Chapter 10 #3
Andrew and Marie wrote to Elizabeth in care of Mr. Philips.
When they asked how she was, she would always say all was well.
Her cousins had more than enough to worry about without her adding to their burdens.
They had invited her to visit them from time to time, but she had always demurred.
She just did not feel she could afford to be away from her beloved Longbourn; it was all she had left of her family.
What she did not know was the man she had just berated was, in fact, her cousin by marriage.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
“You were attacked by a slip of a woman?” Richard guffawed as his cousin related the happenings of the morning.
“She did not fire grape shot at William, Richard, she fired apple shot!” Wickham ribbed his friend.
“Have your fun, you two. I would like to see you stand up against the force of nature I met this morning. Though I actually never met her; she was too busy berating me to worry about mentioning her name.” Lord William took another sip of his coffee.
“Richard, do you remember, I think it was in ’94, I was with you at Holder Heights, and we met this little impertinent miss, about four, green eyes, chestnut curls, little slip of a thing and as inquisitive as all heck?” Lord William asked.
“I remember her, Miss Elizabeth Bennet!” Richard stated his eyes wide with surprise at the intimation.
“Richard, are you sure that is her name? If it is, I believe the one I met today was the nineteen- or twenty-year-old version of that mite,” Lord William whistled.
His suspicion it was the same girl had turned ever more into certainty the longer he pondered it; now Richard had confirmed it.
“If that is true, then she lost a big part of her family in ’05. ”
“She lost a lot more than cousins, William. Her older sister and younger brother were with the Holders when they were lost. A year later, her father fell off his galloping horse and died instantly. She is our cousin, William! Her cousin Marie, the only surviving Holder Bennet, is Andrew’s wife!
” Richard explained. His mother had kept up a steady correspondence with him while he was in the peninsula.
The letters he received were filled with news, and he had received the one where his mother had enumerated the tragedies of the Bennet families.
“She is our cousin, William, and she is all alone in the world?” Lady Georgiana asked, softly.
“So it seems, Gigi,” Lord William replied thoughtfully. “Richard, why does no one here know of the connection to her Holder Bennet cousins?”
“From what I remember of what my mother told me at the time, when a despicable woman compromised Miss Bennet’s father, he led her to believe the entail on the estate is away from females.
It is not, but given the social climbing and fortune hunting tendencies of his new wife, he kept as much of the truth from her as possible,” Richard recalled.
“At the moment, she thinks me an insufferable man who thinks his rank allows him to take what he wants. I think, before we inform her of our connection, we should change her opinion of us,” Lord William grimaced as he saw three sets of raised eyebrows pointed in his direction. “I know—me—not us!”
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Charles Bingley had taken a bedchamber at the Golden Bull Inn in Steveton, a little town ten miles to the west of Meryton.
He did not want to be seen yet, not until he knew how to approach the problem.
Bingley had spent the journey toward Meryton contemplating why, of all the people Lady Catherine might know with disreputable characters, she chose her own parson to commit such a misdeed against her own family.
He was finally willing to admit that anything bad in his life had been at his own direction.
He had spied on young women because it gave him a feeling of control and pleasure.
He finally admitted he controlled it, not the other way around, as he had tried to tell himself to excuse his deviant behaviour.
He began to admit the biggest lies he told were the ones he told himself.
His mother had taught him to take what he wanted, as it was his due.
However, as he looked back with fresh eyes, fully open for mayhap the first time, he could see there was little his mother told him that had been correct.
She had involved her eleven-year-old and nine-year-old children in a despicable scheme to entrap a man so honourable he married his mother.
What mother uses her children in such a fashion?
He had gambled, drank, and whored away his legacy. It had not been a vast sum, but if he had invested it with Mr. Gardiner as he should have, he would have had a healthy dividend each year as well as being able to grow the principal. What an addlepated fool he had been!
He did not know how yet, but he must find a way to contact the Duke and tell him what Lady Catherine had charged him to do, and he would seek no reward. For the first time in his life, Charles Bingley intended to do something because it was the right thing to do.