“We can only pray if Mr Bingley, or one of hismanyfriends, do take an interest in you, Mama and our two youngest sisters will not cause him to run all the way to London with his tail between his legs.”
“Lizzy, you promised,” Jane shook her head.
“We are speaking in private. I did not say, nor will I say, a word of this for Mama to hear. What harm am I doing?” Elizabeth asked innocently.
“Even if Mama is not here to hear you, it is disrespectful to her,” Jane asserted.
Elizabeth raised her hands in surrender.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
“William, go. It will do both you and Gigi good if you keep to your plans and do not remain here hovering over her all the time,” Lady Elaine Fitzwilliam told her nephew. “Becca will be with her, and you well know Richard comes home mostnights and spends two to three days at Matlock House each week.”
Lady Rebecca was the youngest Fitzwilliam, born thirteen years after her next older brother, Richard. Lady Matlock had given up on ever bearing another child so she and the Earl, Lord Reginald Fitzwilliam, had been overjoyed when she had felt the quickening. Becca, as she was called by family and friends, had recently turned sixteen and she and Gigi had always been close. During the summer they would be at Pemberley or Snowhaven—the primary estate of the Matlock earldom—and over the years the two had become almost as close as sisters.
As much as Gigi had hated disappointing her guardians, when she had made the extremely ill-advised decision to agree to an elopement with the son of Pemberley’s late steward, seeing the mortification Becca had expressed when Gigi had owned what she had almost done, had been almost overwhelming. At the same time her cousin was helping her recover, which was why Lady Elaine was insistent her nephew should make his way into Hertfordshire.
“I still feel like I failed Georgiana and betrayed the trust Father placed in me when he made me one of her guardians,” Darcy said sadly. “I should never have employed Mrs Younge as her companion.”
“Did you forget you are not our Gigi’s only guardian? Richard suspected aught was not right with that despicable woman, but he said nothing to you. Besides, had you not been suspicious of the lack of correspondence from her, and surprised your sister by arriving three days earlier than you had planned, it would have been too late. You saved her from a fate too terrible to contemplate,” Lady Matlock pointed out. “The one most to blame is my late brother, Robert, who indulged that blackguard George Wickham, and gave him expectations which could never be met.”
Darcy wanted to spring to his honoured, departedfather’s defence, but he recognised the truth in his aunt’s words. He had thought as much himself many times over the years as he collected vowels paying the profligate wastrel’s debts. That did not even include the money he had shelled out to support the seduced and abandoned young women, some of them with child.
Rather than tell his father the true nature of George Wickham, Darcy had remained mute on the subject. He did not want to take away the pleasure his father derived from the entertainment Wickham had provided him. When his late father was with Darcy’s erstwhile friend, it was one of the few times his sire would smile after the loss of his wife. One thing he was sure of, had his father been alive to see his godson try to elope with Gigi, it would have killed him.
“In that case, I will accede to your judgement that it will be good for my sister if I am not here breathing down her neck,” Darcy decided. “If Miss Bingley does not behave, it may be a very short visit.”
“Say the word and I will make sure she ispersona-non-gratain society. That woman is a shrew of the first order, even more of a termagant than your Aunt Catherine,” Lady Matlock stated.
Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and her sickly daughter Anne, lived at the estate of Rosings Park in Kent, not far from Westerham and close to the market town of Hunsford. In order to make sure she was not displaced as the mistress of the estate, as soon as Robert Darcy had passed, she began to claim a ‘cradle betrothal’ between her daughter and her nephew, Darcy. She decided if Anne married him, she would be at Pemberley leaving Lady Catherine alone to continue running Rosings Park.
Thankfully for her family, the mistress of Rosings Park almost never ventured away from the estate in Kent. Her brother was the executor of her late husband’s will—Sir Lewis de Bourgh, a knight. He was more than prepared to enforcethe terms of his late brother-in-law’s instructions when Anne turned five and twenty in May of 1813.
The lady was one of decided opinions, especially about maintaining the distinctions of rank and class, and was wont to offer her opinions on any and every subject. The fact they were almost always wrong and her officious interference was not requested, had never inhibited Lady Catherine from making her nonsensical pronouncements. Yes, termagant was accurate, along with harridan and harpy, not to mention ignorant and without any accomplishments.
“It may come to that one day, Aunt, but for now, I will not set you on Miss Bingley as I do not want things to redound on my friend,” Darcy explained.
His aunt agreed not to unleash her, and her friends, disapprobation on the social climber…yet. After kissing her cheek, and farewelling Becca and Gigi, Darcy returned to Darcy House across the green in the centre of Grosvenor Square, and ordered his valet to pack for a departure early in the morning on the morrow.
Chapter 3
“But what will Mr Darcy think if I am not with Charles to welcome him to my estate?” Miss Bingley fretted.
“As you are not his friend who invited him to join us, and neither are you my hostess, he will think it right and proper,” Bingley insisted. Besides, it is notyourestate.” To himself he added, ‘He will be well pleased you are not accosting him the instant he arrives.’ Bingley made his way out of the drawing room to go welcome his friend to his leased estate.
“Did the housekeeper place him in a chamber near me…us so he is in a family suite?” Miss Bingley demanded.
“No, Caroline, she did not,” Mrs Hurst retorted. “Mrs Nichols knows not to carry out any order from you unless I inform her to do so, and more importantly, Mr Darcy would be greatly perturbed if he was placed in a family apartment given he is, in fact, not family.”
“This is not to be borne, I should be the mistress of the estate,” Miss Bingley screeched as she stamped her slippered foot.
“Yet you are not, Louisa is,” Hurst observed. “By the by sisterdearest, do you think Darcy hearing you screech like a fishmonger’s wife in the market will make a good impression?”
Miss Bingley’s mouth flapped open and closed a few times. As much as she wanted to refute what Hurst said, she was aware Mr Darcy would not be sanguine with such behaviour. ‘I must do whatever it takes to leave here engaged to my Darcy,’ she told herself silently, ‘I will not have Misses Grantlyand Hart running around telling everyone how I failed to secure Mr Darcy since I have told them it is certain I will return to London engaged to him.’
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
In the drive, Darcy was gratified to see only Bingley waiting to welcome him. He had been prepared for Miss Bingley to pounce and make a grab for his arm as soon as he alighted from his coach. It would be much more pleasant without her to bother him the instant he arrived.
