Chapter 10
Elizabeth could scarce control her excitement as she sat in her chambers with Aggie stretched out on the rug in front of the open window, soaking in the sun.
It was the day that Will was due home from his grand tour!
Like Andrew had, Will had sent her letters from each place that he visited, but unlike Andrew, his trip was not cut short.
Elizabeth had tracked his progress on the same globe that she had Andrew’s travels for which she had used blue ink.
She had used red ink for Will. Gigi had spent a lot of time with her cousins and had helped maintain the tracking of her brother’s progress on the globe.
There had been a lot of debate about if a tour to the continent was advisable after King Lewis XVI of France was guillotined in the Place de la Révolution and his wife had been taken into custody.
In the end it was decided that it was safe as long as William, Lord Wes De Melville, and Ian Ashby did not set foot on any French land.
The last letter had been mailed from Amsterdam and Will had estimated that he should be less than a week behind the epistle.
It had arrived five days previously. The Fitzwilliams, those still at Snowhaven, were to leave for Pemberley on the morrow in the morning; both Anne and Elizabeth were hoping that their cousin would be home.
The last years had been very full for Elizabeth as she learnt and read more and more, but nothing had matched the first time that her family had returned to London after her recovery.
The Queen had her come and visit with her mother, her aunt, and her cousin Anne.
Queen Charlotte and her daughters had expressed their delight to see Elizabeth recovered and she had treated them to a performance on the pianoforte as she accompanied herself in song.
The Queen had commented to the Countess that she noted that her daughter could at last reach the pedals on a full-size Broadwood Grand.
If she had been a darling on the Ton before the attack, that was nothing to the unwanted attention that she garnered after her recovery.
Elizabeth especially had been incredibly grateful when her parents had departed Town almost a month ahead of schedule.
Since that first return, things had returned to normal, for which Elizabeth and her family were eternally grateful.
When in Town during her eleventh year, the Countess had hired a lady’s maid for her daughter and one for the older Anne at the same time.
Miss Antoinette de Chambé was hired for the former while Miss éponine Thénardier was hired for the latter.
Elizabeth’s maid had just turned eighteen, while Anne’s was already past twenty.
Given Elizabeth’s mastery of languages, she conversed with her abigail in French most of the time.
Anne was not as proficient as her cousin with the language, but since her maid had started to serve her, there had been a marked improvement in Anne’s French abilities.
Anne had just turned eighteen and would be coming out in the upcoming little season.
Over the last three years, they had been in the company of the Ashbys many times, and in fact the younger Ashby son had delayed his tour by a year, having graduated the same time as Richard, so he could take his tour with friends.
It had been before his grand tour that Anne de Bourgh had fallen in love with Ian.
She was not a great beauty like her younger cousin, but she was a pretty girl who had grown into a very well-proportioned and poised young lady.
With Uncle Reggie and Aunt Elaine as her de facto parents she had bloomed and had self-confidence to spare.
William was in for a shock when he would see his Cousin Elizabeth for the first time.
She was about to turn thirteen, well she had been that age for three months already without anyone of her family knowing, and she did not look like a little girl anymore.
She had started to bloom and had more womanly curves than most young ladies of her age, she had grown in stature, but was still shorter that most her age.
Richard had been in the army for a year; he was a Captain in the Royal Dragoons and looked very dashing in his uniform, cutting a fine figure in scarlet.
His family was grateful that he had missed the war with the upstart colonies in the Americas, but there was still a chance that he would be sent to India, the Canadas, or to the tip of African where the crown was trying to wrest control of the Cape Colony from the Dutch East India Company.
It had been discovered that Richard was particularly good at training men, so for the time being, he was stationed near London at the training grounds for his unit.
At ten, Georgiana still looked like a young girl except she was tall.
She had her mother’s blond hair, the Fitzwilliam blue eyes, and the Darcy height.
Both her father and older brother were over six feet tall; Alex at seven was as tall as Georgiana and would soon be taller than his older sister.
For her tenth birthday, during the past season, George Darcy had taken his daughter to Hertfordshire to the estate where both families purchased their horseflesh, Bennington Fields.
Having met the master of the estate some years before when they dropped Charles Bingley off at Netherfield, Mr Bennet was there to greet them.
While Georgiana was looking at the mares, George Darcy had mentioned that the horse was a birthday gift for his daughter and had mentioned that she was born on the fifth day of March.
He had not understood why Mr Bennet got a faraway look when he mentioned the date, but whatever it was passed quickly, and Georgiana chose a beautiful piebald mare, who was not named for a celestial body.
She had more brown than white, so she was given the name Brown Beauty.
Like all the horses from the estate, she had impeccable bloodlines and she could run forever; not as fast as Lizzy’s Saturn, but she was certainly not slow.
Her parents had been approached by Dukes on down who wanted to betroth their sons to Elizabeth, but they had politely refused each and every request, explaining that they would allow each child to make his or her own choice, just like Andrew and Marie Rhys-Davies had chosen one another.
The new Duke of Bedford honoured his late father’s wishes and gave Marie a full season, albeit deferred for one year due to mourning their father, and on the last day of the season, Andrew had presented himself at Bedford House to ask his friend for a private audience with his sister.
It had been a short interview with Marie as she had accepted the courtship almost before Andrew was able to make the request. Earlier this year, a few days after Andrew turned five and twenty in April, he proposed to Marie and was accepted with much pleasure and received consent and full-throated blessing from his friend Perry.
The wedding would be held at Longview Meadows, the main Bedford estate on the fourth day of July, in less than a month.
After the visit to Pemberley, the Darcys and Fitzwilliams would journey together to Yorkshire to the Bedford estate to arrive there a week before the nuptials.
Andrew would arrive at Pemberley from Hilldale a day after the Snowhaven party and Richard would leave Town in time so he should join them in two days’ time after their arrival.
It would be the first time in almost two years that the family would all be together in one place at the same time.
Elizabeth was hoping against hope that, when the Darcys arrived the next day to celebrate her birthday, Will would be home in time to join them.
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At fifteen Jane Bennet was a tall, willowy, beautiful young lady.
She would not be out for another three years, but that did not stop Charles Bingley, who had just graduated from Cambridge, from following her around like a puppy dog.
To him she was the perfect angel. If he were eventually Jane’s choice, the Bennets would not object; the two families were as close as could be even if they were not blood relatives.
As her older friends had come out and gotten married, Jane, while still friendly with them did not see them as much as she used to; even Charlotte, who was nearby at the parsonage next to the Longbourn church.
She had become a lot closer to her cousin Franny, almost twelve, and Mandy Long, who would be thirteen soon.
She was as caring as ever, but no matter how serene she looked, anyone that knew her had no doubt that you could not push her too far before you invited a much-deserved setdown.
Both William and John were home from Eton.
William Bennet was going into his final year before Cambridge, while John had just completed his first year.
William was still set on going into the church, and if anything, his resolve had firmed.
He was remarkably close to Christopher Pierce and his wife of a little over a year, Charlotte, the former Miss Lucas.
When home on breaks from school, when not required to perform tasks for his father or mother, he would be helping the clergyman around the parish, almost like a junior curate.
John Manning had an affinity for the law, so he spent a lot of his free time learning from Uncle Frank and his cousin Graham, who was in William’s year at Eton and also determined to read the law.
James had turned ten that year and took much pleasure in helping his father run their three estates.
He was especially enamoured with the horse breeding program at Bennington Fields and had been there when the Darcy girl had come to look for a horse.
He was not impressed by her as at ten he still had an aversion to girls that were not family; besides, she was too tall and thin!