Prologue #2
“I was thinking that Bethany Anne Elaine would be perfect for her. That way she honours your late mother and her two godmothers,” Lady Amelia suggested. “Do you object to those names?”
“Not at all. Welcome to the family, Bethie.” Leeds thought of some objectionable people. “You have a distant cousin who will not be at all pleased you are here, little one,” he told his daughter as his wife patted her back once she was sated.
Little Bethie emitted a most unladylike belch. Lady Amelia rang for Nurse to come collect the babe to change her and then to bring her back to sleep in the cradle in the corner of the room.
Amelia waited until Nurse left with their daughter.
“After telling anyone who would listen how she will be a duchess one day, I am certain that Catherine de Bourgh will not be at all impressed that we were blessed with a child,” she opined.
“Francis, do not forget that we need to notify Buckingham House that you have an heir. They were no keener than any of us for the de Bourghs to ascend to the dukedom.”
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Less than a sennight later, Lady Catherine de Bourgh was sitting in the breakfast parlour with her husband while he read the London broadsheets. As she did not enjoy speaking to the man, she was perfectly content not to converse with him.
“They were not supposed to bear a child!” de Bourgh exclaimed.
“Are you referring to the Duchess of Leeds? Did she bear a living whelp?” Lady Catherine enquired.
“Indeed, she did. The announcement from Their Majesties says that Lady Bethany Anne Elaine Osborne is the heir apparent to the Leeds Dukedom,” Sir Lewis lamented. “All of those estates and the vast wealth are slipping through our fingers.”
“Not necessarily,” Lady Catherine averred. “Leeds is still alive, and she will have to remain alive to inherit.”
Sir Lewis saw the evil look on his wife’s face but said nothing to contradict her.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Grantham, North Riding, Yorkshire March 1791
Thomas and Frances—called Fanny by all—Bennet and their two children lived in a cottage near All Saints’ Church in the town of Grantham, right across from the green.
Their eldest was Jane, born in January 1788, and her younger brother James was born in May 1790.
As happy as Fanny was to have her son and daughter, she sometimes wondered if she had angered God due to the number of potential children she had lost.
The Bennets were both from the town of Meryton in Hertfordshire and had been living in Grantham for over seven years, since one year after the two, who were deeply in love and respected one another, married.
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He was the son of James and Elizabeth Bennet, the master and mistress of Longbourn, the largest estate in the area around the aforementioned market town. She was the daughter of Elias and Jane Gardiner, who lived above the former’s law offices in Meryton.
Although they had disparate interests, both Fanny and Thomas were intelligent.
He had been attracted to her beauty—she had golden blonde hair and the deepest coloured blue eyes that Thomas had ever beheld.
But Fanny was so much more than her looks.
They had a healthy respect for one another, and they had soon fallen deeply in love, which had led to Thomas proposing and Fanny accepting him.
Henry Bennet was Thomas’s older brother and the heir to Longbourn.
He was two years older than his younger brother, and although they had no children yet, Henry was married to the former Penelope Morris, whose father owned the second largest estate in the area, Netherfield Park.
Henry and Thomas and their wives had always been on good terms.
Fanny was one of three children with whom the Gardiners had been blessed. She had an older sister, Harriet called Hattie, and a younger brother, Edward. When she and Thomas married, Edward had been in his second year at Oxford.
A year after he married Fanny, who had been close to the age of nineteen at the time of the wedding, Thomas Bennet had accepted the position of tutor at the school in Grantham, Yorkshire.
Even though his father and brother made it clear that Thomas and Fanny did not need to leave the estate to seek employment, the former was not sanguine with not working and earning his keep.
He, like Bennet men before him, which included his sire and brother, had not liked sitting around and being idle with no purpose.
Another reason to move was to take Fanny away from her disappointment. She had fallen with child soon after their wedding. In May 1784, she had begun her labours, about two months early and the babe had been stillborn. After that, she had a miscarriage.
Before his son and daughter-in-law left Longbourn, James Bennet presented his son with a legacy of seven thousand five hundred pounds.
Thomas put the money into the funds where he would earn three hundred pounds per annum.
He and Fanny hoped that they would not need to draw on the interest and that Thomas’s wages would be sufficient to support them.
That way, they would be able to save for the children they prayed they would have one day.
On arriving at his new home, it did not take long before Thomas Bennet was summoned to Highclere Abbey, the home of the Earl and Countess of Grantham.
Lord Richard and Lady Camille Crawley welcomed him warmly.
They informed him that they had asked him to come because they would like to employ him as the tutor of their children.
They explained that they had two sons and three daughters.
Their eldest was Lady Maria, then Lady Emeline, followed by Lord Patric, Viscount Downton, his younger brother, Bertram, and the youngest, Lady Anna.
They wanted the boys tutored, and Lady Maria had requested to learn along with her younger brothers if Mr Bennet was willing to teach a girl.