Chapter 3
Lady Catherine
Lady Catherine de Bourgh looked into the wan, unhappy face of her daughter Anne, and she felt incapable of doing anything to make the darling girl happy.
She had some vague ideas of how to punish that ungrateful nephew of hers…
and especially his worthless bride…but she was not at all convinced that she could manage the thing she had always promised her child.
“Dearest Anne,” she said now, “I will fix this, somehow. I will bring Darcy to you.”
Anne waved her hand and murmured, “Mother, you know I have always said that I cannot marry Darcy. I cannot marry anyone! And I have no need to marry. I have already inherited Rosings.”
“You are the sweetest, most generous girl in the world!” Lady Catherine said. “Your modesty does you credit, daughter, but surely you know, deep down, that you would have been the perfect wife for Darcy. I cannot credit even a single syllable you have just said!”
Watching her daughter wince and sigh, she felt a wash of anger at Darcy and his lowborn chit for causing sighs of unhappiness rather than smiles. She wished that she could think of some way of bringing the man back to Anne, but marriage was for life…
Anne raised herself up on one elbow. “Mother, listen to me. I have never wished to marry Darcy. I am happy he has found a lady to marry and am perfectly content living here at Rosings with you, just as we always have. Stay here, and be happy with me, please.”
Oh, brave Anne, always attempting to make the best of bad situations. Lady Catherine stood, even more determined to do something about this awful circumstance. “I leave today for London, daughter. I promise you that I will do whatever it takes to make you happy.”
Anne fainted again, and Lady Catherine’s heart sank, but she rose, ready to do her duty. She knew that the physician and the favoured apothecary would continue their treatments, and Mrs Jenkinson and all the servants would continue their care; she herself would brook no further delay.
She swept from the room and, minutes later, from the house.
Hours later, Lady Catherine saw that the knocker was down at Darcy House. Lady Catherine tutted her disapproval before imperiously ordering her footman to hammer his fist on the door until it was opened.
It was not long before a polite voice said from behind the lady and her servant, “Excuse me, madam.”
The footman stopped knocking, and Lady Catherine reluctantly turned.
The man who had addressed her was clearly some sort of gardener. “The Darcys are on their bridal tour. That is why the knocker is down.”
“I am the aunt of Miss Darcy. She must be at home?”
“I am afraid she is not, madam. She is staying with another aunt.”
An exasperated huff of air escaped the lady, but she wheeled around and swiftly boarded her carriage. “Matlock House!” she ordered her driver.
The coachman, footmen, and tiger exchanged glances with one another before they assumed their positions.
Having seen the knocker down at Darcy House, they had not started towards the stables as ordered, but had hesitated at the kerb, assuming that her duration at that house would be minimal.
Less than a minute later, being ordered to drive a mere two houses away—some ninety feet—they maintained neutral expressions as the carriage jolted forward and then almost immediately stopped at Matlock House.
“I will likely not be here long, Briggs,” Lady Catherine said with as much dignity as if her orders at the last stop had not been ignored.
“Please keep the horses at the ready.” With one of her footmen trailing behind, the lady sailed up the steps and, after stepping aside so that the footman could do the onerous task of using the knocker, she identified herself to the butler, whom she had seen at least seventy times over the years, “Lady Catherine de Bourgh to see my brother, the Right Honourable Earl of Matlock.”
She had strode a step into the house by the time the butler, Mitchell, said, “I am sorry, my lady, but the earl is away from home at the moment. Will you see the countess, or Colonel Fitzwilliam?”
“I will see my niece, Miss Darcy!”
Mitchell made a subtle gesture in one direction as he led Lady Catherine in another direction. She hardly noticed a young footman hurrying down the corridor to the countess’s parlour.
No, Lady Catherine prided herself in being very focused on her own pursuits, motivated by her concern for others—for the family!
Now her own pursuit was…well, it was the pursuit of Darcy!
That young jackanapes was meant to marry her daughter!
He must have been taken in by a fortune hunter.
But Lady Catherine had long ago laid plans, paid coin, developed certain…
tools, as it were…within Darcy House. Before she utilised them, and likely, therefore, unmasked them as her agents, she wished to… discuss…the situation with Darcy.
It was likely impossible to annul his imprudent—nay!
disgraceful!—marriage. However, there were face-saving things that could be done.
If she was able to convince Darcy of the unworthiness of his bride, there were smaller estates or, possibly, hovels located on those estates in which this fortune hunter might reside.
Lady Catherine still could not come up with a way in which that would benefit Anne, but she rigorously maintained focus on her proximate goal. First, she would speak with Darcy, and second, if need be, she would reach out to her agents to learn what she could.
But to accomplish her first goal, she needed to know where Darcy was. And Georgiana would be the easiest person by which to attain such knowledge.
Mitchell entered a small parlour, announced her, and then stood away from the doorway, allowing Lady Catherine to sweep inside.
Georgiana and an older lady—likely her governess—stood, and Lady Catherine was dismayed to see how very skittish Georgiana was.
The girl’s eyes were fixed on the ground at her own feet, and she only lifted them far enough to reach the ground at Lady Catherine’s feet.
Georgiana made some sort of faint noise, as if she had spoken to the ground, but Lady Catherine could not understand a single syllable.
At fourteen, her niece ought to behave better.
What was the excuse her father had said, over and over, when he was still alive?
Georgiana is merely shy. She will grow out of it.
Well, clearly, he was wrong—and for the ten-thousandth time she wondered what her sister had ever seen in that man!
Lady Catherine had told her sister not to marry him—he was not even titled!
—and here was proof that she was correct.
Lady Catherine drew herself up and launched into a chastising speech: “Georgiana, you must look at me when you speak, and you must speak loudly and clearly enough that I do not need to ask you to repeat yourself. For heaven’s sake, child, you must follow the forms of your elders!
I believe that you should be living with me; it is obvious that living with your brother has been a mistake!
And now that Darcy has married that treacherous fortune hunter, that little adventuress—”
Georgiana surprised her by lifting her chin, looking Lady Catherine directly in the eyes, and saying quite firmly—and loudly enough to be heard—“Elizabeth Darcy is a gentlewoman, a lady with refinement and kindness and loyalty. She is emphatically not a fortune hunter!”
Lady Catherine’s voice rose to an unpleasantly shrill tone: “You apparently know nothing of the matter, girl. You are full young, of course—”
Lady Helen’s voice, lower in volume but also in timbre, and somehow, therefore, more dominant, rang out from the doorway: “Catherine, you have no business accosting our niece in my home, insulting our absent niece and nephew, and throwing your weight around as if you were the head of the Fitzwilliam and the Darcy families, when, in reality, you are the head of neither!”
Lady Catherine breathed deeply, harshly, for a few seconds. Finally feeling a mastery of her emotions, she said, “All I need from one of you is to know where Darcy and his—his party—is heading first. I need to speak to him.”
She watched while Georgiana and Helen exchanged glances. Lady Catherine narrowed her eyes in suspicion—were they truly going to lie to her?
“I only know that they were heading south, Aunt,” Georgiana said. “They will make a sort of circuit and come to Pemberley last.”
“South is not exactly helpful!” Lady Catherine opened her mouth as if to say more, but the earl’s voice boomed from the doorway.
“Catherine! Come meet with me, if you wish—do not harangue the ladies!”
Almost an hour after she had left her carriage, Lady Catherine strode out of Matlock House and looked around for the vehicle.
She felt immensely cross—after all, she had ordered the carriage to stay at the kerb!
Fuming, she turned back to the butler to order her carriage to be brought around at once.
No answers were to be had at Matlock House; if they were to be believed, all that the earl and Georgiana knew about the matter was that Darcy had headed south.
It was time to tap her pre-paid assistants for their help. But she would do so in comfort. She had booked rooms at the Clarendon, on Bond Street, and Howards was already there, unpacking her trunk and pressing her gowns.
She would return to the Clarendon, and from there she would send her servants to contact Darcy’s servants, and she would get the answers she sought.