Chapter Twenty
Richard climbed into Darcy’s carriage, mood glum, and took the rear facing seat.
“I worried you wouldn’t be here,” Darcy said.
“I said I would be,” Richard snapped.
Darcy stared at him.
Richard shrugged and tugged back the curtain to look out at London as they rolled into motion.
He shouldn’t snap at his cousin. Although Richard suspected their aunt had pressed Darcy to bring Richard with him to Rosings, that didn’t mean Darcy’s kindness wasn’t welcome.
Richard had to make the trip, and he’d wanted time to speak with Darcy. To tell him the truth.
Across from him, Darcy shifted, the nervous movement catching Richard’s attention. He turned from the view and recognized the slightly pained look on his cousin’s face. Darcy attempted to work out how to broach a subject.
Wanting to reach the point on his terms, Richard spoke before Darcy could, saying, “In her latest reprimand to me, Aunt Catherine wrote that your carpenters finished their work in Hertfordshire and have arrived in Kent to work on her tenant cottages.”
“Yes,” Darcy said, obviously requiring a moment to reorient his thoughts.
“Aren’t you afraid our dear aunt will hire them away from you?”
Darcy shook his head. “Hardly. One of the advantages of putting them to work among her tenants is that they will get a good idea of their landlord. Lady Catherine is a good landlord, but not well liked by her tenants. The more the Murphys work there, the more they are likely to learn that.”
Richard caught the barely hidden brag in Darcy’s statement, but refrained from pointing it out as it was justified. Not only was Darcy an unusually good landlord, his tenants liked and respected him. “What are your future plans for them?”
“That’s not up to me. They’re free men.”
Richard snorted at the evasion. “Then tell me your hopes for them. You must have thought about that?”
“I have. Mr. Murphy the senior and his eldest son, Douglas, will probably want to stay in Derbyshire. They have homes, wives and children, which is a lot to uproot.” Darcy hesitated for a moment, then added, “And although they are both competent craftsmen, they aren’t extraordinary.
They cannot expect to fare better anywhere else than they are working for me. ”
“And the younger two sons?”
“Would be wasted in Pemberley. The youngest, Tyrone, because he does everything his father and eldest brother do, but better, and Gavin, the middle son, because he is a talented designer and has the skill and ambition to be a top rate furniture maker.”
“Wouldn’t that make him an asset for Pemberley?”
“I would be proud to buy his work for Pemberley, but Pemberley doesn’t need new furniture. I could certainly replace a piece here and there, but it would be wrong of me to try to keep him. Likewise with Tyrone.”
“So, I repeat,” Richard said with a smile, “what are your plans?”
“I hope Mr. Murphy and his eldest son remain at Pemberley. I will encourage that by being good to them and their families. It helps that they and their wives have relatives there.”
“And the younger sons?”
“I plan to offer Gavin a loan to help him set up shop somewhere along with Tyrone, once they realize that’s what they want.”
“And when the father and eldest brother are too old?”
Darcy smiled slightly. “That may be my heir’s problem, but Douglas Murphy already has one son and several daughters, and shows no inclination to a small family.
There’s no reason to believe the boy won’t follow in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps, and possibly have brothers who will as well. ”
Richard nodded, and kindly forewent pointing out that everything Darcy had just said sounded like plans for the Murphys to him.
Contemplative, Darcy drew in a breath, and this time, Richard let him say, “You’ve been avoiding Aunt Catherine.”
“Yes,” Richard agreed.
“I would think you’re avoiding me, but Georgiana said you stopped by about a week after I arrived in London.”
“True.”
“And then you visited again, two days ago.”
Richard had and, because Darcy had once again been out, Richard had again visited with Georgiana.
She’d expressed a growing annoyance with her brother’s ineffectual courtship of Miss Bennet, declaring that soon other men would hear of her potential inheritance, see her beauty and her cheerful demeanor, and swoop her up before Darcy could get out of his own way and propose.
When Richard didn’t speak, Darcy gave him a dour look and asked, “Why?”
“Why did I call on you?”
“Yes.”
Rather than answer, Richard contemplated his cousin, who sat perfectly upright in the forward-facing seat, not a hair out of place.
Not one fold of his cravat unintended. Why, if Darcy spent every day with this Miss Bennet, if he took Georgiana to visit her as often as Georgiana made out, did Darcy not propose to the girl?
Was it her lack of connections? Or those she had, in trade?
Did he wait to see if her inheritance proved large enough that people would excuse a Darcy marrying beneath himself?
If Richard knew the answer to why Darcy hadn’t proposed yet, he could better decide if he truly wanted to confess his lack of lineage and seek Darcy’s advice. “Georgiana tells me that Aunt Catherine is sponsoring an heiress.”
Darcy gave him the same blank look he had earlier when Richard first derailed his intended subject. “Yes.”
Giving Darcy a moment to reorder his thoughts, Richard asked, “How much is she worth?”
Suspicion flickered in Darcy’s gaze. “I thought you were going to court Anne.”
Richard shrugged. “Not if there’s another heiress available. You know how I feel about cousins wedding, and I don’t need Rosings. Any heiress will do, so long as her fortune can generate sufficient income.”
If possible, Darcy’s posture became even stiffer.
“I have no idea what she’s worth. Her fortune comes from her cousin, Mr. Collins.
Lady Catherine is executor for Mr. Collins and is trying to sell his property.
Miss Bennet will also, eventually, be left something by her parents, but that amount is also difficult to estimate. ”
“But the money from the property sale will be more immediate? Come, excellent landlord that you are, you must have some guess as to the worth.”
Darcy scowled. “I have not seen the property and so have no idea what it will go for.”
That line of questioning wasn’t getting Richard anywhere. He needed to know how Darcy felt about Miss Bennet. “What kind of woman is she?”
Emotions flickered across Darcy’s face, so fleeting that someone who knew him less well wouldn’t notice them. “She is intelligent. Willing to express her views. I told Bingley she wasn’t handsome enough to tempt me to dance with her, but I now find her attractive.”
Attractive because she attracted him or attractive to everyone, Richard wondered.
“Because the family’s home was burned to the ground, she now lives in a cottage. Cottage, as in what your father has in Ramsgate, not as in what his tenants’ workers live in.”
Most of the Earl’s tenants hired workers who resided in small cottages that were barely habitable. Richard wouldn’t have assumed a gentlewoman’s family lived in such a place. It amused him that Darcy felt the need to ensure the distinction was made.
Then it saddened him. Yes, the distinction must be made. Darcy wouldn’t wish Richard to believe he and Georgiana associated with anyone who lived such a lowly existence as the workers on the Earl’s tenants’ farms.
Darcy let out a sigh, much of his stony hauteur slipping.
“She’s worth any man’s notice, no matter what amount her cousin’s property brings in, or what her parents eventually leave her, or if she lives in a cottage or under a haystack.
You’ll be pleased to meet her.” He grimaced.
“And I’m certain she’ll find you charming. ”
“Then why haven’t you asked for her?”
“She’s given me no reason to hope she might accept an offer from me,” Darcy said glumly.
“So you simply won’t ask?” As he’d never known Darcy to hold any woman in enough esteem to contemplate taking her to wife, that stunned Richard. “Are you so afraid of being declined that you won’t grasp the chance to have her?”
“I…we get on very well. If I ask and she declines, that will be ruined.”
Richard hid his surprise at how well and truly enamored his cousin was. “If another gentleman asks and she accepts, it will be ruined as well.”
“There are not yet any other gentlemen courting her.”
“From what Georgiana tells me, that could end at any moment.”
Darcy issued another scowl.
“Don’t worry,” Richard assured him, his question as to Darcy’s motives answered. “I won’t court her. Unless her cousin left her a tremendous fortune, my brother would not be happy about that kind of connection, and likely not even then.”
“I’m surprised you mention your brother and not your father,” Darcy said sourly. “As I recall, your father had very specific expectations for when Viscount Wilmington and both of your sisters wed. I assume they apply to you as well.”
Unable to keep bitterness from his voice, Richard replied, “My father doesn’t care who I marry, as long as she has money. As to Thomas, if he knew the truth, he’d undoubtedly prefer me not to wed at all.”
Twin lines of confusion creased Darcy’s brow. “The truth?”
Richard realized he’d balled his fists, the kidskin of his gloves stretched tight over his knuckles, and endeavored to unclench them. He wanted to tell Darcy. He needed to tell someone. “There is a reason I’ve been avoiding Lady Catherine.” He shook his head, trying to find more words.
“You asked to court Anne and realized you cannot bring yourself to wed your cousin, even though you hardly know her?”
A plausible excuse. Richard could give it and accept his aunt’s anger. Only, she wasn’t really his aunt. “A good guess, but the opposite is true. It is because I learned that Anne is not my cousin that I decided I could court her, and approached Aunt—that is, Lady Catherine, on the subject.”