Page 43 of Her Favourite Daughter

“Mother, if I may make a suggestion? Meet the Bennets in the drawing room, and once that is done, then you, Mamma, and Papa can retire to the study and speak. You will get first-hand answers instead of us repeating what they have told us, even if I do remember everything,” Elizabeth proposed.

Amelia looked at her friends, who both nodded. “In that case, I will defer to my daughter. Lead the way, Bethie. I am ready to meet those who saved you.”

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

The eight Bennets in the drawing room were becoming a little nervous. They knew that the dowager duchess had arrived close to an hour previously, but she had yet to come and meet them.

The two earls and their three sons looked unconcerned while Anne was chatting quietly with Jane, and Giana was seated between Mary and Kitty.

The door opened, and everyone in the drawing room stood.

“Mamma, Papa, Grandmama Beth, Aunt Penelope, Jane, James, Mary, and Kitty, I present my mother, Lady Amelia Osborne, the Dowager Duchess of Leeds. Mother, Mr and Mrs Thomas Bennet, Mrs Beth Bennet, Mrs Penelope Bennet, Miss Bennet, Master Bennet, Miss Mary, and Miss Kitty,” Elizabeth said by way of introduction.

As Amelia looked around at the various Bennets, she could see the way they looked at Bethie with love and that she looked back at them in the same way. Had the Bennets not found her, it was very possible Bethie would not have survived until the carriage with the dead criminal next to it was discovered some days after she had been kidnapped. No matter what they suspected or did not about her birth family, they had saved her daughter’s life and brought her up as a loved member of the family and not as a foundling.

“Regardless of how many years I did not have with Bethie, or as you call her, Lizzy, I want to thank you for saving and loving my daughter,” Lady Amelia stated. She approached Mrs Bennet and opened her arms. “You were the one who rescued her, were you not?” Lady Amelia said in sotto voce next to the other lady’s ear.

“I did, Your Grace,” Fanny replied as she felt relief flood her body. Lady Amelia was not angry with them for the years she had lost, only grateful for caring for her daughter.

“Do you call our common daughter ‘Your Grace’?” Lady Amelia enquired. “She is, after all, a duchess.”

“Of course not!” Fanny exclaimed.

“As we are both mothers to her, there will be no more ‘Your Grace’. Please, will you call me Amelia? Before you claim you cannot, how do you address my best friends and their husbands?” She indicated the countesses and the earls with her head.

“We address one another informally,” Fanny owned. “I will use your informal name as long as you call me Fanny, Amelia.”

“That is settled then.” Lady Amelia turned to her daughter. “You are very fortunate you grew up in a house with a grandmother. My parents were called home long before Francis and I were blessed with you, as were his.”

“Grandmama Beth, Aunt Penelope, and my siblings, even James, are much loved by me,” Elizabeth teased.

Amelia arched an eyebrow at the jest towards the Bennet heir.

“You will soon discover that Lizzy and James love to compete at anything and everything,” Fanny explained. “Their rivalry is usually friendly.”

“Mr Bennet and Fanny, Bethie suggested we speak in the study. Do either of you object?” Amelia asked.

“Please call me, Thomas,” Bennet interjected.

“You have not been shown to your suite yet, so you may wash and change. Before you object; yes, you are being hosted here,” Fanny insisted. “After being apart from your daughter for almost sixteen years, do you think we would not have you sleep under the same roof as her? Also, dinner will be in an hour, and then, you will meet some more family and friends after dinner. This is a long way of saying that Thomas and I will speak with you and answer any questions you have, but I would recommend we begin to meet on the morrow after we break our fasts.”

“That is wise. If someone would be so good as to show me to my chambers, I would be grateful,” Lady Amelia agreed.

“I will show Mother to her suite,” Elizabeth volunteered.

Mother and daughter left the drawing room arm in arm.

Chapter 16

Fanny was very happy when Lizzy had asked her to join her for a morning walk. Her second daughter decided to forgo riding Jupiter to walk with her, and Fanny was very thankful as she had not had the opportunity to ask Lizzy how she felt after meeting her mother the previous day.

As the eastern sky barely began to lighten, they left via the kitchen door—Cook had warm baked goods wrapped in a cloth ready for them—crossed the kitchen garden and exited via the wooden gate in the low stone wall around the garden. The wall had been built at a height to keep any escaped pigs from being able to scale it to reach the herbs and vegetables on the other side.

Elizabeth and her mother were escorted by Brian Johns, who had been waiting for them just outside the kitchen. He was the one who closed and secured the gate. No one at Longbourn wanted a repeat of the destruction the two escaped pigs wrought on the kitchen garden when the gate had not been secured properly. As such, making sure it was securely closed was double-checked each time it was used. The inadvertent culprit had been none other than Lizzy when she was seven.

Knowing that with his long strides Brian would not have to expend any effort to keep pace with them, mother and daughter took off at the blistering pace they preferred when they walked together.

Once Brian had satisfied himself there was no one else on the summit of the hill, Fanny and Lizzy walked to the eastern edge and took a seat on the flattened boulder they always used. Fanny pulled the still-warm cloth from her pocket. She looked back to see that John had extracted his own cloth from Cook. There were orders in the kitchen that whenever some baked goods were prepared for the walkers, some were to be made for the escorts as well.