Chapter 6
If anyone knew how to concoct a reason to throw an outlandish display of pomp and circumstance, it was Lady Catherine.
Even among the wealthiest members of the ton, engagements were not usually celebrated outside the family circle.
Certainly not with a lavish soirée involving half the neighborhood.
But if Lady Catherine were later credited with inventing the custom of an engagement party, she would take it as a personal achievement to her success.
“Quite the display, eh?” Richard remarked to Darcy, gesturing to the brightly illuminated drawing room and army of footmen serving the guests.
“And to think, it is all for you!” He took a sip from his champagne glass.
Darcy made a quip about how the party may be in his and Anne’s honor, but it was truly Lady Catherine’s night to shine.
“But I am afraid her radiance still pales in comparison,” Richard said as his gaze was drawn across the room to Anne, her green eyes alight with laughter as she engaged Miss Bennet in conversation.
She had never looked more breathtaking, in a rust-colored gown that brought out the reddish tints of her brown hair and brightened her complexion.
At his urging, she had begun eating more the past few days, and he could see the visible changes it brought to her health.
He regretted the time spent away from her on the Continent.
He had thought it would be a welcome distraction from the anguish of their situation, but it had only deepened the wound, and he could see now that Anne had suffered the most because of it.
He hoped that Darcy would care for Anne as he ought to. It cut Richard deeply that he was not to be the one to do it. He tipped back his champagne glass and downed it in one gulp, put a smile back on his face, then sashayed to the ladies to make his greetings to them, as duty demanded.
S
Surrounded by so many people, Anne felt suffocated.
Why her mother felt such desperation to display their wealth and status before a crowd, Anne could never fathom.
She determined that when she became mistress of Rosings Park, gatherings would only ever be limited to those she loved and cared to spend time with.
Small, intimate parties were enough to make one happy, she felt.
Most of the guests were people Anne barely knew, and some whom Anne swore she had never seen before in her life.
As she searched the room for a familiar face, she heard a friendly voice beside her.
“Lady Catherine has spared no expense for your engagement dinner, it would seem.” She turned her head to find Elizabeth Bennet standing beside her, smiling.
“Miss Bennet, you came.”
“Good evening, Miss de Bourgh. Thank you again for inviting me. I was unsure whether I would be welcome, given Her Ladyship’s reception of me before.
” Miss Bennet lowered her lashes demurely.
“I think her dislike of me stems from my past ties to Mr. Darcy. I hope you know, though, that you can have nothing to fear from me in that regard.”
On the contrary, I wish by all means to encourage you to rekindle the flamme d'amour! Steal him away from me, if you have the arts to do so! Anne thought.
Aloud, she merely said, “I am certain that in you I have found a friend. I hope that your time at Hunsford will be long enough for us to grow well acquainted, for in the brief time I have known you, I feel I have stumbled upon a kindred spirit.” The genuine warmth from Anne’s sentiments brought Miss Bennet’s smile all the way to the corners of her eyes.
“How touching of you to say so!” Miss Bennet replied. “I can honestly say l feel the same, and am glad to have found another friend so far from my home. We are about the same age, are we not?”
“I believe so. I recall during my mother’s interrogation the night we met, you said you are twenty years of age, which is my age too,” Anne answered.
“People often assume I am older, given my health and present confinement. I suppose I often look haggard too. I do not eat or sleep as well as I ought to, and my exposure to the outdoors is often limited.”
“Perhaps now that the spring weather has arrived, you might enjoy more time in the gardens or on the terrace,” Miss Bennet suggested.
“Perhaps,” Anne said softly. “I did enjoy our stroll out of doors the other day. What were you and Cousin Darcy saying that made you laugh so heartily?”
Miss Bennet’s cheeks pinked. “Oh, nothing of consequence. We were merely reminiscing on a bit of playacting we had done last autumn while I stayed with his party briefly at Netherfield Park.”
“Playacting? You and Darcy? How unlike him to participate in such an activity!” Anne let out a slight giggle.
Richard chose that moment to approach them. “Good evening, Anne, Miss Bennet.” He bowed deeply.
Anne wondered if he had not already been drinking, given the flushed state of his face.
He certainly had inconvenient timing, just when she was beginning to make headway with Miss Bennet.
Not to let her irritation show, she smiled and admitted him courteously to their conversation.
But before they had progressed past the usual pleasantries, the dinner gong rang.
Lady Catherine hurriedly ushered Darcy over to Anne to escort her into the dining room, and insisted that Richard was to have the honor of escorting herself.
Anne mumbled an apology to Miss Bennet and they left her to shift for herself.
S
Anne didn’t know these people of importance whom Lady Catherine had seated her and Darcy near, she thought reluctantly.
They had come a distance from Richmond to be there for the occasion.
Anne tried her best to engage in polite conversation, but the husband, Lord something-or-other, wished only to discuss politics, while the lady, his wife, rambled endlessly of London fashions that Anne knew nothing of, so she could only smile and nod through most of it.
She was thankful that Richard had been seated nearby.
Between him and Darcy, they managed to keep abreast of the lord’s political views with polite oppositions of their own, gently reminding him that there were ladies present when the conversation became too heated.
With Lady Catherine, from the head of the table, able to speak of fashion to the wife, Anne did not have to say too much.
She found it humorous, however, when her mother began to brag of her longtime aspirations for the match with Darcy.
“Oh yes, his mother and I have long desired this match, since they were both in their cradles,” Lady Catherine crooned. “God rest her soul, but how pleased she would be to see this match come to fruition.”
It was all Anne could do not to roll her eyes.
She might have been a babe when her mother first wished for it, but Darcy must have been a boy of nearly eight standing over her, if he were even present!
She did not think that the late Lady Anne had even wished for the match; in fact, she fully suspected that the notion had been entirely of Lady Catherine’s own concoction.
But there was no disputing the wishes of the dead.
If Lady Anne had not made her wishes known before she left this world, then there was no way to know what she intended for her son’s happiness in regards to matrimony.
But knowing the deep and abiding love that Lady Anne and George Darcy had for each other, Anne hoped that they would have wished the same for their most beloved son, rather than a marriage of fortune or convenience.
And as Lady Anne’s namesake, Anne wished for such a marriage for herself.
Anne noted that despite Darcy’s efforts to remain conversive, his attention was often preoccupied with the end of the table, where Miss Bennet sat. Richard must have observed it too, for he remarked on it at one point during the meal, while Lady Catherine was distracted.
Their plan to reunite Darcy and Miss Bennet must work, Anne decided. If it did not, she would find a way to take matters into her own hands.