself and Lady Catherine—Darcy’s favourite pointer, one who was more pet than working dog, disappeared.
He was found drowned a day or two later. The suspicionwas it had been Catherine’s handiwork, but nothing had been proved. It was the last time his wife had been welcomed at Pemberley.
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Life at Rosings Park had become intolerable for Sir Lewis. Each time he denied his wife’s unreasonable demands to redecorate the home in a gaudy, ostentatious fashion, she would caterwaul and screech like a fishmonger’s wife. Thankfully, her machinations had no effect on him, and he always stuck to his resolve.
He also had refused her entreaties to have the formal gardens reorganised. She felt there were far too many roses and they were very untidily planted. Sir Lewis had point blank denied her requests pointing out it was forbidden for anyone to remove the roses which had given the estate its name.
Even her demand to have the rest of the flower beds organised by colour and type of flowers had been roundly denied.
During the season, they would spend a few months at de Bourgh House on Cavendish Square in Mayfair. It soon became evident to Sir Lewis that regardless of her protestations to the contrary, his wife had no friends. She was no more palatable to members of theTonthan she was to her brother, sister, and their families.
Sir Lewis would see Darcy and Hilldale at White’s, Boodle’s, or at Angelo’s School of Arms, in Carlisle House. By the time he married Lady Catherine, the fencing establishment had been in existence for twelve years.
All three men loved to fence and were very proficient at the sport. Although none of them had beaten him, they would challenge Domenico Angelo to a match from time to time. Darcy had so far come the closest to beating the master swordsman.
As long as his wife was not with him, Sir Lewis waswelcome to visit both Matlock and Darcy Houses on Grosvenor Square.
Invitations to soirées, unless they were for men only, did not arrive at de Bourgh House. Of course, his wife blamed everyone for slighting her. She neither could nor would ever, accept it was her character which drove everyone away from her.
Notwithstanding the dearth of callers and invitations, Catherine insisted they come to London each year.
The first year in London after his mistaken marriage, Sir Lewis had called on his solicitor, Mr. Horrace Rumpole. After the not-so-subtle hints, in actuality demands, his wife had made that on his passing, he leave ownership of the estate, the houses in London and Bath, and any funds in his accounts to her, he had a new will written. The new will was, as much as it was possible to be, incontestable, and left all to his son, or daughter if no son was born, when that child reached their majority. If he died without a child, the estate would become his brothers-in-laws’ property. Between them, they would be allowed to give his estate to whomever they chose or to sell the estate and houses, if that was their decision.
Added were clauses codifying his denial of permission to redecorate the house or reorganise the gardens.
