Page 1 of Mr. Darcy Comes to Town

Prologue

Aunty shuffled across the wood plank floor of her cabin bedchamber. Her feet met the blue and gray braided rug, and she paused to stare down at her slipper-clad feet, wondering why she had stopped moving. Sighing, she lifted her right foot up an inch and slid it onto the rug. Her left foot followed. More shuffling. At the edge of her bed, with the wooden head and footboards carved in curlicue motifs, Aunty placed her mug of hot medicinal tea onto her bedside table. The white mug held a black and white image of a paddle boat called the SS Sicamous. Resting next to the alarm clock were her spare set of spectacles, her pile of handkerchiefs, and the green-leather bound journal she kept there to write her dreams upon.

“Wheek?”

“Aye, I’m goin’ back to my bed even though it’s only ten in the mornin’,” Aunty told Jeffry, her guinea pig. A shiver ran through her. “Can’t y’see I’m sick as a dog? You’d best get off my pillow before y’get whatever I’ve got.”

Jeffry scurried out of the way. Aunty grunted in response to his obedience, turning around as she did so. Scooting back onto the bed, she let her slippers fall to the floor, then she put her legs under the down duvet. Heaving another miserable sigh, she tugged the covers up over her shoulders.

Jeffry squeaked.

“Aye, it’s that time again. But, y’know, boyo, I’m not doin’ nuthin’ fer anyone until I feel better. Those two can fall in love without my help this time.” Aunty rolled onto her side, lifted the mug and drank a good sip of the honey-laced ginger, peppermint, and chamomile tea. “Ahhh. Very nice.”

Jeffry made a sympathetic sound.

“Don’t ye feel sorry fer them two,” she directed him, closing her eyes and snuggling down. “Feel sorry fer me, instead.” Aunty sighed. Her eyes popped open. “I can hear what you’re thinking, and I’ll have none o’that, thank you very much!” Closing her eyes once more, she said on a sigh, “I’ll check on them when I’m all better.”

Jeffry chattered his teeth.

“Drat you, Jeffry. Yer right about the cat. You go along and keep an eye on ‘em until I gets better.”

Jeffry watched sleep overcome his companion. She does so much for them. I can do this! I will keep that cat from making mischief until Aunty is better.

Chapter One

Monday, October 7, 1811, Hertfordshire

Lizzy entered the orangery where her menagerie lived, carrying a tray loaded with food from the kitchen. Lydia and Kitty followed after her.

“Good morning, Clive,” she said to the adult red fox she found injured under a hedge. He yipped. “I have a lovely rabbit haunch for you this morning.” Lizzy set the raw rabbit onto the tin plate in the corner of his enclosure. “Do not tell Jack and Jill that you are eating their cousin.”

Squeaky squirmed inside one of the pockets in her encompassing taupe apron. Her field mouse did not like the fox.

“We are moving along,” Lizzy promised him.

“Why does it always smell in here?” Lydia asked, wrinkling her nose.

“I have told you often enough, Lydia, that the animals function in here. We could use some fresh air, though. Open one of the doors, if you please,” Lizzy directed.

“Oh, very well,” Lydia said, gesturing for Kitty to follow the order. Kitty obliged, opening both leaves of one set of double glass doors.

“Something new will find its way in, Lizzy,” Kitty warned, shaking her head in a hopeless gesture. “I do not know how every sickly or injured animal in the neighborhood ends up here.”

“I think that is an exaggeration,” Lizzy said as she pushed two carrots and several stalks of celery through the gaps in the cage wall of the rabbit hutch. She had divided the hutch into two spaces in order to keep the male and female occupants apart. Two brown and white rabbits were lovely, but dozens would be too much.

Not a single bit of the vast orangery contained a spot without a habitat for this animal or that. Bamboo and metal cages sat on racks. An enormous bird cage housed birds that got along. However, she kept the occasional raptor in a cage outside, next to the stables. Currently, two barn owls and a buzzard resided in it. Having birds of prey in the orangery where she kept their prey seemed cruel.

Next, she fed the rodents—mice, voles, hedgehogs, red squirrels, and a water vole who had his own pond formed from a stone trough. It contained water plants, frogs, and a turtle, too. Lizzy had to keep the weasel away from this group.

“Is there something you wanted?” she asked her sisters. “Or did you simply wish for my company?”

“It is not that,” Lydia said, her voice sounding as though she had cast her gaze up to the ceiling.

“Of course,” Lizzy murmured.

Kitty rushed her speech, saying, “You ate so early that you did not hear the news.”

Lizzy paused in the act of filling the Pickle, the water vole’s, dish with bits of cut up fruit, the greens from vegetables, and a handful of fresh grass, to ask, “What news is that?”