Pride and Wrath (Pride and Other Sins #6)

Prologue

Rosings was run according to a strict schedule and clearly stated expectations.

Every morning at precisely seven o’clock, Howards woke up Lady Catherine de Bourgh with a glass of cool well water; at five minutes past, the lady’s maid took the empty glass and put in its place a perfectly steeped cup of Bohea tea.

At a quarter past seven, Howards helped Lady Catherine out of bed and into one of her two dozen heavy, dark gowns that Lady Catherine considered “morning dresses.”

At half past seven, it was time to brush, style, and powder her hair. In the daytime, Lady Catherine did not bother with hairpieces, for which Howards was immensely grateful.

At a quarter ‘til eight, Lady Catherine would begin her descent; she had perfected a gliding walk that spoke of her aristocratic ancestors and that delivered her to the breakfast room at exactly eight o’clock.

The morning of the seventeenth of September was running like clockwork, and Lady Catherine slid into her seat, where her cup of Hyson green tea sat next to the morning newspaper (which was actually, of course, yesterday’s newspaper; this was Kent, not London!), but at a mere two minutes past the hour, the routine ended with a screech.

Lady Catherine’s screech was loud and shrill. It induced panic in at least three women and two men—all servants—and it seemed to concern the morning’s newspaper, which was clutched in their mistress’s hands.

That first screech was not made up of words, but soon the wordless cry transformed into shrill shrieks of “He married? He married!”

Miss Anne de Bourgh had arrived at the breakfast room precisely at eight, as mandated by the schedule, and by two minutes past the hour, she had lifted her cup of Bohea tea for a third fortifying sip when her mother suddenly began that screech.

Anne promptly began to choke, and she struggled to regain regular breathing for a few crucial seconds.

By the time words emerged from her mother’s bawling mouth, Anne was able to breathe easily, and so she carefully asked, “Is it Darcy who married?”

Anne received no answer, so she shot to her feet, plucked the newspaper from her mother’s hands, and looked to see for herself.

She easily found the wedding announcement for Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, and she crumpled to the ground.

Naturally, her mother’s shriek climbed to an even more ear-splitting volume.

The entire schedule had been ruined, and the servants who arrived, as scheduled, with poached eggs (at three minutes past eight), toast and butter (a minute later), and drinking chocolate (a minute after that) were pressed into service by Lady Catherine to fetch Anne’s usual physician, the apothecary they always used, and the back-up apothecary they sometimes consulted, as well.

The lady of the house was so busy snapping out orders to deal with the emergency of her daughter’s faint, she temporarily lost sight of her earlier goals, which were, first, to screech and shriek forever, and second, to order the servants to make ready for an impromptu trip so she could do something about her ridiculous nephew’s horrific marital choice.

When Anne had been taken up to her bedchamber and the medical experts Lady Catherine had demanded were in attendance, Lady Catherine remembered these goals.

It seemed absurd to resume shrieking, however.

Still, at the sight of the uneaten breakfast, she seemed to explode with wrath.

She swept the table with her arm, sending the platter of eggs in one direction and the chocolatière rocking back and forth until it clattered down in the other direction.

The platter of toast and butter had somehow escaped Lady Catherine’s wrath—or at least her arm—and out of the corner of her eye, she saw that a footman had scooped it up and carried it back down to the kitchen before either of the messes were addressed.

She could not help raising her eyebrows in disdain.

It is so difficult to get proper help these days!

she thought, anger lacing the routine thought with even more vehemence than usual.

Can you imagine, she wondered to herself, taking the time to remove the one dish that was fine when drinking chocolate was dripping from the pool on the table to the smaller pool on the floor, and poached eggs were still slithering over one another as if they wished to escape being mopped up?

At that moment, a timorous maid said in a low, shaking voice, “Your Ladyship? The—the physician would like to speak with you in the room adjoining Miss de Bourgh’s room.”

Lady Catherine made an aggressive snort aimed at nobody and everybody, but she swept from the room to do her duty to her daughter. She would deal with her duty to the rest of her family soon enough—Anne was the priority. Always.