~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
“Do you think I should leave on Thursday?” Darcy asked his aunt and uncle. “How is Anna doing?”
“To the first question, yes, it does Anna no good that you are hovering and looking over her shoulder all the time. She needs some time without you,” Lady Matlock replied. “To the second, she is improving, albeit slowly. Since you and Richard chose Mrs Annesley, Anna has been doing even better.”
Darcy’s aunt had suggested four ladies for Richard and him to interview for the post of Anna’s companion. All four had been excellent candidates, but Mrs Helena Annesley had far outshone the other three and had been offered the position, which she accepted with alacrity. The fact that she had been Lady Marie’s companion until that lady married Andrew Fitzwilliam did not hurt her; in fact, it was one of the deciding factors. Since Anna was at Matlock House, Darcy had not seen them together very much.
“I am glad to hear it. I have not seen her dissolve into tears for a few weeks now,” Darcy observed.
“William, I told you I would not allow Anna to wallow in self-pity. In fact, I believe that her own errors being pointed out to her may have helped her.” Lady Matlock paused and looked from her son to her nephew. “Richard, did I not hear you tell your father that that man has been known to force himself on unwilling young girls?”
“Ehrm, I did. It was not something I wanted to discuss with a lady,” Fitzwilliam owned.
“Come, Richard. I am not some blushing bride, and I am fully aware that women are raped. The fact that this society of ours blames the victims is unconscionable. But the reason I asked was that if that is the case, and Anna had resisted his advances, would she not be ruined now?” Lady Matlock enquired.
Fitzwilliam and Darcy looked at one another with horrified looks on their countenances.
“We had not considered that,” Darcy replied gruffly. Had the bastard done that to his sister, he would have burnt Seven Dials and St Giles to the ground to find him. When he did, Darcy would have strangled the libertine with his bare hands.
“Not now, but once Anna is much further down the road to recovery, she needs to be told this,” Lady Matlock suggested.
Anna’s guardians agreed it would be so.
They both looked at Lord Matlock askance. He had been strangely silent and looked rather pensive.
The Earl cleared his throat. “As your mother has raised the subject of rape, I must tell you about Catherine. No, she was not the victim of such a vile attack.” Matlock took a deep breath. “It was Mother, your late grandmother Fitzwilliam. Father was already courting her when she was attacked by some man who had wanted her for his wife. He needed her dowry and thought that with her ruined, your late grandfather would reject her and refuse to marry her.
“Instead, my father married my mother the very next day by common license before calling out the attacker. Dueling was not illegal then. The perpetrator made the mistake of choosing foils, not realising my father was an expert with the sword. It was over in the matter of a minute. The rapist lay dead, my late father’s foil buried in his black heart.
“In order to make sure that no child was born of the attack that was not of Fitzwilliam blood, they did not consummate their marriage. Three-or four-months later, Mother felt the quickening and five months after that, Catherine was born. I am almost two years younger than Catherine, and Anne,” Matlock looked at his nephew, “your late mother, was four years my junior.
“When Catherine was sixteen and kept demanding to know why she had nothing of the Fitzwilliams in her looks, Mother and Father told her the truth. They explained that no matter who her birthfather was, Catherine was their daughter. That is when she changed. She always had to prove she was as good, if not better than us, and that led to her need to control everything. There is one more thing,” Matlock revealed.
“What is it? What else can there be?” Fitzwilliam wondered.
“De Bourgh said that Anne could not have been his. He had not had relations with Catherine for many months before she announced she was with child. As he very much wanted an heir, de Bourgh never challenged Catherine about Anne’s parentage, and like Catherine, who was accepted as a Fitzwilliam, Anne was taken as his own daughter by de Bourgh. He never held Cathrine’s indiscretion against Anne. It was why he placed so many restrictions in his will to make sure Catherine could not destroy his estate and fritter all of his wealth away. I told Elaine this the same night I alluded to a secret.”
“That explains much about Aunt Catty. She tries to act as if she is superior to everyone when in fact, she feels inferior,” Fitzwilliam opined.
“You could very well be correct, Son, but unless Catherine speaks about the subject, which she will not, we will only be able to make conjectures. This all being said, it in no way excuses her theft of her parson’s funds nor her attempts to gain control of Rosings Park. There are many other excesses, too many to enumerate now, but there are no good excuses for them either.”
It took some minutes before Fitzwilliam and Darcy were able to comprehend everything they had been told.
“Back to my original question, do you actually think it iswise to go to Hertfordshire?” Darcy verified.
“As I said, yes, I do. Just be careful of that fortune-hunting social climber, Miss Caroline. Word about her is already widely known in society, especially the way she claims a close association with you,” Lady Matlock confirmed.
“If I have been in her company twice, for a total of an hour, it is a lot,” Darcy stated disgustedly.
“If she tries anything dishonourable, I will see her ruined,” Lady Matlock threatened; it was a fact that she made no idle threats. “Go and enjoy yourself, William, but be careful, even if you will not give in to a compromise.”
“Carstens will sleep in my bedchamber on a cot near the door, and when neither he nor I are in the suite, the doors will be locked. Miss Caroline will not be the mistress, so she will have no access to the keys. In fact, one of the first things Bingley’s aunt, who will be the hostess, will do is to tell the housekeeper that Miss Caroline has no authority, and especially no rights to keys to any suite but her own.”
“That is all well then,” Matlock stated.
When the meeting with his aunt and uncle was over, Darcy went to find Anna and Mrs Annesley to inform them he would be departing London in four days.
Chapter 14
