“Should we not tell Lady Catherine?Or the housekeeper?We cannot leave Mrs.Jenkinson on her own in there!”cried Darcy.
“Darcy, have you never wondered why Mrs.Jenkinson is so very large in comparison to her charge?”
Darcy was the picture of confusion.“No, why should I?Anne is a small woman.Anyone would look large next to her.”
“It might surprise you to know that Anne is not so small, you simply rarely see her standing up.She is nearly as tall as her mother.”
“What?”
Colonel Fitzwilliam resisted rolling his eyes by a narrow thread.“She is very thin, and possibly frail, but a large portion of Mrs.Jenkinson’s job is as Anne’s enforcer.”
“Enforcer?What the devil are you talking of?What exactly does she enforce?”
“Perhaps that is a bad choice of words.She is more of a minder than anything else.She monitors Anne, keeps her calm, and keeps her from hurting herself or others.”
Darcy ran a hand down his face.“Are you in earnest?You are not having one of your jokes?”
“The blood on your face will tell you how earnest I am, Darcy.I have known of her temperament for years.”
Darcy was incredulous.“Years?Why did you never say anything?How did you find out?Why was I not told?”
They had finally made it to the colonel’s room, and he called in his man to see to Darcy’s injury.“Don’t worry, Tiny has plenty of experience with this sort of thing.”
Tiny was the colonel’s batman, so called because of his enormous size.His name was one of many things about the army Darcy did not understand.The large man came immediately, assessed the injury, and was soon cleaning Darcy up and applying a plaster to his forehead.
“Talk,” said Darcy, staring darkly at his cousin.“Now.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam had the gall to look perfectly unruffled.“What is there to say?Anne’s temperament is uncertain, made worse by her harridan of a mother.Though I have never seen her lose her temper as badly as today.”
“How did you come to learn of it?”
“Father told me.He wished me to be on my guard when we visited.”
“Dare I ask how he learned of it?And did he not wish me to be on my guard as well?”
Colonel Fitzwilliam ignored his cousin’s pique.“It is possible he has always known—he is her uncle.But from what I have heard, when he visited a few years ago and told Lady Catherine that Anne ought to learn how to play the pianoforte, she bit him.”
“Bit him!?”
“Yes.I did not believe it myself until Father showed me the teeth marks.He left for London the day after it occurred, and I happened to be in residence in Town.”
“Good God.Why was I never told?”
Fitzwilliam shrugged.“Father may have thought you knew.Or perhaps he thought it would not matter to you.”
“Not matter?”roared Darcy.“How could it not matter?She just broke every item in that room because she heard something she did not like.How could such a woman ever be mistress of Pemberley?”
“Easily enough.She wouldn’t.Anne comes with Rosings—you could easily marry her and bring her companion to Pemberley to manage her, or leave her at Rosings with her mother, at least part of the year.Father assumed you would take a mistress and be married in name only.Plenty of people do it.”
“I need an heir!”Darcy cried, his disbelief mounting by the second.“A legitimate one!”
“Yes, I know you do, which is why I never would have let you actually marry her.”
Darcy looked at him shrewdly.“You knew she would do this.You did it on purpose so I would see what she is.”
Fitzwilliam shrugged.“Not entirely.But you did refuse to listen to me when I told you she was unstable.”
“You never said she would do that!”he cried, pointing angrily toward the room the mayhem had occurred in.
