Chapter Twenty-Four
Richard loitered in the stable, waiting for Anne and Miss Mary to return from their drive and trying to quiet his nerves. He’d decided to take Darcy’s advice. To bare his soul to Anne and await her judgment.
He understood the ladies’ impetus for a drive, imagining their desire stemmed from a reason similar to his, the weather.
The crisp, sundrenched winter day, the world made bright and sparkling by an unusually thick layer of snow, spoke of possibility.
Of happiness and potential. It was the perfect day to ask a woman to be your wife.
The jangle of tack caught his attention and Richard went out to meet Anne’s low phaeton, which she handled admirably.
Before the change in her wrought by a lessening of her mother’s overbearance and her time with the Miss Bennets, Anne’s driving had been her only display of personality and, insofar as Richard could tell, her one joy.
Now, she brought the phaeton in with extra skill, her display of confidence adding appeal to a normally average countenance.
In fact, their cheeks wind bright, their miens joyous and their eyes shining, both ladies appeared to full advantage.
Leaving a groom to assist Miss Mary, Richard stepped forward to hand Anne down.
She smiled at him, not retrieving her hand immediately from his grip, and Richard’s breath caught in his throat.
He’d never appreciated before how delicate Anne’s features were, or the gleam of intelligence in her eyes.
In a surge of joy, he realized he may very well be able to love her.
“Thank you, Richard.” Her hand slipped free of his and she turned to look across the phaeton at Miss Mary. “Don’t forget your package, Mary.”
“I haven’t.” Miss Mary turned back to the conveyance and pulled free a rather large bundle.
“Boots,” Anne said in answer to Richard’s enquiring look.
“Boots?”
“Miss Mary only availed herself of shoes as part of my mother’s offer of a new wardrobe, but here in Rosings, we haven’t streets or even many paved walks. Her shoes were being ruined.”
“So Anne took me to her cobbler when we arrived, and he made them up terribly quickly for me,” Miss Mary expounded, coming around the phaeton. “I should go put them on. I want to begin wearing them in.”
“It will take a little time, but hopefully won’t be too painful. Mr. Callahan is very good. He’s made all my footwear since his father passed when I was little.”
Miss Mary placed a hand on Anne’s arm. “Thank you again. For everything.”
Richard frowned slightly, wondering at the excess of emotion in Miss Mary’s tone. “They must be very fine boots.”
“They are,” Anne said brightly. She patted Miss Mary’s hand. “You head in. Richard must wish to speak with me if he’s waiting here in the stable.”
Feeling Anne’s perceptiveness boded well for him should she agree they had a future together, Richard said, “I do.”
Miss Mary nodded and hurried off, obviously excited to try out her boots.
Rosings’ grooms took charge of Anne’s phaeton and team.
In moments, Richard and Anne were quite alone.
He offered his arm, feeling a touch guilty about abusing the notion that he was Anne’s cousin thus.
If anyone but he or Darcy stood before the stable with her, Miss Mary would have remained, and the grooms would have kept half an eye on Anne as well. Richard, they all knew and trusted.
Or thought they knew.
Slipping her arm through his, Anne said, “Why the frown?”
“May we walk in the garden?”
She shrugged. “If you like.”
The staff had cleared the main paths of snow, and Richard led them into the garden, heading away from Rosings among the rows of always green arborvitae. As they walked, he went over and over what he meant to say, trying to guess Anne’s reaction.
“Miss Mary and I have been conversing a great deal on the topic of a lady’s skills,” Anne said tentatively, obviously unsure of his silence.
“What sorts of skills?” he asked, happy to have a distraction from the spiral of words in his head while he and Anne worked their way deeper into the garden.
“Well, now that she must live in a cottage, she’s found she needs very different skills, and we’ve decided that most skills a lady is required to learn are silly.
Sewing is useful, and embroidery adds to a home, but wouldn’t mathematics be preferable to French, so she might better manage her household?
Or bread and candle making, even laundering, be more practical than Italian and playing the pianoforte? ”
The future mistress of Rosings making candles and doing wash? “But what if you wished to read French or Italian novels for pleasure? Or play music to brighten everyone’s mood on a dreary winter’s day?”
“I’m not arguing that someone might not also learn those skills, and I do so enjoy listening to Miss Bennet play, but we all need to keep household accounts, eat, see by candlelight and have clean linens. We do not all need to read French poetry and play the piano.”
“Yes, but what of your newfound love of drawing?” Anne’s insistence on the activity couldn’t simply stem from the desire to go against her mother. She and Miss Mary spent too many hours at it for that.
A secretive smile curved Anne’s lips. “That may have a more practical application than you believe.”
“Decorating the walls?”
“Possibly.”
“But you have Rosings. You can buy artwork and candles, and you’ll certainly never need to prepare your own meals or do your own wash.”
“It still seems practical to have some idea how to go about those things. I didn’t even know how to light a stove so I might boil water for tea. The very simplest of tasks.”
“I do agree that it’s best to have at least some knowledge of how to perform household tasks,” Richard allowed.
“As mistress of Rosings, you will be like a general ordering his troops. A good general knows what it’s like to climb a hill through rough terrain or ford a rushing stream.
That way, he knows what he’s asking of his men.
How long it will take them to accomplish each task.
What state they’ll be in when they reach the required position.
A bad general might look at a map, tell a unit to walk through a river and up the side of a mountain, and then expect them to fight when they come down the other side.
That type of uninformed leadership gets men slaughtered. ”
Anne cast him a wide-eyed look, her grip on his arm tightening.
Richard grimaced and studied the snow laden branches of the denuded oak they walked beneath.
Anne had begun her talk in an obvious attempt to alleviate the tension radiating from him, and he’d responded by escalating it.
For heaven’s sake, he’d used the word slaughtered.
Not a word he should ever say to a lady, let alone moments before attempting to propose.
Was this how Darcy went through life? Constantly on edge and blundering? It seemed exhausting.
Richard rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the tension there so he might return to a more normal frame of mind, but with little success. Looking about, he decided they were sufficiently far from prying ears and eyes. He halted and turned to Anne.
She looked up at him inquiringly.
Richard cleared his throat. “I have something I wish to speak with you about.”
“Yes. We established that outside the stable.” Hesitantly, she added, “Is it…will it be something terrible? I’ve never seen you so very nervous. Or at all nervous.”
“That will be up to you, in a way.”
“Up to me?” A line of worry formed on her brow.
“There is something I must tell you, and you may think it quite dreadful.”
“Something you did? In the war?”
He could see how she might think that. He shook his head. “No. Nothing I did. What I am.”
Anne placed a hand on his chest, sending a shock radiating through him. “What you are is a good, honest, capable man, Richard, and a loyal and true cousin. Everyone knows that.”
“Everyone is wrong.”
Confusion twisted her features. “I don’t know what you did while on the Continent, or why you feel some sort of confession is needed, but I do know you did your utmost, and that is all anyone can ever do.”
He covered her hand with his, pressing the reassuring warmth to his chest. “Anne, this has nothing to do with my military career, though I can see how I led you to think so. This has to do with my heritage.”
“I don’t understand. Why did you bring up generals and…and slaughter?”
Richard let out a deep breath. “Can we agree to forget that I brought up slaughter?”
She nodded, eyes wide, making them very large in her narrow face, but not as large as they once would have looked. She’d gained weight, he realized. It suited her.
“Anne, I need you to know the truth about my father.” She opened her mouth to speak but he plunged on, desperate to get the words out. “My father is not the Earl of Matlock. My mother was already with child when he married her.”
Anne’s mouth stayed open, gaping.
“I…he…that is, I only recently found out,” Richard stammered, unraveled by her shock. “He only told me recently.”
“Did he disown you?” she said with sudden heat.
“No.” He shook his head. “I was born almost six months after they were married, which makes me officially his child, but to be sure, he adopted me. He considers me his own and loves me every bit as much as he loves Thomas.”
“More, I should hope. Thomas is very unlovable. Everyone talks about him not returning home when Emily was dying, but he alternated between neglecting her and being cruel to her. He was a terrible husband. I hope he is satisfied with his three sons and never remarries. I would pity his wife.” Anne pressed her lips into an angry line. “I liked Emily and mourned her death.”
“So did I,” Richard said softly. Everyone had been sad when the viscountess passed, except, apparently, Thomas.