Chapter Eight
A SERVANT GIRL was there, one that Elizabeth did not know. She had brought her maid of all work from Weythorn along on the journey to see to both herself and Jane, but this was not her own servant. It was a servant who worked for Barralds, she thought, and she eyed the girl with trepidation.
“You’re awake, ma’am,” said the girl. “That’s good. I was worried about waking you.”
“I am,” said Elizabeth.
“A man is downstairs, right outside the servants’ entrance. He says he wishes to speak to you.”
“A man? Who?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say, and I don’t know all the names of all of the guests, I’m afraid,” said the servant girl. “He says it’s important he speaks to you.”
It had to be Mr. Darcy, though why he wouldn’t just come to her room, Elizabeth couldn’t say. Maybe he wished to take advantage of the servants’ watchful eye, which would be welcome, she agreed.
She got up and hurriedly threw on something over her sleeping clothes to cover herself. Her hair was down, and she began to braid it quickly and sloppily as they went together, trying to make herself look at least vaguely presentable.
Not that it should matter what Mr. Darcy thinks about the way you look!
But then she descended the steps to the servants’ area and was taken outside to meet the man, and it wasn’t Mr. Darcy at all.
It was the Duke of Neithern.
He had a marriage license. “Bennet,” he said, pushing it into her hands. “Matilda Bennet.”
Elizabeth gasped, hand to her throat as she scanned the license. “We… then…”
“You are my sister, Elizabeth,” said the duke. He smiled at her.
She let out a little laugh. “This is… oh, my goodness.” She settled her gaze on him. “I have a brother. A full brother, not a half-brother. And we must, in fact, be twins.”
“I shall send a carriage for you, first thing, very early, at the hour of eight. You will breakfast with my grandmother and me at Neith Abbey. We shall discuss what happens from here.”
She scanned the license again, looking at her mother’s name and at the late Duke’s. He had been called Bartholomew, it seemed. It was all true.
She was the daughter of a duke.
The legitimate daughter of a duke.
She could hardly breathe.
“Yes?” said Neithern. “Breakfast is acceptable?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Very much acceptable. I am overcome.”
He clasped one of her hands in his. “As am I. It’s so good that you’ve come. I cannot tell you what it means to me, this connection to her, my mother. I feel as if some empty part of me, long hollow, is being filled for the first time.”
“Yes,” she said.
“You’ll tell me everything you know of her?”
“Of course,” she said. “I wish I had known her better as well. I will do as I can.”
THE CARRIAGE CAME in the morning, but it did not take her to Neith Abbey.
Instead, the carriage came to a stop in the middle of the wood, and when it opened, a severe looking woman, who reminded Elizabeth rather a great deal of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, was standing there.
She was regal, with her gray hair and her proper clothing. “Well, then,” she said. “Let me look at you.”
“I’m sorry, I thought I was to be taken for breakfast with the Duke of Neithern and his grandmother,” said Elizabeth.
“I am the duke’s grandmother,” she said. She furrowed her brow, looking Elizabeth over, and she shook her head. “This is a disaster, I’m afraid.”
Elizabeth clasped her hands together. “If you’re concerned that I will bring scandal down on the heads of the family, I must assure you, I have no intention of doing that.”
“No intention at all, which is why you’re here and stirring things up with my grandson,” said the dowager duchess, pressing her lips together. “This can’t be known, whatever your name is. I am confused about that. Are you married or not?”
“I am,” said Elizabeth. “Mrs. Fitzwilliam is my name.”
“Mrs. Fitzwilliam, this cannot be known. But I have no idea what the solution may be. I must think on it. I need time, I tell you.”
“I have questions,” said Elizabeth.
“Oh, I’m certain you do,” said the dowager duchess. “I have questions, too. I understood Matilda Bennet died in childbirth twenty years ago after giving birth to a single child, a boy child. My servants confirmed seeing her body. They confirmed she was quite, quite dead.”
“Well, I don’t know what to say to that,” said Elizabeth. “My aunt—mother, my mother. She only died recently, a few months ago. You had the marriage license with her name on it all along?”
“Oh, my son had it, amongst his papers,” said the duchess. “I don’t know that I have seen it or known the name of the woman, to be truthful. I know that I became aware that my son was married and had sired a child because some man… some French man made me aware of it.”
Larilane.
“However,” the duchess continued, “whatever your questions may be, you will hold onto them until such time as it seems prudent to delve into them. You will now answer my questions to my satisfaction.”
Elizabeth was even more reminded of Lady Catherine.
The duchess was quite used to ordering people about and to having people do as she said, it seemed.
Elizabeth supposed a duchess would be used to such things.
“I assure you, Your Grace,” she said, “I am not here with any ill intentions. You needn’t treat me as if I am here to do you harm. ”
The duchess scoffed. “As if the likes of you could harm the ancient institution that is the Dukedom of Neithern. Answer my questions, Mrs. Fitzwilliam.”
Elizabeth drew in a steadying breath and gazed at the other woman, her expression cool. She waited.
“You were not raised by this Matilda person?”
“No.” Elizabeth didn’t elaborate. She was feeling a bit impudent, she supposed, but she felt it was warranted. If she’d had any hopes of being welcomed by her father’s family with open arms, she shouldn’t have, she realized.
“So, you have never spoken to her about her claims that you are the daughter of a duke.”
“She never told me that,” said Elizabeth.
“Oh, she did not? So, why is it that you think that?”
“I found letters she had written that spoke of it,” said Elizabeth.
“Well, that proves nothing,” said the dowager duchess. “Even so, we shall settle something on you. I shall speak to someone about it, and they will deliver it to you in the form of a promissory note.” She smoothed out her skirts and nodded at Elizabeth’s carriage. “Well, then. Off with you.”
Elizabeth did not move. “I don’t want money.”
“You will take it, of course,” said the duchess, gazing at her.
For one moment, the woman’s severe expression softened.
“You should have it.” She tilted her head to one side.
“And I understand there will be some more public wedding ceremony when your husband returns. He is one of Matlock’s sons, yes?
I should like an invitation, to see you married.
” She swallowed and looked away. “Well, then. We are done.”
Elizabeth was quite confused. What had that break been, the softening? Why did the duchess want an invitation to her wedding? She licked her lips. “You do believe I am… your granddaughter. That is why you wish to come to my wedding.”
“I didn’t have any girls,” said the duchess, looking off into the distance. “I had two boys, and it is lovely, having sons, quite lovely, and I wouldn’t trade it, but you do miss things that you would have with girls.”
“What did Larilane say to you?” said Elizabeth.
“Who?”
“Oh, the Frenchman you spoke of, I think it must be the Vicomte de Larilane, who was associated with my mother. The letters I found spoke of her anger that he would reveal that she was having a child to the duke, or to his family, so it must have been about his speaking to you. But I don’t understand why she would give up her son and not give me up. I don’t understand why—”
“Yes, well, there are a number of things I don’t understand either,” said the duchess. “Your questions will have to wait. Off with you.”
Elizabeth put her hands on her hips. “Do you think the servants were paid to lie to you and say that they saw a dead body? Why would my mother do that? It doesn’t make sense, to fake her death and then know that her name is on a marriage certificate and that anyone who wished could trace her with that name.
She had property under that name, property she left to me, and if the duke had wished, he could have claimed it—”
“Yes, but she was dead,” said the duchess. “So there was no need to go looking for her, was there? And I never bothered to know her name.”
Elizabeth stiffened.
“I see that pains you,” said the duchess.
“But this is entirely why it’s best not to ask each other questions.
There won’t be tender feelings on either side, I’m sure.
My son, your father, was a difficult sort of person in a number of ways.
But I loved him and took care of him until he died, and I would do all of it again.
” She gestured for Elizabeth to go back to the carriage.
Elizabeth did not.
“If you do not get into the carriage,” said the duchess, “then I shall. It will bear me home, and you will have to walk back to Barralds.”
Elizabeth let out a sigh. This woman was infuriating. She gathered her skirts and made her way back to the carriage.
It took her back to Barralds, where breakfast was set out in the dining room, where her sister Jane was sitting radiantly next to her husband-to-be.
It felt to Elizabeth as if she now had everything she had wished to know confirmed, but that it was still strangely hollow. She had thought it would feel a certain way to know for certain who her father was, but she felt the same as ever, perhaps even worse for wear in some ways.
“MR. DARCY!” CRIED Mr. Houseman. He waved as the other man walked by. Houseman was trapped against a hedgerow, Caroline Bingley blocking any way of escape. “Do come and speak to us.”