Page 35 of Her Favourite Daughter

“I agree with Anne on all points.” Lady Elaine looked at her nephew with a gimlet eye. She turned to her husband. “Reggie, we need to depart for Hertfordshire this very day.”

“Indeed we will,” Holderness stated. “If we find that this girl is in fact our goddaughter, then we will send riders up the Great North Road to redirect Amelia to the estate of Longbourn. I would suggest that we be very careful in the way we share the news. With all of the time she has suffered, I am certain that if this Lizzy Bennet looks as much like Amelia as Miss Bingley and her brother stated, then Amelia will banish the doubts as soon as she sees her.”

“Will I be able to meet Lady Bethany so I can apologise that my late birthparents could do something so very heinous?” Anne Fitzwilliam enquired. “When Lord Granville completes his year of mourning, before he proposes, I want to tell him about the people who bore me and what they did.”

“Once we have established her identity, I am sure you will meet her, and Anne, you have nothing for which to apologise. You were three or four when Mr and Mrs de Bourgh committed their crimes,” Matlock responded. “As for telling Granville, that my dear daughter is entirely your decision. If you feel it is something you must do, then speak to him. However, just like Bethie will not hold you responsible for the actions of others, I am certain neither will he.”

Lady Anne rang for the butler. “Instruct our personal servants to pack; we leave within an hour,” she commanded. The butler bowed and went to carry out the mistress’s orders.

“I will send a rider ahead to reserve chambers for us at a coaching inn. It is more than one hundred miles, meaning that we will arrive on the morrow,” Holderness related. “It seems like a dream that in less than two days we will know if this Miss Bennet is truly Bethie.”

“Amelia will be beyond ecstatic if it is Bethie,” Lady Anne mused. “It will be her dearest hope come true.”

“And I will craft a missive to Collins to inform him of our coming. It should reach him by the morning on the morrow. I do not think we should descend upon this Mr Bennet’s estate without any warning,” Matlock proposed. “As soon as it is ready, I will send it with one of my couriers.”

No one disagreed with Matlock’s decision.

While Holderness’s man rode to find an inn for the night, a Matlock courier was on his way to Longbourn.

Chapter 13

“Both the Fitzwilliams and Darcys will arrive around noon today, or perhaps later in the afternoon,” Collins reported after he read the note the Matlock courier had just delivered.

“I know both earls as they invest with me,” Gardiner stated. “They are both good men, as are their sons, even if the Darcy heir, Viscount Conyers, can be a little standoffish.” The six Gardiners—the youngest of the children, Peter, a one year old, having been born in June 1806—arrived in the evening the previous day.

This morning, Bennet had been closeted in his study with Gardiner and Phillips to discuss the possible legal pitfalls of never seeking Lizzy’s birthparents and also what would occur with her dowry of almost fifteen thousand pounds. Gardiner related that if Lizzy were proved to be Lady Bethany, she would own multiple estates and houses in London, not to mention a dowry which would be many times larger than the combined amount of the Bennet sisters’ fortunes. He suggested that if that be the case, Bennet divide the amount of Lizzy’s dowry between his other three daughters.

From a legal standpoint, Phillips opined that he did not believe that the Bennets would be in legal jeopardy. He related that from what he had researched, rather than arrest, the Bennets could very well be honoured and rewarded for saving and raising Lady Bethany.

Bennet stated unequivocally that he would refuse any reward. He and Fanny needed nothing more than the years they had had Lizzy in their lives. He was not ready to call her Lady Bethany yet.

Fanny was seated in the drawing room with Mother Beth, Penelope, Maddie, and Hattie. She felt very apprehensive. If Lizzy were proved to be Lady Bethany, a suo jure duchess, everything would become real, and she would be looking at losing her second daughter. Yes, she had heard what both Thomas and Lizzy had said on the subject; however, until those who were connected with the birth family arrived, she would not know if her favourite daughter would be sundered from them.

Now, as hard as it was to wait calmly, that was all she could do. The die had been cast, to bring the Fitzwilliams and Darcys to Longbourn. As much as she wished it would not be so, Fanny was certain that the crescent moon birthmark behind Lizzy’s left ear would be positive proof that her favourite daughter was indeed Lady Bethany Osborne.

She admonished herself for the selfish feelings. Cousin Clem had confirmed the name of the criminal who had written the scrap of the vile note Fanny had discovered the day she found Lizzy. Not only that, but he had assured them that the family of the lost Lady Bethany had always loved her and would have given their lives to protect her. As such, Fanny knew that as much as her heart would ache if Lizzy were removed from their care, she would be happy for the mother who had been deprived of such a daughter for almost sixteen years. All Fanny could do was pray that it would be as Lizzy said and that she would not give up her Bennet family for anyone or anything.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

“Why does no one agree with me that these Bennets should be held to account for never seeking my cousin’s family?” Conyers whinged soon after they left the last coaching inn before they reached the insignificant estate where the Bennets resided. He was riding in a coach with his sister and three Fitzwilliam cousins. The two sets of parents were riding in the lead conveyance.

“William, you can be a stubborn prig sometimes,” Hilldale responded before his brother knocked some sense into their cousin. “It is not like you two are closely related. Your father and the late Earl of Holderness, the one your father inherited the title from, shared a common great-grandfather.”

What Andrew said about the family connection was nothing but the truth. However, he used that relationship as justification for his opinions regarding those who had found Lady Bethany. As Conyers looked around the cabin of the carriage, he could see that his opinion had no more support with his sister or cousins than it did the two sets of parents. “Well, they did keep the information hidden and never sought her parents,” he said petulantly.

“You seem to ignore facts which do not fit with your preconceived opinions,” Fitzwilliam shot back while Anne and Giana shook their heads. “Did you skip over the part about the Bennets believing that they were protecting Bethie from parents who wanted to murder her?” He raised his hand to cut off the forming protest. “They made the best decision they could with the dearth of information they had. All they knew based on a portion of a note they recovered, was that someone wanted her dead, so they protected her.”

Rather than speak, Conyers considered his cousins’ words as well as the scornful looks he was receiving from his sister and theirs. Perhaps he had been too quick to judge without knowing all the facts. Unless he discovered proof of his assertions, he resolved to not mention them again. He leaned back against the squabs and feigned sleep.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

“Betty, why do you never tell me what the Darcys are doing?” George Wickham said as he put on an injured look.

George Wickham had used the pitiful allowance his father gifted him to take the post to Brighton to try putting himself in the Darcys’ company. He was sure that when Lord Holderness heard how George’s father demanded he work if he wanted more money, he would see the unfairness of it and finally take him on as a godson, thereby allowing George to live in the manner in which he and his late mother thought he was entitled. He ignored the inconvenient facts that the earl had always refused to take on that role and had consistently warned George away from his family.

“That, Georgy, be ‘cause anyone caught gossipin’ about the family will be sacked without a character. I cannot afford to live without me wages, and you don’ ‘ave money to keep me,” Betty, a maid at Seaview House responded.

Betty Cambell was a downstairs maid at Seaview House, and she was no one’s fool. She enjoyed having some fun with George Wickham, but she was fully aware that very little coming out of his mouth would be the truth. What she was about to tell him, she knew, would be public knowledge soon enough, so there was no harm in it.