Chapter Nineteen The Dragon of Grosvenor Square
THE PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION of the existence of Hell on Earth was the small, hastily folded piece of paper in the palm of Darcy’s hand. The note had arrived from Cheapside less than an hour ago, smelling faintly of lavender and sheer panic.
My Dear Mr Darcy, the elegant, hurried script read.
I write to you with the utmost urgency to inform you that the Meryton communication network has breached all bounds of natural science.
My mother stumbled upon a letter intended for my father.
After demanding her smelling salts, she immediately dashed to Meryton.
She informed Aunt Phillips. Aunt Phillips informed Mrs Long.
Mrs Goulding was next. The news reached Lady Lucas.
An express rider has been dispatched to Hunsford.
Lady Catherine KNOWS. I suggest you bolt your doors, draw your curtains, and instruct your staff to hide the good china.
Yours in profound horror,
Elizabeth Bennet.
Darcy read the note for the fourth time. The efficiency of the Hertfordshire matrons was a marvel of modern society. They operated with a speed that rivalled the Royal Mail.
The morning room of Darcy House had been transformed into a holding pen for anxious aristocrats.
Viscount Keathley paced continuously, occasionally pausing to peer through the curtains to the street.
Colonel Fitzwilliam was systematically shifting delicate porcelain vases from the tables to the safety of highest perches, calculating the likely trajectory of a swinging cane.
Anne de Bourgh was seated on the sofa, consuming a piece of shortbread, while Georgiana inspected her own trembling hands.
“She is coming,” Darcy announced, his voice dropping to a sombre, resonant pitch. “I can sense it.”
“Let her come.” Robert dropped the curtain and turned to face the room. “We have the high ground and superior numbers. We have Boodles, Dawson, and Mostyn.”
As if summoned by the mention of his name, the viscount’s valet appeared in the doorway, shoulder to shoulder with Dawson and Mostyn. The three servants stood with crossed arms and unnerving stillness, ready to face an apocalypse.
“I could double-bolt the front doors, my lord,” Mostyn suggested in a voice without emotion. “I could instruct the footmen to feign deafness should anyone demand entry without a calling card.”
“That is a futile gesture, Mostyn.” Anne brushed a crumb from her emerald silk day dress. “If Mother finds the doors bolted, she will simply order her coachman to drive the horses through the ground-floor window. It is safer to let her inside and allow the tantrum to run its natural course.”
“Miss de Bourgh speaks with the wisdom of experience, sir,” Dawson murmured to Darcy. “Shall I prepare a tray of calming chamomile? Or perhaps I should decant the eau-de-vie de cidre I acquired from a French smuggler in my youth? It dulls the senses wonderfully.”
“Stick to brandy, Dawson,” Darcy sighed, rubbing his temples. “If my aunt consumes eau-de-vie de cidre, she will demand to be crowned Queen of Scotland by teatime.”
The words had scarcely faded when the sound of a carriage grinding to a halt echoed from the square below. This was followed by a barrage of blows against the solid oak of the entrance door, delivered with the furious tempo of a cane.
“She is here,” Richard whispered, leaping nimbly behind a wingback armchair and crouching low.
“Stand firm,” Robert ordered, adjusting his cuffs with practiced elegance. “Georgiana, retreat to the music room. This is no place for civilians.”
Georgiana did not need a second invitation; she gathered her skirts and vanished through the side door, accompanied by Mrs Annesley.
Downstairs, the door opened and a voice caused the crystal chandelier in the morning room to rattle ominously.
“OUT OF MY WAY! WHERE IS HE? FITZWILLIAM!”
Footsteps thundered upon the grand staircase. The double doors of the morning room did not just open; they were thrust apart with the force of a gale.
Lady Catherine de Bourgh stood on the threshold, a vision of outraged bombazine. Her towering feathered hat sat slightly askew on her head, her complexion burned a vibrant shade of purple, and in her right fist, she clutched a crumpled piece of paper as though she intended to strangle it.
“Aunt Catherine,” Darcy began, stepping forward and executing a flawless, placating bow. “What an unexpected—”
“SILENCE!” Lady Catherine roared, advancing into the centre of the room.
She shoved the crumpled letter directly under Darcy’s nose.
“This is an express from Lady Lucas! A woman who resides in a dwelling that barely has a proper sofa! And do you comprehend what this woman had the audacity to write to my clergyman?”
“I imagine she complained about the damp, Aunt,” Robert offered unhelpfully from his position by the fireplace.
Lady Catherine whipped her head towards the viscount, glaring with enough force to wilt a houseplant. “She wrote that the master of Pemberley—my nephew!—is engaged in a courtship with a Cheapside-dwelling, dirt-hemmed, impertinent nobody!”
Darcy’s spine snapped straight. The ingrained instinct to placate his aunt evaporated, replaced by the need to defend the woman he loved.
“Her name is Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” he stated, his tone adopting the granite authority of his late father.
“Her hems are impeccable, and she is the woman I intend to marry, provided she will have me. If Lady Lucas penned those words, then Lady Lucas is the first person in Hertfordshire to report a fact with any degree of accuracy.”
Lady Catherine staggered backward. She clutched her chest, her cane clattering on the floor.
“It is true?” she gasped, her visage contorting as though Darcy had just confessed to robbing the Bank of England.
“You would pollute the shades of Pemberley? You would abandon the compact? Fitzwilliam! You are supposed to marry Anne! It has been settled since you were in your cradles! It is what is best for you!”
“Aunt,” he softened his tone, taking a step closer to her trembling form. “There was never a formal compact. You are aware of this. Anne and I—”
“I know what is best!” she interrupted, her voice cracking with genuine distress.
“She is a fortune hunter! She has ensnared you with her arts and allurements and her rustic wiles! You must return to Rosings at once! Both of you! Anne, fetch your pelisse! We are departing this corrupted metropolis immediately!”
Lady Catherine turned to the sofa, fully expecting her daughter to meekly obey the command, to summon a maid, and to shuffle to the carriage.
But the woman on the sofa did not shuffle.
Anne de Bourgh stood up. She did not lean on a cane and she did not cough into a handkerchief. She rose to her full height, rolling her shoulders back.
“I am not fetching my pelisse, Mother.” Anne’s voice was not a frail whisper; it rang like a crystal bell in the quiet room. “And I am not returning to Rosings.”
Lady Catherine stared at her daughter as if a stranger had suddenly possessed the girl’s body. “Anne? Are you delirious? Have you inhaled the London soot? You are standing upright! You are not wearing a shawl!”
“I am exceptionally robust,” Anne confirmed, stepping around the tea table. “I have the constitution of a stevedore, Mother. I have spent the past decade feigning illness because it was the only conceivable method to avoid your relentless management of my existence.”
If Lady Catherine had staggered before, she now seemed to require smelling salts. “You... you feigned it?”
“I did,” Anne replied without a single ounce of apology.
She went to stand next to Darcy. “And let me be explicitly clear, Mother, so that this matter is settled for eternity. I formally, loudly, and irreversibly reject Fitzwilliam Darcy. He is the last man I could ever be prevailed upon to marry, and he feels the same about me. He is my cousin and a dear friend, but he would make a boring husband.”
“I second the rejection,” Darcy added with conviction. “Though I take minor offence at the accusation of being boring.”
“You read about crop rotation for fun, Fitzwilliam. You are boring.” Anne’s gaze stayed locked with her mother’s.
Lady Catherine huffed in supreme indignation, recovering a fraction of her usual bluster. “Anne, you cannot mean this nonsense. Let us go back to Kent, right this instant. The city air has addled your brain.”
“Mother, I am not returning to Kent.” Anne dropped her ultimate weapon into the conversation.
“I sent word to the caretakers this morning. I am opening my father’s townhouse in Portman Square.
It has been shuttered for years, and it is time it had a mistress.
I am establishing my own household, Mother.
I will reside there with Mrs Jenkinson as my companion. ”
“Portman Square?” Lady Catherine whispered. “You are leaving me?”
“I am not leaving you.” Anne stepped forward and squeezed her mother’s trembling hands.
“I am simply leaving Rosings. I will call upon you and you may call upon me—provided you send a note first. But I will no longer be your invalid, and I will no longer be a pawn in your marital schemes. I am going to live.”
Lady Catherine stared from Anne, to Darcy, to Robert, and finally to Richard, who had cautiously emerged from behind the armchair.
She drew herself up, released Anne’s hands, and took a step back, her spine stiffening as she gathered the shattered remnants of her dignity.
She was outflanked, outnumbered, and for the first time in her existence, outmanoeuvred by her own offspring.
“You are making a grave mistake, Fitzwilliam,” Lady Catherine enunciated the syllables with dripping venom. “You will pollute the bloodline. You will be the ruin of us all.”
“I will be happy, Aunt.” Darcy bowed his head respectfully. “I hope, one day, you will be able to comprehend that.”