Page 9 of In the Eyes of Lord Lingley

Mr. Bennet nodded in agreement, his enjoyment of the production obvious for all to see. He settled onto one stone bench and waved the younger man to the one opposite. Lingley took the seat and rested his clasped hands on the table before him.

“I come to barter for the hand of Miss Mary Bennet,” Lingley began at the whispered instructions of Mr. Gardiner. “We have become engaged and wish to marry forthwith. Do we have your blessing?”

Mr. Bennet crossed his hands over his knees and raised his voice to carry. “It is hard for a man to give his daughter to another. I just lost her sisters, surely it is too soon to lose another.”

Mrs. Bennet gasped in horror.

“I am willing to pay,” Mr. Gardiner urged.

“I am willing to pay,” Lingley parroted. “What do you ask?”

“One cow!” several in the crowd cried. “One cow is all that he can ask! One cow!”

“If he asks two cows, Lord Lingley will settle for one,” the Colonel spoke to those standing near him. “If he asks for one, good old Johnny will settle for the horns and the tail! He is the sharpest bargainer in all the land!”

Mrs. Bennet was nearly faint as she whispered to her husband. Her demands were not nearly as quiet as she thought and made the crowd explode into laughter.

“Five!”

“She said five!”

“The Bennets have grown greedy!”

Mr. Bennet held up his hands for quiet. “Mary was to be our comfort in our old age. We cannot accept less than three cows for her.”

The crowd roared. Several young men dropped to the ground and rolled about in mirth while their mothers scolded them for such a display. Lingley watched them all with a twitch in his eye. When he held out a hand as Bennet had done, Fitzwilliam elbowed the man beside him.

“Three. Three cows is many…” Lingley began

“Here we go! Watch a master at work!” the Colonel crowed.

“Surely you wish more for your comfort…”

Mr. Bennet flushed and looked away, unable to hold his gaze as Lingley’s was burning with righteous fury.

“Three is many, but not enough for Mary. I will pay eight cows.” The silence was so thick it could have been cut with a knife. “I will bring 8 Andalusians in a fortnight, as well as a special license from the Archbishop. We shall marry that afternoon and travel immediately on our wedding trip. I will expect that you have all ready by then.”

Mrs. Bennet suddenly collapsed, landing in a pile of dung when no one thought to catch her. Pandemonium broke out as people scattered to spread the gossip to those few who had not appeared. Mr. Bennet stared down at his wife and began to laugh uproariously while his brother and sister saw to rousing her. Lingley ignored them all, watching the window to see how Mary might have taken his words. She was no longer visible near the window, but he caught a glance of a small brown shadow scurrying through the back of the crowd. That is it, Little Runaway, enjoy your retreat, for soon I shall never let you go.

“Good L—,” Fitzwilliam cried. “What on earth were you thinking, Lingley? Eight cows?”

“Do you think it too little?” he asked teasingly as he accepted the reins of his horse.

“All of London will be abuzz with the news! You shall be the talk of every party and tea! What will they think when they meet the girl? They will say you are insane or you have lost your eyesight!”

“So, they will know all about the 8 cows.” He shrugged and threw himself up into the saddle. “Well, then from now until forever, when they speak of marriage settlements, they shall say that John Lingley paid 8 cows for Mary Hannah Bennet.”

So that’s it. He is neither mad nor blind; he is just vain. Poor vain fool. Fitzwilliam scoffed to himself.

Chapter 6

Lingley traveled immediately to Lingford Green in Kent where he bred and trained his prized horses and chose eight of the finest animals to present to the Bennets, as well as another four to be sent to the midway point to await he and Mary as they traveled to Dover where they would take a packet to Calais to begin their travels in Europe. He had determined that Fitzwilliam was correct. As she was, the Ton would eat her alive and completely destroy any remaining self-confidence she possessed after being belittled and ridiculed by her family for her entire life. Therefore, he was determined to do as he had done after Cambridge and take her on a grand tour. He had grown so much in worldly experience and confidence as he visited the ancient cities and wondrous sights of Italy, what was Greece and now Turkey, as well as the cosmopolitan centers of Paris, Lisbon, and Madrid. His parents were at the estate of La Almudaina with their royal cousins, in Mallorca overlooking Palma Bay, and he planned to visit them at some point to introduce his new bride. He hoped they would forgive him when they heard of the situation he had found her in.

London was his next stop. He needed to approach Doctor’s Commons to request the special license. He did not trust the Bennets to have the bans called, or he would gladly have forgone the stop. At Lingley House in Grosvenor Square, he received a note from Gracechurch St from a Mr. Gardiner. He nearly tossed it away, assuming it was some introduction from a grasping tradesman in Cheapside, but he thought to read it first and was very glad he did.

Lingley House

Grosvenor Sq