Robert had married his lady love in 1781, with everyone else in the Fitzwilliam family’s blessing and approval—other than Lady Catherine’s. Robert Darcy and the current earl, Reggie, had been best of friends for many years prior to the former’s interest in the latter’s youngest sister.
A year after her younger sister married, and after nottakingfor eight seasons, Lady Catherine had married Lewis de Bourgh, the only man who had offered for her. Unwilling to bemarried to the untitled de Bourgh, Catherine pressed her father until he finally petitioned for a knighthood for his son-in-law. His estate of Rosings Park in Kent was nothing to Pemberley or Snowhaven—the estate of the earls of Matlock—but he was, in her opinion, acceptably wealthy.
The old Earl had passed away in early 1779, his wife followed him not three months later. Lord Reginald Fitzwilliam, with his beloved wife Lady Elaine at his side, had assumed the Earldom and his son Andrew, two-years-old at the time, had become the new Viscount Hilldale. A second son, Richard, had been born in February 1782.
Lady Catherine had come to Snowhaven in order to dispense her advice (orders) after her father’s death, but had been sent away almost immediately by her brother who had no time for her officious pretentions.
In January 1783, Fitzwilliam Alexander Robert Darcy was born. He was a rather serious lad by the time he was eight or nine, taller than most boys his age with dark, wavy hair. William as he was called, also had the piercing blue eyes of all the Fitzwilliam family—except for Lady Catherine—who had brown eyes.
Lady Catherine had delivered a daughter, Anne, in June 1786. With no pressure to produce a male heir as Rosings Park was unentailed, since Anne’s birth, she had locked her door to her husband and never allowed him to come to her again.
Having been roundly refused to securing an engagement between Andrew and her daughter, she tried to force one between Fitzwilliam—she refused to call him anything but Fitzwilliam—and Anne. The result was the same. Adamant refusal. A seething Lady Catherine had been sent back to Kent with much resentment that no one would obey her commands.
Between William’s birth and early 1795, Lady Anne Darcy had multiple miscarriages. She came to believe they would never be blessed with another child. When she had felt the signs of being with child in September - October 1794, she had said not a word to anyone. Then close to Christmas of that year she had felt the quickening. It was on the morning of Christmas day when Lady Anne told her husband her news. Until she entered her lying in on the third day of March 1795, Robert Darcy had been very watchful over his wife’s health.
After a long and arduous birthing process, on the fourth day of March a little girl, named Georgiana by combining her late paternal grandfather’s and her mother’s names—with hardly a hair on her head had been born. She would be called Anna by all her family and friends.
Anne Darcy had been assisted by three of her sisters—the three she enjoyed being with—through the lying in. It had been Edith who had come to collect her brother to come see his wife.
It had taken a while for his beloved Anne to recover, but recover she had. In the meanwhile little Anna captured all of their hearts, especially that of her older brother.
In May of 1800, Sir Lewis de Bourgh had taken a journey to inspect some holdings of his on the Orkney Islands. Everyone knew it was one of his ways to have some peaceful time far away from his wife. There had been a sudden and unexpected storm and the ship and all hands and passengers had been lost.
Due to Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s continued insistence on an engagement with one of her two firstborn nephews, and her continued attempts to order the lives of those in the family, after the funeral, it had been the last time the Derbyshire and Staffordshire family had been in her company. An empty coffin had been placed in the family crypt as the body was never recovered.
Sadly, Anne de Bourgh was a rather sickly girl. She had a serious bout of scarlet fever she had when she was seven. It was unfortunate she did not have contact with her aunts, uncles, and cousins, but as long as her mother behaved as she did, it would not be possible.
It was sad, but it was the cost of not being in Lady Catherine’s company. Any requests to have Anne come visit her family in London or the north had been rebuffed by Lady Catherine, of course, unless there was agreement to an engagement.
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In 1786, Robert Darcy had employed a new steward, a man who had been a law clerk in Lambton. He had joined the staff at Pemberley with his wife and son. George Wickham was almost two at the time Lucas Wickham took up his new post.
In the years since Wickham had become his steward, George had been added to the group of friends which included Andrew, Richard, and William. The group expanded when the Portnoy and Barrington male cousins were present.
Unfortunately, as George aged, Robert saw jealousy and resentment being stoked in the boy. His son and nephews had not wanted to tattle on the steward’s son, but when confronted by their fathers and asked pointed questions, they had not dissembled.
With the mischief coming to light, Darcy had to have a hard conversation with his steward telling him he felt it best for there to be no more contact between George and the children of the family. Lucas Wickham was not blind to his son’s faults nor was he unaware that his avaricious wife was the one who had influenced George’s behaviour.
He promised his master to make sure George caused no more mischief at the estate. To that end, after his mother passed away in August 1803, George was sent to live with his father’s sister in Devonshire.
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The whole family—excluding the irascible Lady Catherine de Bourgh—were at Pemberley to celebrate Easter which would fall on the sixth day of April 1806.
As he did each and every day, Robert said a prayer of thanks to the good Lord above for the fact his Anne was as healthy as she had ever been and not been taken after Anna’s difficult birth.
Although he was not active in theTon,he had heard the rumours regarding the disgusting Duke of Hertfordshire’s search for a new wife. He was certain a parent would have to have little love for a daughter in order to agree to marry her to such an abusive brute.
Chapter 1
William was not happy, even though he respected Richard’s choice of career, that his cousin was in the army—the Royal Dragoons of the regulars—and was a Captain.
Over the years, there was not one of his male cousins he was closer to than Richard Fitzwilliam—they were separated by less than a year with Richard being four and twenty and William three and twenty. William had been somewhat close to Lawrence and Warren Portnoy, four and twenty and one and twenty respectively, and Anthony Barrington, two and twenty, not to mention Andrew Fitzwilliam who was six and twenty,
Being there was less than a year in age separating Richard and William, they had done everything together as they grew older, brothers in every way except not being born of the same mother. Richard could have entered Eton a year ahead of William, but he had elected to wait for his slightly younger cousin. As such, they had been together from the first day they had begun at Eton until the day they graduated from Cambridge when William had been one and twenty and Richard one year older.
Since the first year they had begun their studies away from home, Richard had insisted he would join the regular army.
