Prologue #2
“This Colonel Brandon, though….” Blanche drummed her fingers on the table. “In his later thirties… that is interesting…. And he is drawn to young ladies who play the pianoforte? Is our Miss Elizabeth Bennet not a fine performer? Mr. Darcy could do with some competition.”
“So could she,” Rosamund interjected. “Mr. Darcy has a cousin whom he is supposed to marry, is that not so?”
“That is a delusion of Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s, I am sure of it.” Lady Sophia wrinkled her nose in distaste. “She was after my poor Phillip, the year before you met him.”
“I am aware,” Dorothea sniffed. “Anyway, I hear she is sickly – surely it is too great a distance for her to travel.”
Blanche grinned. “But he has another cousin, and she is perhaps even more of a hellcat than his nemesis Miss Elizabeth.”
Lady Sophia snorted. “Lady Rebecca swore off men after our party five years ago, when your idiotic cousin Harold tried to press his suit despite being twice her age.”
Lady Dorothea looked pointedly at Blanche. “Yes; we would do well to remember that young people prefer other young people.”
Blanche ignored this. “She had a grand time leading him a merry chase, and stirring up trouble with the other couples. She would accept another invitation merely to shake us all up. Anyhow, I like her – as much as anyone could like a creature so determined to devote herself to wickedness.”
Lady Dorothea begrudgingly added Lady Rebecca Fitzwilliam to the list, lamenting that her brother the viscount was so averse to their annual invitations. “She does play beautifully, so the colonel will be pleased.”
“And one of her brothers is a colonel himself, so she may have a tender regard for army men,” Rosamund suggested. “Blanche, if you do not bet on them, I shall.”
“I think I will be terribly perverse and bet on Mr. Darcy to win over his fiercest critic, the intrepid Miss Elizabeth.”
“I have every faith in her,” Lady Sophia agreed, examining the list Dorothea had composed of prospective guests. “Perhaps she will do her sister a good turn, and help her win back this tradesman, Bingley. I shall bet on them.”
“Then I must do my best with Miss Elliot and her sailor,” Dorothea said thoughtfully.
The ladies discussed a few other names, consulting the scandal sheets for any useful tidbits, until they had so many names on their list that several were cut from consideration.
When it seemed they were finished, Blanche cleared her throat and fidgeted a little. “There is one more name I would like to submit. Mamma, you promised.”
Dorothea groaned before fixing Lady Sophia with a stern look. “Mamma, last year I wed my Diana to a duke! Our annual tradition has garnered considerable prestige. Would you really allow all this to be spoiled?”
Blanche sat up straighter and slammed her hand down on the table. “And what is it all for, if not in the service of our family? She is family, too, and I have long awaited the chance to make myself useful to her.”
Lady Sophia smiled sadly at the thought of her youngest granddaughter, whom she had not seen since she was an infant.
Born in Scotland while Blanche had been taken on an extended trip north under the guise of seeking the matchmaking help of a well-connected aunt in Aberdeen, the illegitimate babe had been sent away when she was only two months old.
Regular reports of the girl had been sent by her caretaker in Surrey, though the letters were addressed to a Mrs. Smith, and delivered with the utmost discretion.
Lady Sophia bobbed her head from side to side as she pondered the idea from every angle. “We have no other relations attending this year, to be damaged by her presence. That was my only objection last year. She shall be a few years younger than the other ladies on our list, but….”
“But what does that matter, when she shall have me?” Blanche glared at Dorothea.
“And before you say what I know you are thinking, I have little else to do with my fortune but bestow some of it upon her. I can say that I am her god-mother. I can invent a respectable story of her long-dead parents or some such – these things do happen.”
“But they do not happen here,” Dorothea said firmly.
“Mamma, you promised last year that we might revisit the subject.”
“And so we have, my dear.” Lady Sophia patted her youngest daughter’s hand.
“Let us wait and see. In a fortnight or so, once we have sent our invitations and received our replies, we shall know how many ladies and how many gentlemen to expect. In service of keeping the numbers even, we shall consider your daughter if we are in want of extra ladies.”
In the end, Lady Sophia was rather relieved that she was able to gratify her daughter’s dearest wish.
They had seven couples confirmed, and an extra gentleman was added to the list when Captain Wentworth asked permission to bring a friend whose fiancée had lately perished.
Blanche argued with every ounce of her natural tenacity that one more young lady, of dubious parentage and soon-to-be new wealth, would not go amiss.
Though her granddaughter was nearly ten years younger than the Miss Elliots, and far beneath Lady Rebecca Fitzwilliam, Lady Sophia shared Blanche’s hope that Miss Harriet Smith would find friends in the two Miss Bennets, and that they would all make splendid matches.