Chapter 13
Will was finally home after he had completed his duty to his friend Charles Bingley. Elizabeth was looking forward to them establishing their prior routine of meeting once or twice a week to discuss a book, politics, or anything else that grabbed their attention.
It was getting close to the first celebration of her joining the family that was not celebrated as her birthday.
To differentiate it from her actual birthday, Marie and her mama had planned a family celebration without chocolate cake.
There would be a festive meal at Snowhaven, followed by an array of Elizabeth’s other favourite desserts, which would include a chocolate pudding to placate any disappointment Elizabeth may have at not having her favourite cake served.
Although she was looking forward to the celebration with glee, Elizabeth felt a tinge of sadness.
She had noticed recently that Aggie had started to slow down.
She was approaching her eighth year, and as much as she did not want to think about it, she remembered her father explaining to her before she chose Aggie that large dogs like Great Danes seldom lived past the age of ten.
Though in truth, all knew Aggie had chosen her.
Being prepared was helpful, but it would not make it any less sad when that day eventually arrived.
There had been an extremely good piece of news shared a sennight before. Elizabeth thought back to that afternoon and the pleasurable thoughts drove the maudlin ones about Aggie’s mortality to the recesses of her mind, for now.
Andrew and Marie had requested that their mother and Lizzy join them in their private sitting room.
Marie, who was glowing with happiness, nodded to Andrew.
“This morning Marie felt the quickening. We had suspected for some time that Marie is with child, but we wanted to wait to make an announcement until it was felt.”
“How can you have a family meeting without me?” came from the doorway, where Richard stood in his regimentals.
“Itch!” Elizabeth exclaimed and launched herself at her brother, who she had not seen for months. Even at sixteen, she welcomed Richard in the same boisterous manner that she had for many years.
“Andrew!” admonished his mother, “did you omit to tell us that your brother would be home today, or at all?”
“It may have slipped my mind, mother,” Andrew hedged, sporting a big grin and happy he had surprised his mother and Lizzy.
“I told Andrew he should have informed you two, but you know how my husband likes surprises,” Marie smiled at the man who she loved.
“It sounds like I am to be an uncle, sister; did I hear correctly?” Richard smiled at his newest sister.
“Yes, Itch, you did hear what Marie said, for I am to be an aunt!” Elizabeth answered happily.
“And that will give me the title of grandmother,” Elaine sighed.
She was overjoyed at the news, but there was a touch of sadness that her beloved Reggie was not there to share in the wonder of their first grandchild, who would possibly be the new Lord Hilldale.
Richard saw the look on his mother’s face and hugged her.
“Papa would have loved to be a grandfather,” he agreed softly next to her ear. Elaine was choked up so could not answer; she just nodded her head as she hugged him in return.
“Has your state been confirmed, Marie?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yes, Dr. Gravelle saw me after we returned from Rosings. It was confirmed then, and he agreed all was going well. Before you ask, I sent an express to Longview Meadows just before Andrew and I requested that you join us.”
Elizabeth was snapped out of her reverie as she heard the sound of carriages on the drive. She made her way towards the entrance with all speed as Jane, Perry, and Aunt Rose had just arrived.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Jones had taken Branch into his confidence a few weeks earlier.
He had explained that he was just reporting some benign movements of the family to one who had enlisted his help and was hoping to have an ‘unintentional’ meeting and present an investment opportunity.
Branch had played the part very well, acting as if this was the first time he was made aware of Jones’ additional employment.
Branch had agreed to provide him the ‘harmless’ information about the family’s travel plans and had convinced Jones to allow him to carry the fortnightly notes to place in the hiding place in the chestnut tree on the green at Kympton.
After what Jones believed was Branch’s first task in his plan, he quizzed him to make sure that he had placed the note as he had instructed and returned the cover to its place to hide the knothole.
Once Jones was satisfied, he relaxed and was pleased that he was saved from having to ride all the way there and back when he was running out of excuses and that he had an ally who would help for less than one-third of what he was being paid for the job.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Mrs Fitzpatrick’s anticipation was beginning to build. She could not grab the newest note from her secret spy fast enough when the footman delivered it.
One quarter of the out riders now discharged. No major travel until next Easter. Family not going to Rosings but lake district. Will notify once the route is decided.
Her mouth started to water. This was it.
In less than nine months she would show them all.
She decided that it was time to start recruiting those whose silence could be bought regardless of the activities they did.
She estimated, based on the fact that by then there would only be two outriders per carriage, that she would need twenty men to whom she would offer one hundred pounds each.
She smiled to herself. She would save one hundred pounds by paying one less and sending Wickham as part of the group.
The road from either Pemberley or Snowhaven to the lakes was rarely travelled, and she knew the ideal spot.
About ten miles past the point where the roads from the two estates met, it entered a heavily wooded forest and there was a bend where the road ahead was invisible.
She would have her men block the path there and then take the carriages.
It would look like a highwaymen holdup gone wrong when the bodies were discovered.
In addition to their pay, she would allow the men to take anything of value from the bodies and coaches.
She would insist that the plan be carried out exactly as she devised, and she would be there to see the looks on their faces just before they died as they discovered just how far superior she was to them.
For the first time in many years, the former Lady Catherine de Bourgh laughed, although to anyone hearing her it sounded far more like a cackle.
George Wickham was sitting in his windowless room thinking about his plan to kidnap Georgiana Darcy. It hit him that if the old bat had them all killed, which he suspected was her plan, there would be no one to ransom Georgiana back to.
That was when he realized the full scope of all that implied.
She would be heir to all of the Darcy estates!
He would steal her away to Gretna Green and force her to marry him, and then it would ALL be his.
It would be his ultimate revenge—to rule Pemberley and live like his mother had always told him was his due.
Like his patroness, Wickham conveniently ignored or forgot that he was a wanted murderer who would hang as soon as he was arrested.
He did not know it, but he had been found guilty in abstention and had the sentence of death waiting for him.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
The Bennets had been invited to Snowhaven for the celebration on the twentieth of June but had demurred.
They decided that they would feel out of place celebrating the day that Lizzy was found by the Fitzwilliams. They were beyond grateful that she was, but the day represented sadness for them as much as it was a happy day for the Fitzwilliams.
William and John, who had not been able to visit the area because of their attendance at their respective schools, had been invited and accepted and arrived at the end of May.
Letters were carried between Hertfordshire and Derbyshire almost weekly, as correspondence was now more inclusive than just moves for chess.
Even though it was a rare time indeed for his daughter to lose to him, Bennet and Lizzy kept playing their games by courier.
The Gardiners would have been with them except that Maddie had presented her husband with an heir whom they named Edward Junior on the second day of May.
He would, however, be called Eddie. It was hard for Bennet to believe, but his James would be off to Eton in August. That would only leave one son at home for just another year when Tom would follow his brother to school.
Both boys had learnt from tutors and masters as their older brothers had before them and were well prepared for school, hence Bennet’s decision to start them at thirteen and not fourteen, like many others.
At almost twelve, Kitty was turning into a very accomplished young lady.
She had a particularly good soprano voice and played the pianoforte very well, but her passion was drawing and painting.
She had a natural talent for art that had been vastly enhanced by the art master Bennet had engaged.
Miss Jones, the long-time governess for the Bennets, had taught Kitty well, and she was on her way to being prepared for her to come out.
Bennet told himself that it was at least six years distant.
The Bennets would join the rest of the family from the north in Town for the little season.
It would be the first time that they would all be back in town since the true connection between themselves and Lady Elizabeth Fitzwilliam had been revealed, so there was an expectation of much scrutiny by the Ton.
The last part was that which Bennet dreaded, but he knew that he would need to grin and bear it.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Charles Bingley and the Hursts had been in half-mourning since the six-month mark had passed.
One of the first social calls that Charles Bingley made after he switched to half-mourning was to the Longs at Longmeadow.
They shared a common border and Bingley needed to talk to his neighbour about broken fencing between their properties.
When he was shown into the drawing room, he almost stopped short, but his innate good manners caught him before he made a spectacle of himself.
Mandy Long was no longer a little girl. She had blossomed into a very pretty young lady.
With light brown hair and light green eyes, she was nothing like the blond-haired, blue-eyed, willowy ladies that had attracted Bingley before.
She had a fuller figure, but everything was in proportion.
Her younger sister Cara was transforming into a pretty girl as well.
If memory served, Mandy would be sixteen in another month and be out in local society, just in time for the next assembly.
“Welcome, Mr, Bingley,” his hostess said, snapping his thoughts from her older daughter. “Would you like some tea before you and my husband closet yourselves in the study?”
“Uhm…er…yes please, Mrs Long,” Bingley recovered.
It had been a while since he had felt tongue-tied.
The mistress rang for tea and her daughters helped her serve it.
Bingley almost dropped his cup and saucer when Mandy delivered it to him and their ungloved hands grazed one another.
Charles Bingley knew that he had never reacted to any female in this way before, not even when he imagined himself in love with the former Jane Bennet, now Duchess of Bedford.
Not long after tea, the two men excused themselves. Once the study door was closed, Long turned to Bingley and simply said: “Not until she is seventeen!” They then proceeded with their business as if not a word had been said on the subject of his daughter.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
One day after the two young men arrived at Snowhaven from school, they were sitting in one of the parlours with their sisters. “Do you like being a duchess, Jane?” John asked.
“So far it is not much different from just being Perry’s wife,” Jane replied. “When we all are in Town for the little season, I dare say then I will see a difference.”
“You are a cousin to the Queen and her family now,” William pointed out.
“True, but in a way, so are all of you as you are my brothers and sisters,” Jane reminded him.
“I would be happy to be like Aunt Anne,” Elizabeth offered.
“Do you mean married to a Darcy?” Jane teased.
“Jane, what…no…that is not what I mean,” Elizabeth spluttered.
“So, you would not like to be my sister, Lizzy?” Georgiana teased as William and John grinned, the Bennet siblings watching their younger sister squirm.
“I was not saying any of that!” Came the indignant reply.
“What I meant is I would not mind marrying an untitled man like Aunt Anne did, to be out of the scrutiny of the Ton while being the mistress of an estate without all the pressure.” Elizabeth tried to extricate herself from the Gordian knot that she was busy tying.
“You mean like Pemberley?” William asked smoothly.
“Yes exactly, William!” Elizabeth did something she had not done for an exceedingly long time, she stamped her foot in frustration as it seemed every time she tried, rather than untying the knot, in her tongue, it seemed to get tighter.
“That will be enough teasing, Lizzy, from all of us,” Jane told the group seriously.
“Yes, your Grace,” chorused the three co-teasers while Elizabeth gave them a look of disbelief. She knew how she felt about Will, but she still had no clue of his feelings for her. That was the one puzzle that she truly needed to solve.