Chapter Fourteen The Fall of the Gorgon #2
"I am not jesting!" Richard forged ahead, riding the wave and abandoning his military posture to lean over the desk. "I love her, Aunt! I love the fact that she has spent the last twenty years secretly mocking every single person who walks into this house!"
Lady Catherine's jaw dropped. "Mocking...?"
"Yes! She is a genius!" Richard declared.
Lady Catherine raised a single, trembling, ring-covered finger. Her face was transitioning rapidly from the colour of an aubergine to the colour of a freshly boiled lobster.
"Richard," Lady Catherine whispered. "Are... are you intoxicated? Have you consumed my medicinal sherry?"
"I am intoxicated by love!" Richard proclaimed.
"I formally ask for her hand in marriage!
I know I am a second son. I know I do not possess Pemberley.
But I possess a heart that beats only for her!
I will protect her! I will buy her endless supplies of cerulean-blue paint!
I will even endure Mr Collins's sermons if it means I may sit by her side! "
"I... I am overcome!" Mr Collins wailed, unsure whether he was being complimented or insulted, but leaning towards insulted.
Lady Catherine stood up.
It was a slow process, like a volcano preparing to erupt. She placed both hands flat on the desk and pushed herself upright.
"You," Lady Catherine hissed, her voice vibrating with subterranean energy. "You wish to marry Anne."
"Yes, Aunt!" Richard beamed, misinterpreting her shock as the first stages of acceptance. "We shall be happy! We will likely travel! I think Anne would enjoy seeing a real, operational artillery cannon!"
"You wish," Lady Catherine repeated, her voice rising in pitch and volume, "to marry the heiress of Rosings Park."
"I do!"
"Anne is meant for Darcy!" Lady Catherine exploded, the sound shattering the morning like a clap of thunder.
She slammed her fists onto the desk so hard that the inkwell bounced.
"It has been planned since their infancy!
His mother and I laid the foundation of this alliance before she could walk!
The estates of Rosings and Pemberley must be united!
They must form a contiguous empire of wealth and influence! "
"But Darcy does not want to marry her!" Richard argued, gesturing wildly with his hands. "He has never wanted to marry her! He would rather marry a piece of furniture! They are unsuited!"
"Suitability is a concept for the lower classes!" Lady Catherine shrieked, her turban listing slightly to the left. "It is about land! It is about the preservation of the de Bourgh legacy! You have no legacy! You have a sword and a loud voice! You are the WRONG NEPHEW!"
"I am the right nephew for her!" Richard fired back, refusing to be cowed. "She does not want Darcy! She wants me! She kissed me!"
The words echoed in the parlour.
She kissed me.
Mr Collins let out the sound of a deflating bagpipe. He scrambled backwards, trying to merge his body with the floral wallpaper, wishing he could evaporate into thin air.
Lady Catherine froze.
The colour, which had been lobster red, drained from her face, leaving her an ashen grey. Her eyes widened until the whites were visible all the way around her irises.
She stared at Richard.
Her brain refused to fathom what she had just heard.
Her daughter. Her sickly, compliant, silent daughter, the key to the ultimate merger of estates, the vessel for the Pemberley alliance... had kissed the penniless, capering, loudmouthed cavalry officer.
The universe was not out of order; it had inverted. Up was down. Black was white. A Fitzwilliam without an estate had thwarted a Darcy with ten thousand a year.
"The wrong nephew," Lady Catherine whispered, her voice barely audible.
"Aunt?" Richard asked, his righteous fury fading into alarm. "Aunt Catherine, are you..."
Lady Catherine's eyes rolled back in her head.
"Oh, dear," Richard muttered.
It was a swoon of epic, awe-inspiring proportions.
Lady Catherine did not faint; she collapsed like a fortified castle wall succumbing to a trebuchet.
Her knees buckled. Her arms flew outwards in a dramatic arc.
Her plum silk skirts billowed around her as she began a slow, majestic backwards descent to the floor.
Unfortunately for Mr Collins, he had chosen that exact moment to unmerge himself from the wallpaper and attempt to scurry to the door to call for help.
He moved into the path of destruction.
"Help! Murder!" Mr Collins shrieked, realising too late that the unconscious lady was plummeting onto him.
Lady Catherine landed squarely on top of the clergyman.
Mr Collins went down. Lady Catherine crashed on top of him, a cloud of lavender powder puffing into the air on impact.
"Mr Collins!" Richard cried, rushing around the desk.
From beneath the mountain of plum silk, a muffled, wheezing groan emerged. "My ribs... what an honour... crushed by my patroness..."
Before Richard could attempt to unearth the parson, the parlour doors opened.
Mrs Jenkinson stood there, clutching her glass bottle of pink rhubarb tonic, having heard the shouting from the hallway. She looked at Richard standing over the desk, then at the pile of silk emitting muffled prayers.
"Her Ladyship!" Mrs Jenkinson screamed, dropping the bottle of tonic. It shattered, sending a wave of vile-scented pink liquid everywhere.
"It is fine! Everything is fine!" Richard shouted, waving his hands to disperse the foul scent. "She just needs a moment to adjust to the new reality!"
"Salts! We need smelling salts!" Mrs Jenkinson spun in a circle and ran face-first into the doorframe before sprinting down the hall, wailing like a banshee.
Richard calmly surveyed the devastation of his unconscious aunt, the trapped clergyman gasping for air, and the puddle of pink tincture.
He dusted off his gloved hands, a smile spreading across his handsome face. He had breached the citadel. And while the castle was in ruins and the casualties were high, he had won the war.
"Well," Richard addressed the snoring spaniels. "I call that a success. Now, if you will excuse me, I must go and find my fiancée and ask her to take a walk with me."
Whistling a jaunty military march, Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam strode out, leaving the fall of the Gorgon to sort itself out.