Chapter Five The Arrival of the Viscount
A GENTLEMAN’S HOME was his castle, but a guest chamber at Rosings Park was his gilded prison with a distinct lack of a beautiful warden.
Fitzwilliam Darcy, master of Pemberley and the most humiliated man in the south-eastern counties of England, was pacing the length of his room in a state of utter despair, his boots carving a groove in the Aubusson rug.
He had been pacing for the better part of an hour, stopping only occasionally to press the heels of his hands against his burning eyes or to let out a low, wounded sound that Dawson had politely categorised as a ‘strangled sigh’.
He was wrestling with options. It was a choice between three equally catastrophic avenues of ruin.
Option the first: He could march down the grand staircase, walk across the park to the parsonage, demand an audience with Miss Elizabeth, and formally ask for his letter back.
This would require him to look at those magnificent, dark eyes and admit that he had, in a fit of sleep-deprived mania, written a passionate manifesto declaring her the warden of his prison.
Option the second: He could allow Anne’s plan to unfold. He shook his head. He was not that stupid. The plan had flaws.
Option the third: He could instruct Dawson to pack his trunks, summon the carriage, and execute a cowardly but very appealing flight to London.
He could vanish. He had done it before. He could leave Kent, leave everything behind, and spend the rest of his natural life actively avoiding the county of Hertfordshire.
The downside to this tempting strategy, however, was that Elizabeth Bennet would permanently retain physical proof of his downfall.
She could frame it or read it at dinner parties.
“I shall have to emigrate,” Darcy announced to the room at large, pivoting sharply by the fireplace. “To the Americas, perhaps. Or India. I hear the tea trade is thriving, and the likelihood of running into Mr Collins is close to nought.”
His self-appointed dignity rescue mission offered no real comfort.
In fact, its members were treating his devastation as a raree-show. Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam, Anne de Bourgh, who could not stay away and had returned in haste, and Dawson, were lounging about the room providing a stream of increasingly absurd and spectacularly unhelpful suggestions.
The contrast between Darcy’s genuine, heart-palpitating frustration and their relaxed, insubordinate amusement set a brilliant, if infuriating, comedic tone for the morning. Even he could see it.
“India is too hot, Fitzwilliam,” Richard observed casually. He was draped upside down over an armchair, his legs hooked over the back, attempting to balance a silver spoon on his nose. “Your cravats would wilt within minutes. It would be a tragedy for British tailoring.”
“We are not discussing my cravats!” Darcy roared. “We are discussing the fact that a woman who already believes me to be an unfeeling tyrant now holds written confirmation that I am also a raving lunatic!”
“I still think my idea holds the most merit,” Anne decided. She had commandeered the chaise longue and was idly inspecting her nails. Having dropped her sickly persona once again within the safety of Darcy’s chambers, she was proving to be ruthlessly pragmatic. “We set fire to the parsonage.”
Darcy stared at his cousin. “You wish to commit arson.”
“Just a small one, Fitzwilliam. In the kitchens, perhaps, or Mr Collins’s study.
It would not take much to ignite his sermons; they are already dry.
In the ensuing panic, the residents evacuate, Dawson climbs up to the first-floor guest chamber by way of the trellis, he slips through the window, retrieves the letter, and we all return in time for luncheon. ”
“We cannot burn down a clergyman’s house!”
“Why not? He is insufferable,” Anne reasoned. “And frankly, the architecture of that building is offensive. I would be doing the landscape a favour. The only thing worth saving is the windows with the new glazing my mother insisted upon installing.”
“Miss de Bourgh’s tactical assessment is sound in theory, though perhaps perilous for my well-being,” Dawson chimed in.
He was standing by the wardrobe, using a silver brush to polish a pair of Darcy’s boots with mesmerising motions.
“However, if I may offer an alternative, sir? I could seduce the parsonage maid. I have seen her admiring my person. A few ribbons, a little flattery regarding her complexion, and she would happily search Miss Elizabeth’s room for us. ”
Darcy rubbed his temples, the headache throbbing since yesterday evening. “Dawson, I forbid you from seducing anyone in the name of Pemberley. We are not a den of spies.”
“As you wish, sir,” Dawson replied, unbothered. “Though I must say, my cheekbones are usually very effective in these scenarios.”
“There has to be a diplomatic solution,” Darcy muttered, resuming his pacing. “I must write to her. Yes. A second letter. Third. I shall calmly explain that the first letter was a draft...”
“A draft of what?” Richard asked, letting the spoon drop to the carpet and righting himself in the chair. “A Gothic romance novel? ‘You have ruined my peace’ is not something one casually drafts, Darcy. It is the sort of thing a man screams from a parapet in a thunderstorm.”
“Thank you, Richard. Your support is, as always, overwhelming.”
“I am pointing out the practical flaws in your narrative,” Richard said, grinning.
“If you try to play this off as a mistake, she will know you are lying. You must embrace the madness, Cousin. Go to her. Weep openly, clutch her hem, wipe her slippers with your cravat. Women love a bit of grovelling.”
“I do not grovel!”
“You literally just wrote her a letter doing exactly that,” Anne remarked, one elegant eyebrow lifting. “In ink. With your family crest on it.”
Darcy slumped against the mantelpiece, burying his face in his hands. He was trapped, undone by his own exhaustion and his own foolish, unrequited heart.
The tension in the room, previously thick with mocking amusement, was suddenly broken.
The sound of a carriage grinding up the sweeping gravel drive of Rosings Park echoed through the chamber.
It was not the light rattle of a local gig, nor was it the lumbering roll of Lady Catherine’s phaeton.
It was the crunch of an extraordinarily expensive, well-sprung vehicle drawn by a team of prime bloods.
Darcy’s head snapped up. Richard leapt from the armchair and strode to the window, pulling back the curtain to peer down at the courtyard.
Darcy joined him. They looked down.
A grand, gleaming carriage, painted in an obnoxiously elegant shade of midnight blue, had pulled into the estate. The horses were sweating, indicating a rapid journey from London. Emblazoned on the door in gold leaf was a crest they both recognised instantly.
Darcy and the colonel looked at each other and let out a synchronised groan of dread.
“Tell me my eyes deceive me,” Darcy whispered, the remaining colour draining from his face.
“I cannot,” Richard said grimly. “The apocalypse has arrived, Cousin.”
Robert Fitzwilliam, Viscount Keathley, was on the premises.
The occupants of the room, however, had wildly different reactions to the sudden appearance of the heir to the earldom of Matlock.
“Robert is here?” Anne bounded off the chaise longue, her eyes shining with delight.
She adored Robert. He possessed a lazy grace, a rakish charm, and an endless amount of amusement, but most importantly, she adored him for his covert mockery of her strict mother.
Robert was the only person in the family who treated Lady Catherine not as a tyrant but as a minor inconvenience.
“Oh, this is going to be spectacular,” Anne breathed, moving to the mirror to pinch her cheeks. “He will have Mother clutching her pearls before tea.”
“Dawson,” Darcy barked. “Lock the door. Barricade it with the wardrobe. If Robert finds out about the letter, I shall have to throw myself out of this window.”
But Dawson was not listening. The valet was standing near the washstand, a rare smile breaking across his usually cool features.
“Mr Boodles,” Dawson said reverently.
“Who is Boodles?” Anne asked.
“The viscount’s valet, Miss, and the only one I trust with my master’s welfare besides Mostyn, our butler,” Dawson explained, full of anticipation for excellent chess matches and intellectual conversations regarding sophisticated silk-washing techniques.
“The man is a genius with the starch ratio. We have been conducting a correspondence for six months about the proper maintenance of velvet collars in damp climates. His arrival is a godsend.”
“We are surrounded by traitors,” Darcy muttered to Richard. “My own valet has defected to the enemy for laundry advice.”
“Robert is not the enemy,” Richard reasoned, though he still looked terrified of his big brother. “He is just... an unpredictable element. Like a firework. A very well-dressed, thirty-three-year-old firework with a title.”
They waited. The minutes stretched out like hours. They could hear the distant commotion downstairs—the slamming of doors, the flurry of footmen, the shrill demands of Lady Catherine, followed by the smooth, carrying baritone of the viscount effortlessly deflecting her.
Five minutes later, footsteps sounded in the corridor. They did not pause. They did not hesitate.
The chamber door swung open with a flourish.
Robert Fitzwilliam stepped inside. He was dressed in a riding coat of charcoal grey that fit him with scandalous perfection, his hair fashionably windswept, his boots gleaming. He stepped into the room, surveyed the gathering, and lifted a single perfectly sculpted eyebrow.
He did not immediately address his cousins. Instead, he turned his head and spoke over his shoulder to his valet, who was hovering in the hallway.
“You see, Boodles?” Robert drawled, his voice laced with amusement. “I told you. You were correct to insist upon this visit.”
“Was I, my lord?” a crisp voice answered from the corridor.
“Oh, indeed. Just look at them.” Robert gestured to Darcy and Richard with his silver-tipped cane. “The fear in their eyes proves that they need my assistance. Darcy seems as though he has swallowed a live eel, and Richard as though he is preparing to repel boarders.”
A unified groan of misery came from Darcy and Richard. Again.
Anne, however, abandoned the last shred of her sickly persona, let out a squeal of joy, and rushed forward to throw her arms around her favourite cousin.
“Robert!” she cried.
“Annie, my sweet,” Robert laughed, catching her and spinning her around. “You look quite healthy for a woman suffering from consumption, gout, and whatever else you told the apothecary this week.”
He set her down and turned his hawk-like focus on the master of Pemberley. The viscount’s eyes narrowed, taking in Darcy’s pale face, the rumpled state of his cravat, and the general air of impending doom.
“So.” Robert sauntered further into the room and claimed the armchair Richard had vacated. He crossed his legs, leaning back as if he owned the estate. “I am here. The cavalry has arrived. Now, Fitzwilliam. Look me in the eye and tell me exactly what has befallen you this time.”