Epilogue
The wives had left the table, leaving their four husbands to their port in Darcy House’s austere dining room.
Dinner was unfashionably early as Gavin and Mr. Livingston, Georgiana’s husband, would be working the next morning.
Georgiana, who’d never liked London society, had waited until she was twenty-six to marry and then selected someone who wasn’t remotely connected to Darcy’s world.
Most had expected Mr. Livingston to stop working after he married wealth, but he not only continued to work in the carriage building business he’d inherited from his father but earned more money than Georgiana’s dowry brought.
“I understand you’ve taken on renovating the Ramsgate cottage for Lord Matlock,” Richard said to Gavin, referring to Thomas by the title he’d inherited a year ago.
“I designed the renovation, and my men are working on it,” Gavin replied. “Meaning no offense, but I didn’t wish to remain in the vicinity while your brother scrutinizes each step.”
“I hope you got your money upfront,” Mr. Livingston said.
“Richard warned me.” Gavin took a sip of port and grinned. “Lord Matlock did refuse at first.”
“But he came around?” Darcy asked, curious how Gavin had accomplished that.
Gavin shrugged. “I told him he could take his business elsewhere.”
Richard snorted. “I’m surprised he didn’t.”
Darcy nodded his agreement. Lord Matlock was accustomed to getting his own way.
“He argued that me doing work for him would get me more business,” Gavin continued.
“And what did you say to that?” Richard asked, clearly as intrigued as Darcy.
“I truthfully replied I had as much business as I could handle.” Gavin added wryly, “I didn’t tell him I didn’t want to get a reputation for allowing titled people to get away without paying.”
Gavin and Mr. Livingston exchanged a glance of understanding.
Both endured the difficulties of titled clients who didn’t want to pay and often regaled Darcy with their stories.
The behavior of some of the peerage and of Darcy’s peers, descended from long lines of wealth, jointly amused and disgusted him.
“Georgiana told me that your brother stole the Bennets’ cook,” Mr. Livingston said to Richard, likely to move away from a rant by Gavin about the idiocy of the aristocracy. “What happened there?”
“That’s my fault,” Richard said. “When the Bennets finished their house, Anne wanted to see it, having been in constant communication with Mary over the Murphys’ plans. When we visited I was impressed by the Bennets’ cook. I told my brother about her.”
“More to irritate him than anything else,” Darcy said with amusement.
Richard shrugged but offered no denial, continuing, “Thomas came and requested that he see what Gavin had done. Mrs. Bennet invited him to stay for dinner. After dinner, he got up, walked into the kitchen and asked who had prepared the venison and the pea soup. He hired the cook on the spot.”
Darcy, who’d heard the story from Elizabeth, concluded with, “And Mrs. Bennet couldn’t decide if she was insulted by his behavior or flattered that an earl had poached her cook.”
“But didn’t Mrs. Bennet train that cook herself? One of the maids who stayed on after the fire, wasn’t she?” Gavin asked. “Betty.”
“You are correct,” Darcy said.
“Which doesn’t mean she can’t accept an offer from another employer,” Mr. Livingston said.
“Yes, but who would want to work for my brother?” Richard asked, his own grimace his answer.
“I’ll bet our wives are discussing the poor woman’s odds of happiness working for Lord Matlock right now,” Mr. Livingston said.
Gavin sipped his port. “I disagree. They’re probably discussing the Wickhams.”
“Something happened with the Wickhams?” Mr. Livingston asked.
Darcy grimaced, shaking his head.
His lack of interest in the topic didn’t stop Gavin, who said, “You know that Mrs. Wickham ran away after only three months of marriage?”
Mr. Livingston nodded. “That was years ago, and Mr. Wickham didn’t care until the mere four thousand of her dowry that he’d managed to negotiate for was used up, which didn’t take him long.
Since then, he’s tried to find her and can’t.
He actually came by the shipyard recently in the hope Georgiana or I might know something.
Apparently, he’d been to the house, but Georgiana wouldn’t let him in. ”
Darcy hadn’t heard that bit. He was glad to know his sister retained no lingering sympathy for George Wickham.
“Well, he’s finally found her, but it doesn’t matter,” Gavin said.
“Before she married him, Mrs. Wickham hired an attorney who helped her tie the remainder of her dowry up so tight, even she can’t get the funds.
She receives her income every quarter and has to appear in person and alone at the bank to claim it. ”
“But they’re living together again?” Mr. Livingston asked.
Gavin nodded. “After all these years.”
“Is she giving him her money each quarter?”
“From what I’ve heard, most quarters, she’s managed to prevent him from securing anything, even if that means she cannot collect. She’s arranged for the bank to pay all standing expenditures directly, and if she runs out of food, she visits her sister.”
Richard shook his head. “I doubt Wickham will trouble her for long. He’ll leave again once he runs out of ideas on how to secure the funds.”
Darcy agreed. He wouldn’t admit it aloud, but there was a certain satisfaction in knowing Wickham haunted the bank every quarter and that Mrs. Wickham managed to evade him most of the time, even forgoing receiving her payment to thwart him.
Especially since the money would likely be added back to her principal, and thus her income, if it wasn’t collected.
Darcy suspected that would serve Mrs. Wickham well, as rumor suggested it was likely that Wickham’s drinking and gambling would lead to an early grave.
But satisfying as Darcy found Wickham’s lack of profit from his scheming, he nonetheless wished for a change in topic.
The follies of George Wickham’s life didn’t deserve his attention.
He turned to Gavin and asked, “Was Lord Matlock’s visit to the Bennets responsible for him hiring you to work on the Ramsgate cottage? ”
“Definitely,” Gavin said. “He gave me a list of furniture he wanted just like the Bennets’ only made from more expensive wood. He also wanted duplicates of some of the built-in features. He actually took notes while he was there.”
“That must have been a very strange visit,” Mr. Livingston said.
“My brother thinks his rank entitles him to behave as he pleases,” Richard said.
“You still think of him as your brother?” Gavin asked.
“Well, we share two sisters, so that might make it so, but I do it partly to annoy him,” Richard admitted. “After Anne and I inherited Rosings, Thomas decided he can accept some relationship with me. Because Anne is his cousin, he wants me to call him cousin.”
“Is that an improvement?” Darcy couldn’t resist asking.
“I’m not sure,” Richard replied. “It hardly matters, since we see so little of each other.”
“I’m glad Georgiana doesn’t want to spend time with him.
Instead, she insisted I meet the Bingleys and the Bennets.
She told me she would never visit Lord Matlock and he would not visit her.
I like having the choice of which relatives to visit,” Mr. Livingston said.
He lifted his glass, peering at the port. “Here’s to our enjoyable relatives.”
The others toasted.
“To whom do you think Mr. Bennet will leave Longbourn now that he’s rebuilt?” Mr. Livingston asked as they lowered their glasses. “I understand that for years, he said he would see the land sold and divide the money equally between his daughters.”
“That is still the plan,” Darcy said. “It was in the marriage contracts for the Carters and the Lucases.”
“And my marriage,” Gavin said. “Although I don’t know how the gift of Goldfinch Cottage to the Lucases affects that contract.”
“The agreement was simply to divide all his assets. It didn’t say he couldn’t give them away,” Darcy said.
“You signed the same agreement?” Mr. Livingston asked in surprise, correctly deducing that Darcy’s knowledge of the wording was not from seeing the others’ contracts.
“Mr. Bennet insisted,” Darcy said. “He proclaimed that by being consistent, no one could argue he wasn’t fair.”
“It will be a shame that the house you built for the Bennets will eventually be sold to strangers,” Mr. Livingston said to Gavin.
Gavin shrugged. “I’ve built many houses for strangers. Besides, which Bennet daughter would want it?”
“Not Elizabeth,” Darcy said. “No offence intended, but it’s not Pemberley.”
The others chuckled at that.
“Not the Bingleys,” Gavin said. “They bought Netherfield Park. And I did some modifications on the Carters’ house. They’re not going to leave Somerset.”
“And you won’t leave your house,” Richard concluded for Gavin.
Gavin smiled in agreement. His house wasn’t unusually large, but it had ample room for his expanding family, as well as serving as a model for his expanding business.
“What about Mr. and Mrs. Paul Lucas?” Mr. Livingston asked.
“They can’t afford it,” Gavin said. “Mr. Bennet pays Mr. Lucas to run his farm, so I have a decent idea of his income.”
“Mr. Bennet pays his son in law to manage his farm?” Mr. Livingston asked, the knowledge obviously new to him. “He doesn’t seem doddering to me.”
Gavin nodded. “I believe Mr. Bennet could still run the farm, even at his age, but he prefers reading and being able to travel to visit his grandchildren. And it’s better that Paul’s taken over. If Mr. Bennet dies before Mrs. Bennet, she will definitely need someone to run the farm.”
Darcy always suspected that Pemberley’s library was an additional incentive for Mr. Bennet’s frequent visits, although, Mrs. Bennet doted on all her grandchildren.
“And when both are dead, the Lucases will inherit enough to live on,” Mr. Livingston suggested.
Meaning Darcy would not need to help support any of Elizabeth’s relatives. Thinking of Elizabeth, who was never far from his mind, he took up his nearly untouched port, standing. “What say you we join the ladies? I miss my wife.”
Gavin rolled his eyes in good natured mockery, muttering something about it being almost a dozen years since the wedding, but Richard nodded as he stood.
Mr. Livingston chuckled, saying, “I don’t see how you can miss the womenfolk when Gavin gossips like a hen.”
That elicited a look of rebuke from Gavin and a laugh from Richard, and the four men took their port with them to the parlor, where all four went immediately to their wives.
Darcy took in the happy looks, Mr. Livingston’s particularly enamored as he and Georgiana hadn’t yet been married a year.
It pleased him that those he cared for most had found people to love them.
Elizabeth’s hand slipped into his, their fingers intertwining, and Darcy left off surveying their guests to smile down at her.
No matter how many children Gavin and Mary Murphy continued to produce, how besotted Mr. Livingston was or how content Richard and Anne seemed, Darcy hadn’t the faintest flicker of envy.
He and Elizabeth loved each other more than he’d realized two people could.
They were together, now and forever, and infinitely happy.
~ The End ~