Page 40

AN INSPIRED INTERVENTION

A ll things considered, Sarah had enjoyed a delightful morning with Phipps, Matlock’s head gardener, as he showed her his experimental plantings.

Really, the man was a genius with Euonymus vulgaris and other decorative varieties.

These pleasant thoughts were interrupted by the appearance in the garden of two of her dearest friends, and one of her newest ones.

Avoiding temptation, she stood her ground, instead of immediately making a run for the maze and hoping to lose them within it.

“I have been speaking with Lady Aurelia,” Georgette said agreeably.

Sarah was not fooled by her genial tone. “You are cousins,” she replied, with equal amiability. “And very near in age. I suppose such conversations are unremarkable.”

“She said you cancelled your engagement to go with her to her dressmaker today. Oh, Sarah, why?” Lilly asked, her blue eyes full of sorrowful accusation.

“You seemed so excited to go,” Elizabeth agreed. “You said you have always used your aunt’s dressmaker, and you decided it time for a different opinion.”

Sarah made herself shrug in what she hoped was an insouciant manner.

“I shall, most likely, change dressmakers. But truthfully, you believe yours are so talented, yet, what effort have they to expend? They could put the lot of you into grain sacks, and suddenly grain sacks would become high fashion.”

“Do not attempt distraction, Sarah,” Georgette said severely. “Why will you not go with Lady Aurelia?”

Sarah gave up her attempts at dissembling.

“What would be the point?” she asked quietly.

“You all know I was here for one purpose, and it had nothing to do with exotic tableaux or pagan feasts. I wished to find someone. A mate of my own. There is no sense in acquiring a dressmaker so far from town to impress a man who is not here.”

Elizabeth’s eyes widened, and Sarah realised she had said too much. Her friends were too accustomed to her frankness to pay heed to her peculiarities, but Elizabeth’s response made clear why the colonel had noticed.

“I heard Mr Withers specifically request to partner with you at last night’s card party,” Lilly reminded. “You are not without your own little conquests here.”

“Mr Withers devoted just enough time in Saye’s library to learn the coarser English nicknames of several insects, and spent the entire evening quizzing me in order to make Miss Morgan and Miss Barlowe giggle.”

Lilly’s big blue eyes filled with tears. “You ought to have told me! It only goes to show what crude, undisciplined friends Lord Saye permits to?—”

“I was too busy ignoring Miss Morgan and Miss Barlowe’s whispers that Anderson has jilted me to listen to anything else,” Georgette interrupted furiously. “I would have enjoyed giving those dreadful chits a proper set down.”

“I ought to have noticed and nipped such idiocy in the bud,” Elizabeth offered. “I was unforgivably distracted last evening and lost every hand I played. I am sorry.”

Sarah frowned. Why should Elizabeth be downcast? She had been too distracted herself to notice it at the time, but now that she considered, Mr Darcy and Elizabeth had not paired with each other for a single hand in the entire interminable evening.

She examined the three miserable faces before her.

Her own travails were not the worst of it; if she had not garnered any admirers, well that was nothing new, was it?

“We are, none of us, having any luck with this house party mating ritual. Can we not simply make our excuses and leave? My coachman is here as well as yours, Lilly.”

Georgette shook her head. “Lady Aurelia would never forgive me, and she is family. I cannot ruin her party with a dramatic exit. I must make the best of things.”

“As must I,” sniffed Lilly. “If I returned home early, my mama would immediately be suspicious, and she has the nose of a bloodhound.”

“Thank goodness you cannot go, for I certainly must stay,” Elizabeth said. “It was difficult enough to arrange my visit, much less an early departure. My father has no idea I am here, with my betrothed, and would be furious should he discover it.”

Sarah could not imagine a father in the kingdom who would not drive Mr Darcy directly to the church should he pay court to a daughter. Mr Bennet was a mystery.

“Discontent is only to be expected,” Lilly added with her own little bitterness.

“Maniacal moving meals and disorderly dinners! Now that Lady Aurelia has announced her intention of taking charge of all future entertainments, surely the atmosphere will grow more conducive to a spirit of genteel romance.”

Sarah cocked her head. “If her card party last evening was an example, I find your conclusion dubious. I shall not discover my future here.”

But Georgette protested. “It is like riding a horse. One does not become an expert rider on one’s first time in the saddle. You expect everything to happen too quickly. Give it a bit more time.”

An arctic breeze blew through the denuded garden, chilling Sarah through her very warm, very practical, very ugly clothing.

These ladies must be freezing, even in their coats.

But they were no hothouse flowers, for all their elegant, innate beauty.

Although they looked nothing alike, they were each suffering in some way—even though Sarah did not know the details of Elizabeth’s suffering—and in one way they were identical.

They each were determined to help her, to encourage her, or to stay out here and freeze with her if they could not. It touched her deeply.

She plopped down upon a nearby stone bench, smiling weakly at her friends.

“Oh, but I climbed on that horse immediately, it seems. I have already been thrown.” She explained, then, about the colonel’s kisses in the library, including her own determination to see where they led.

She did not explain about the intense feelings, the wildness of emotion those kisses encouraged. These women would already know.

“I shall be having a conversation with my cousin, after which he will be sporting his dress sword in a wholly new scabbard,” Georgette seethed.

“Please, do not, if you care about me at all. I wanted it to happen. I am not sorry.”

Lilly appeared thoughtful. “But Sarah…this is po sitively wonderful. It would be an ideal match for both of you. Why did I not think of it before?”

Sarah thought about trying to explain the differences between yellow and grey Drosophila flies, but sadly, no one ever made much effort to understand her deeper meanings in such comparisons; equally unfortunate was her own inexperience in communicating in a less scientific manner.

Perhaps it was why the colonel could not love her.

“Do not think of it now. I do not mind that he did not fall instantly in love with me, I promise. I did not instantly fall in love with him! But I could have rapidly made the leap from respect and admiration to love, given any more encouragement. I have withdrawn my mind from the notion, but I find my feelings are still…leaping.”

“Simply because he has not fallen in love yet—” Georgette began.

“He has!” Sarah blurted. “But…but not with me.”

Lilly and Georgette, in unison, turned to look at Elizabeth; apparently Sarah was not the only one who had observed the colonel’s frequent attentions to Mr Darcy’s bride-to-be.

Elizabeth flushed and immediately demurred. “Colonel Fitzwilliam is not in love with me !”

Sarah met her gaze. “He believes he is. I heard him shouting it. ‘I ceded the field,’ he said. ‘Had another man your fortune, what is to say she might, even now, have a different bridegroom?’ were the very words he used. ”

“It was a stupid brawl between two grown men who ought to have known better,” Elizabeth declared. “Have you no brother or sister? I speak from experience—families bicker. It had nothing to do with me.”

“I do not mean to imply you encouraged him,” Sarah sighed. “But neither am I interested in a man who is jealous of his cousin’s bright, shiny new acquisition . As if you were a sporting curricle!”

“I do not think it precisely that,” Georgette protested.

“Consider that Fitzwilliam is not even a year younger than Saye. A mere accident of birth, or health, or luck, and all of this could have been his. Some jealousy must be understandable, even expected. But he has never betrayed even the smallest hint, and on the contrary, is extraordinarily loyal. My mother once said that when they were young and mischievous, every scrape those boys got into, they both had to be punished equally—even when their parents knew one of them was not guilty. Neither would ever betray the other. It has never changed.”

Sarah smiled sadly. “And so he had to resort to violence against a man he supposedly loves like a brother? Here is what I believe. You touched his heart, Elizabeth. And whether he is too loyal to those feelings to love another, or whether it was an impossible dream in the first place, I am unable to replace you in it.”

Her friends protested, but Sarah could still laugh at herself, interrupting their objections .

“Very well, you are correct. My little speech sounds plucked from a bad novel. There are much better volumes in the magnificent Matlock library, and I would be remiss if I wasted what little time remains of the party without exploring it. If you will excuse me?”

And that is that , she thought as she escaped at last, hoping she had finished with the subject of Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam forever.