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DISCOVERY/PLANS FOR THE FUTURE…

T he wedding went without a problem. The new Colonel and Mrs Fitzwilliam happily left the church ahead of the new Mr and Mrs Bennet. Congratulations were given and received and the couples made their way back to Netherfield where they would change and relax for an hour or two before making their way to the assembly rooms in Meryton. Lady Matlock had hired out the assembly rooms for both the wedding breakfast and the ball that would be held later in the evening. Fitzwilliam and Mark could not have looked prouder of their wives. However, on their return to Netherfield, Elizabeth took her aunt’s advice and excused herself and Darcy from the rest of the festivities as Darcy’s injury was giving him severe pain.

Sir Lewis de Bourgh, Mr Darcy senior, Mr Wickham senior, and Mr Bingley senior decided to stay back at Netherfield with the Darcys and waited until the rest of the extended family had left for the afternoon’s festivities. “We knew that Mr Bennet shot you,” Mr Darcy senior began once the last of the family left.

Darcy lay on his back with his knees up and his head in his wife’s lap. “How could you know that?”

Mr Darcy senior explained, “Because we had been in the area for over a year trying to find the answer about how to stop Mr Bennet. However, before we get to that part of the story, you ought to know the whole of it. As you know, your uncle is an advisor to the King and the Prince Regent during the King’s illness. When Lewis’s daughter was first targeted by Mr and Mrs Younge, Lewis gained an audience with the Prince Regent. He explained what he knew and he explained how we were attempting to save the young girls. It was Wickham and I who faked our deaths first, under orders from the Prince Regent. Mr Bingley became involved next and lastly, Lewis himself had to do so. We had to take on new identities to get to the heart of the organisation and do things that we found distasteful and sickening. As wealthy gentlemen, we could not be trusted. We were the enemy. Mrs Younge and her husband were landed gentry themselves who had fallen on hard times. Well, that was their claim. They were and are nasty pieces of work. Mr Younge did die two years ago. Mrs Younge is not the penniless widow she portrays when she goes off to act as a governess and companion to their target young ladies. She is a manipulative and evil woman. I take it you have met Rosie and Daisy at Rosings?”

“We have,” Elizabeth answered tersely.

“Good. Rosie got off lightly. I have seen girls mutilated in horrible ways. Anyway, you know what Mrs Younge’s business is and her business practices so I will not bore you with those details. For years, we knew that she would exchange letters with a man she called Cousin Tea. They regularly exchanged letters. We knew that Cousin Tea was in the Hertfordshire area because the letters were always sent to Hertfordshire post offices, but not only the Meryton post office. For us to effectively rescue these girls and to gain the evidence, we became ordinary labourers who would accept a job in each of the brothels to buy ourselves bread and a meal. We changed just enough that the Younges did not recognise us. Slowly we gained trust. We pretended we could not read or write and would manage that way to get hold of documents and smuggle important information to the Crown and build a dossier for arrest and prosecution of those involved. Before faking his death, Lewis made Catherine promise that she would keep the business of rescuing the girls overtly open in his memory. This she did. We managed to insinuate ourselves into trusted positions and pretended to be taught to read and write.

“Now we began smuggling new pieces of information out. One day, Mrs Younge was lounging in the room next door and did not know I was listening when she began telling her lover about the cousin she had in Hertfordshire and how she had enjoyed many walks in the woods about Longbourn when her parents would visit. She also told about how she knew that Mr Bennet had fathered Mr Collins by his cousin. She laughed at how Mrs Bennet was an ignorant and insipid woman and that Mr Bennet had promised that all five of his daughters would be fodder for the family business, as they called her enterprises. They had not anticipated that you would marry Elizabeth or that your friends and you would shelter the other girls. Nor did they know that one girl was not a girl! Panic set in amongst them when they realised that they had failed to get Georgiana and that you and Elizabeth are far more honourable than they could even comprehend. Mrs Younge stepped up her manipulation of your sister. I had to sit back and let my daughter suffer. It is the hardest thing in my life I have ever had to do. Yet, if I had intervened at that point, we would never have caught them. Georgiana ran away from Rosings a month ago. Mrs Younge’s right-hand man met her in Hunsford. He is a cruel man who has brutalised more young women than anyone else I know. We had a plan in place and three of our men kept an eye on Georgie at all times. It was not enough. They stayed at three inns along the way, the man saying Georgie was his daughter. He even went so far as to sleep in the same room as her. They were going down to Devon. There were three houses in Devon which were all openly brothels. We gave the information to the local sheriffs and we organised that on the same day, each sheriff in the different counties would raid all the brothels. It worked. Except for one thing. The man slipped off with Georgiana and met up with Mrs Younge. We do not know what happened in the two weeks that followed. However, three nights ago we made the move to arrest Mr Bennet, Mrs Younge, and the ruffian, as well as their accomplices. Georgiana is now back at Rosings under the care of Mrs Annesley. I will have the companion bring Georgiana to you. Treat her well. She has been through an ordeal and will never be the same again,” Mr Darcy senior explained.

Darcy looked at his father with an odd look on his face. “Do I need to go about transferring Pemberley back to you?”

“No, you cannot do that. The condition was that we would never resume our true identities. We are forever shadows of our former selves,” Mr Darcy told them.

Reaching up for Elizabeth’s hand, Darcy frowned. “So what do we call you? And how do you re-enter our lives?”

“We will give you our new identities later. You can employ us as members of your staff. It is a good way for us to remain in obscurity,” Mr Darcy senior suggested.

Darcy shook his head. “I cannot treat my father as a servant.”

“Yes, you can. Employ us in the stables and nobody needs to know anything. Mrs Reynolds will never tell on us and I’m sure the rest of our staff is just as loyal,” Mr Darcy senior instructed.

“Yes, they are. Very well. I have another task for you. Footmen whose sole task is to shadow Elizabeth and keep her safe. That way you are close enough that you will meet your grandchild without suspicion.” Darcy grinned.

“Very good idea,” Sir Lewis agreed. “Although I think I might propose to my wife a second time and make up for lost time! Look out for a wedding invitation. We can live quite comfortably in the dowager cottage of Rosings on her dowry. Anne has already come into her inheritance.”

Darcy gave his uncle a lightly cheeky look. “How about you are installed as the steward of Rosings? Anne is not yet married, so Fitzwilliam and I still have oversight of the property. A good steward is hard to find because Lady Catherine’s character is very difficult to say no to.”

“I could do that,” Sir Lewis chuckled. “Although Catherine might kill me for making her a steward’s wife.”

“She might just be happy you are home,” Elizabeth observed.

“I hope so,” Sir Lewis answered.