Chapter 9
Lady Catherine was in a right temper, for certain. Richard could not help but be amused as he watched her wear a hole in the Chinese rug.
“That Miss Bennet is the most obstinate, headstrong girl I have ever had the misfortune to come across! I cannot believe I ever allowed her into my home. Darcy ought to be ashamed for having ever associated with such a pathetic, grasping creature. To think, she refused my generous offer of assistance, when her own family are at the bottom rung of the gentry. We all know her mother and her sisters will all be out on their heels the moment their father is in his grave. She would think Darcy is a better prize! But she shall not have him! He is to be Anne’s in less than a month.
Her interference only delays the inevitable.
Her very presence here is a distraction to Darcy.
He cannot afford to have his head turned by this lightskirt.
Reason with him, Richard! You know he listens to you.
You must make him understand the gravity of his duty to Anne. ”
Richard’s expression changed at his aunt’s degrading use of the term “lightskirt” for Elizabeth, whom he knew was anything but.
He was hardly willing to influence Darcy away from that which he precisely wished him to do, but of course he could not let that on to Lady Catherine.
He carefully crafted his response. “Darcy has always been his own man, Aunt, and does exactly as he pleases. You and I both know that. However, I always advise him to do as I think is best. We both know him to be an honorable man.”
His reply seemed to soothe her a little, for she stopped pacing to inspect the mantle.
“There has been so much going on in this house these days, with the wedding preparations and the engagement dinner. I find my nerves cannot support the additional strain that your cousin’s wavering and Miss Bennet’s stubbornness places upon me.”
“Perhaps a drink might be in order?” Richard suggested. Goodness knew he could use a bit of fortification himself. Lady Catherine agreed and rang for her butler. When he arrived with the tray, she asked him whether the heavy silver candlesticks on the mantle had been moved after the party.
“No, milady, I do not believe so,” he answered her. “Only the additional candelabras that were placed for the event, because none could be found to light the area at the time.”
“I have not seen my matched porcelain figurines for some time either, nor the small gilded clock that used to rest on the side table in the hall,” she said. “Do you know if they were taken somewhere to be repaired or cleaned, Stone?”
The butler answered that he had no knowledge of the pieces, and that he also could not recollect seeing them for many months. He had assumed either Her Ladyship or Miss de Bourgh must have moved them or put them in storage to make room for other items, but had not thought to inquire.
“My goodness, you don’t suppose we have a thief in our midst, do you?” Lady Catherine exclaimed to Richard, after the butler took his leave.
Richard held back a laugh as he said, with seriousness, “Dear aunt, no one would dare try to rob you. Your servants all know they would be out on their ear without a reference if they so much as pinched a spoon.”
“But we have just held a large party here. Suppose one of the guests nicked a trinket, for a lark or a dare?” She examined the bookshelf near her writing desk.
“I realize now that I do not see the oriental vase that Sir Lewis brought back from his journey all those years ago. It used to sit here, as a bookend. You don’t suppose someone took it during the party, do you? ”
Richard shifted his feet uncomfortably. “Actually, I must confess, I broke that the other day, when I was looking for a book that Anne wished for. It slipped from the shelf and I failed to catch it in time.”
“Richard!” Lady Catherine scolded. “Well, at least that relieves me of one worry.”
“I am sorry, Aunt. I did always dislike the hideous thing, but I could not bring myself to tell you that it was gone.”
S
Darcy appeared fidgety all evening, as if he had some secret under his wing. Richard could not puzzle it out. Anne seemed to know the meaning behind their cousin’s demeanor, though she would not disclose anything. Fortunately, Lady Catherine attributed it all to pre-wedding jitters.
“I know you must be concerned, Darcy, lest Mr. Garbutt not recover from his illness in time to perform your wedding vows. But you need not fear. Do not forget that I have a substitute available if need be. Mr. Collins has assured me many times that he would be happy to assume the duties,” she told him.
Darcy hastened to assure her that the minister’s availability was of no concern to him, although he wished for Mr. Garbutt’s return to health. He did not offer any other explanation, however.
Jenkinson did not offer to play the pianoforte, choosing to work on her embroidery instead.
As Lady Catherine required partners for cards, there was no opportunity for Richard and Anne to speak alone after supper.
His aunt’s appetite for cards was insatiable; she would not allow them to quit until she had won a game of whist, and since she continued to lose, they played far longer than Richard would have liked.
His only consolation was being paired opposite Anne. Her dancing eyes and lighthearted quips reminded him that he could endure almost anything for her sake.
Before they retired for the night, Anne slipped a strip of paper into Richard’s palm. Once upstairs, he glanced at it.
My chamber. One o’clock.
He threw it into the fire so that no servant might come across it. The wee hours could not come soon enough.
Knowing he might fall asleep if he laid in the bed, Richard occupied himself at the writing desk with mundane correspondence, ticking away the hours as he listened for the grandfather clock downstairs to strike once.
His heart beat with anticipation as he heard it chime. Stealthily, he made his way to Anne’s chambers on the ground floor, cursing only once when his foot landed on the creaky spot on the staircase, causing it to groan. In his eagerness, he had forgotten to avoid that step.
Luckily, none of the servants seemed to have heard it. In a household that large, someone or other was always up, but by that hour, the principal rooms were unoccupied, and the corridor leading to Anne’s suite was empty.
“I hate to keep meeting you like this,” he said to Anne as Jenkinson quietly ushered him inside.
“It will not be for long,” Anne told him. She related to him her conversation with Darcy in the garden that morning.
Richard’s eyes widened. “Do you really think he will act? Such rash behavior is outside Darcy’s usual style. To elope in such fashion might well put Miss Bennet’s reputation at stake, if not yours.”
“I think he shall,” Anne said, “and I think she can withstand the strain on her reputation, as much as he. After all, the pair were engaged before. It would be the truth for them to simply say they were overcome by the throes of love and could not sit idly by while he married the wrong girl.
“Oh, Richard!” she gushed. “I can only imagine Mother’s fury!
But she will wish to maintain face in light of all this.
With a wedding already announced to the whole neighborhood and everything planned, do you suppose…
do you suppose there is any chance she might be willing to let the wedding go on… with you as the groom?”
Richard took Anne’s hands and smiled. “I can think of nothing that would please me better.” Tilting her chin upwards gently, he brought his lips to hers, relishing their sweetness.
Anne responded with fervor, wrapping her arms around him and deepening their kiss. Richard plucked her from her chair and carried her over to the window seat, laying her against its plush cushions to continue delivering his tender expressions of love to her.
Jenkinson wisely pretended to be too engrossed in her needlework to be concerned with the two lovers and their affairs.
S
Sometime later, Richard began the ascent back to his own room. He was halfway up the stairs when he realized he had left his cravat on Anne’s window seat. Turning, he headed back down to retrieve it– and nearly ran smack into Darcy!
Their mutual surprise at seeing each other was eclipsed by Richard’s realization that Darcy was fully dressed and had come from out of doors.
“I was with Elizabeth,” Darcy admitted upon questioning.
“I knew it!” Richard exclaimed. A secret tryst was the only explanation for his normally stoic cousin’s nighttime excursion.
Richard casually lied to cover his own tryst, saying he had come downstairs for a glass of milk.
Darcy was too wrapped up in his own affairs to think overly much on Richard’s excuse.
Darcy confessed to that which Richard suspected– he and Miss Bennet had been planning to elope, that very night, in fact.
However, an unexpected impedance had thrown the whole plan awry. Miss Bennet had received a letter from her family containing news of a most egregious nature concerning her youngest sister and the one name that both Darcy and Richard hoped never to hear news of again: George Wickham.
Poor Lydia Bennet had been deceived by him, taken advantage of, and was now with child, while the wretched wastrel was off somewhere, presumably awaiting a ship bound for the Continent.
The worst of it was that Elizabeth Bennet blamed Darcy for having sent Wickham into the Regulars, rather than providing him with the financial assistance he had requested which would have enabled him to do right by Lydia and marry her.
“It is my fault, Richard. If I had helped him, they would now be married, and Miss Lydia would not be in this predicament,” Darcy lamented.
Richard shook his head. “Or Wickham would have taken the money and ran off to God knows where. I should have shot Wickham after I knew what he’d attempted to do to Georgiana.”
Darcy sighed. They’d had this discussion more than once. Darcy did not need to remind Richard that had he carried out justice according to his own wishes, he would have been executed in return. But it did not make the desire in him abate any less.
“Elizabeth will leave for Hertfordshire at first light, for all the good she can do by being there,” Darcy told Richard, with an air of emptiness.
With a sinking feeling, Richard realized that his hopes for Darcy and Miss Bennet’s elopement might not come to fruition after all.
“What of your plans with her?”
Darcy frowned. “I do not know quite where we stand. She is angry with me. I must rectify this mess I have created if I hope to remain in her favor. I do not think she will forgive me if I did not do all in my power to prevent her family’s ruination.”
“You cannot blame yourself for Wickham’s bad deeds,” Richard chided. Squelching down the bile in his throat, he offered to do what he could by writing to the War Office to seek out which regiment Wickham was assigned to.
“What will you do if you find him?” Darcy asked.
“Let him know he is to be a father,” Richard answered. “Then we shall see if he has any shred of decency in him.”