The Most Honorable Terms (Desperately Seeking Elizabeth #2)

Chapter One

THE OVERTURNED CARRIAGE on the road in France might only have lingered a short time, for it was full of able-bodied English officers, all on their way to join up with troops fighting Napoleon on the continent.

Indeed, it took little time for the men—who’d been spilled this way and that along with their luggage—to right the carriage and set it back on its wheels. It was only that when they did so, they realized why their comrade, Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam, wasn’t speaking or moving.

He was dead.

Discovering the other man’s demise led to delay.

First because no one could understand how it was, exactly, that he came to be dead.

He had been crushed under the carriage, it was true, and this should have injured him, but likely not killed him on contact.

They would have expected some cracked ribs and a broken arm, something of that nature.

It should have been enough to have him shipped back home to that brand new bride of his that he could not stop speaking of, the one whose name made him light up.

Elizabeth, he had been saying, his voice reverent.

No one had seen Richard Fitzwilliam that way over a woman before.

In truth, no one had seen him that way at all.

He had been full of a fiery drive to change all manner of aspects about his situation.

Even as the carriage had been bouncing about, he’d been attempting to write letters and make lists. He had spilled his ink all about.

It seemed abundantly a cruel twist of fate for him to be dead now, just when he had gotten the motivation to turn his life around, just when he had married the woman who he seemed to practically worship.

And indeed, why had he died? Where was the blood coming from?

For there was a great deal of blood seeping out from beneath him, indicating some sort of grave injury.

But they argued amongst themselves about moving him at all, for they all knew that a body could appear dead and not actually be dead. They would defer to a physician in a matter like this, and doctors in the army were always insisting on not moving anyone without their say-so.

So, the officers were uncertain about moving the colonel, and they dithered, back and forth, talking about sending for someone and staying here with the carriage. Then, eventually, someone moved to a different vantage point and saw the pointed rock that the colonel had fallen on.

Then they did move the body and saw that the colonel was definitely dead, that he had been grievously injured, that his skull had collapsed in the back and that there was no point in sending for a doctor to look at him.

At this point, then, the talk turned to what was to be done with the body. They thought they must wrap him up and load him back into the carriage. They were all quite aware of the fact that they’d been wasting a great deal of time here.

Perhaps if they hadn’t dallied so long, they wouldn’t have been noticed by the French soldiers patrolling the area.

But they were.

The soldiers burst out with pistols, crying for them all to stay still and to drop their own weapons. The French soldiers forced them all to put their hands on their heads and to march off in single file for their encampment.

They examined the colonel’s body and had it thrown into a mass grave with other dead soldiers.

They didn’t know who he was.

And anyone who’d been traveling with him was held captive and had no capacity to send word back.

Colonel Fitzwilliam was dead.

But no one knew this.

THE COUNTRY HOUSE of Mr. Nigel Houseman was called Barralds, and it was as pleasant a country house as one might hope for, at least so it seemed to Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzwilliam, née Bennet, who had come to stay here with her sister, Miss Jane Bennet, in the company of the man that Jane was courting, Mr. Charles Bingley, and his sisters and his sister’s husband.

If it seemed that their party was large for a stay at a country house, this was nothing compared to the sheer number of people staying at the house, in general.

The first morning, at breakfast, they dined in the dining room, and it was at least thirty people, and Elizabeth was stunned at it.

The atmosphere was like a constant ball or dinner party, people going this way and that, playing games like battledore and shuttlecock and bowls in the lawn, gathering round the piano forte while someone played and sang, sometimes dancing, and everyone seemed to be perpetually with a drink in their hand, as if everyone intended to spend the entire summer inebriated.

Elizabeth had not come here for diversion. She had come here with the purpose of getting closer to the country estate of the Duke of Neithern, which—it turned out—bordered Barralds.

It was called Neith Abbey, and she had seen it when they drove past it on the way in, but she couldn’t simply walk over and present herself at the door.

Oh, perhaps she could. It was common for great estates like that to be toured in the summer months, of course. However, she didn’t want to see the house, she wanted to talk to the duke.

This was something that could not be done without an introduction, which she had never had.

Someone who knew the duke was going to have to introduce her to the duke.

It might not happen straightaway, but there was to be a ball midsummer, and it would be held at Neith Abbey, on the grounds, and the duke would be in attendance, and she would be introduced then.

This was what she was waiting for, so she told herself to be patient and to bide her time.

She would spend her days reading and relaxing, not thinking overmuch about all the secrets of her past she had recently uncovered, nor about the fact that she was lately married, but no one knew that, because she had not really told anyone about it.

The day after Elizabeth and her entire party arrived, another party arrived, the last of the guests, according to Mr. Houseman.

Elizabeth was stunned to see that it was Mr. Darcy and his sister, Miss Darcy, of whom Elizabeth had heard much but had never actually met.

Miss Darcy was a tall and graceful girl, her figure well-formed. She was less handsome than her brother, Elizabeth thought, but still had a pleasing countenance. Miss Darcy smiled prettily upon meeting her, saying that this was the Elizabeth Bennet of whom she had heard so much.

Elizabeth blushed. “Oh, I’m quite unaware of anyone finding me an interesting topic of conversation, I’m sure.”

She was given little time to converse with Miss Darcy, however, for the girl’s brother steered Elizabeth away from everyone else in the company and over to a corner of the sitting room where they had been received.

He crowded her and she backed away, for his expression was formidable and she was a bit surprised at all of this.

The last time she had spoken to Mr. Darcy, he had told her that he would not pursue her and they would only be amiable with each other, since she would be the wife of his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam. He was not acting in an amiable manner at the moment, and she was about to protest against it.

But he spoke, his voice low and lethal. “Why is it that you are introducing yourself as Miss Bennet when you are, in fact, Mrs. Fitzwilliam?”

She looked up at him, smiling. “Oh! Richard told you, then. Of course he would have. It seemed as if he told no one, but if you know—”

“Actually…” Mr. Darcy took a step back from her, putting his hands in his pockets.

“Actually?”

“Actually, he did not so much tell me, in truth. He and I are not exactly speaking at the moment.”

She wasn’t sure what to make of that. Her life had been turned upside down and topsy turvy as of late, and only one aspect where this had happened had been in her romantic life.

She had never been much pursued as a woman, but recently, she had been nearly ruined by a Mr. Wickham, who was now dead, and then both Mr. Darcy and the colonel had wished to marry her.

Mr. Darcy had ceded her to his cousin, however, and now she was married to him.

Of course, her husband had left for the war, and she had yet to have a letter from him, though he had promised to write.

“He didn’t tell you,” she said. “Then, how do you know?” She put her hands on her hips in realization. “You spied on him. The both of you, with your spying!”

Mr. Darcy had the decency to look chagrined. “I did discover that he’d married you by special license through subterfuge, it’s true. I suppose I didn’t think about whether he would have told anyone. He didn’t?”

“Well, somehow he got the special license,” said Elizabeth.

“He must have begged it from his father, I can only think.” His father was an earl, and had the ability to request such a thing from the archbishop, who could grant them.

“However, I have never been introduced to his father, so I did not feel comfortable going and presenting myself to them. I decided I should rather wait until he returns.”

Mr. Darcy nodded slowly. “I suppose I can see your perspective.”

“I was not planning on being in public at all,” she said. “But then I found something interesting in the attic of Weythorn, and I could not stop myself from wishing to find out more.”

“Something interesting?” said Mr. Darcy.

“It’s about my father,” she said. “The man who contributed physically to my making, that is, not Mr. Bennet.”

Another thing that had rocked Elizabeth to her core was the discovery that she was not her father’s daughter, after all, but that she had been the illegitimate daughter of her aunt, Matilda Bennet. No one knew who her true father was, but Mr. Darcy had attempted to find this out for her.

Mr. Darcy had gone to speak to a man named Larilane, a French expatriate, a vicomte, who admitted to having a love affair with Elizabeth’s mother and to contributing the money to fund Elizabeth’s small inheritance and to giving her mother a house called Weythorn.

However, Larilane denied being her father, saying that Matilda had already been with child when he met her.

“What did you find?”

“I found letters that my mother wrote to Larilane,” said Elizabeth. “Well, not entire letters, truly, but the starts of letters, which she had begun and then set aside.”

“I see,” said Mr. Darcy.

“My mother indicated that she had eloped with the Duke of Neithern and that she was concealing her pregnancy from him. She didn’t wish Larilane to have told him of it.”

“Well, that might fit with the idea that whoever was your true father was battering your mother,” said Mr. Darcy. “A duke? An elopement?”

“Jane had invited me here, and I knew that there was a ball at Neithern’s house. I had told her that I would not come. I intended to stay hidden away until my husband returned from France.”

“That long?” said Mr. Darcy.

“How long will he be gone? He truly told me nothing, I must say.”

“I don’t know the exact amount of time, I admit. At any rate, I have interrupted what you were saying. You decided to come here because of the proximity to Neith Abbey, I presume?”

“Yes, I must find a way to speak to the current duke,” she said. “He would not be my father, of course, because he is too young. The duke who might have been my father passed on years ago.”

“So, you think it’s possible the current Duke of Neithern is your half-brother?”

“I wish to find out whether or not that is so,” said Elizabeth.

“Did you bring these letters with you?”

“I did, of course,” said Elizabeth, “but I do not have them with me now. They are in my bedchamber.”

“I should like to take a look at them,” said Mr. Darcy. “I shall come to see you later on this evening. After dinner? We can speak more of this then?”

“You’ll come to my bedchamber,” she said.

“We should not continue talking about this here, where anyone could overhear,” he said pointedly.

She supposed she saw the sense in that.

He licked his lips. “Congratulations, Mrs. Fitzwilliam. I wish you joy.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly.