Page 20

T he Earldom of Wrexham was one of the oldest noble titles in the country. It was said to have been given to Perseus Braxton in 1264 by King Henry III himself. Since its creation, the title has only ever been held by the same family. They were well-respected, wealthy, and one of the only families who could, and did, maintain their place in the first circles despite often renouncing tradition to paving their own way.

The Braxtons were the first family to openly make investments while it was still considered taboo for aristocrats to dirty their hands with matters of money. They were one of the firsts to educate their daughters by sending them to schools and seminaries, and were often responsible for changing fashion and culinary trends in society.

All in all, they were a fine family to marry into… if only one was not related to the Fitzwilliams.

Darcy groaned aloud, finally understanding why Elizabeth had been so apprehensive about him meeting her family. He, in all his grandiose pretensions, had thought that it was her family she was concerned about. Now, he realised it was the other day around.

It was him. Fitzwilliam Darcy, and his maternal family, were the issue.

Richard slapped his back in commiseration, “I do not know how you did it, Darcy, but you have managed to find the one woman in England whose family will not be happy to have you. I do not know if I ought to congratulate you or pity you.”

Pity me. Darcy wanted to say, but he had too much pride to utter the words. Instead, he sucked in a breath, and straightened his shoulders,

“Nonsense!” He tried to inject more conviction in his tone, “Whatever happened between Lord Braxton and Lady Catherine was more than fifty years ago! Besides, I am not even a Fitzwilliam! Their tumultuous history has nothing to do with either me or Elizabeth!”

Richard’s silent gaze was dripping with sympathy. He was looking at him very much like he was regarding a man on death row,

“Darce… you know it is a little bit more complicated than that.”

Darcy did know. All of the Fitzwilliam, and consequently, Darcy and de Brough children had heard the tale at least at least once in their lifetimes. Lady Catherine de Brough, before she became de Brough, had been briefly engaged to Lord Victor Braxton of Wrexham. She had been sixteen or so to his three and twenty. The particulars that led to the breaking off of their engagement were unknown to most of the family. In fact, Darcy did not think anybody living except Lady Catherine and Lord Fitzwilliam knew all the facts. But it was said that Lady Catherine had, in her usual brash and interfering manner, unforgivably offended her fiancé. That alone would have been enough to drive a wedge between the two families, but to make matters even worse, not two months after his betrothal was abrogated, Lord Braxton eloped to Scotland with his current wife, Lady Roseline Braxton, who, at the time, had only been a minor gentleman’s penniless daughter.

The scandal had been massive, and in the enormity of it all, most of the society had conveniently chosen to forget the fact that the engagement between Lady Catherine and Lord Braxton had been rescinded before he ran off with another woman. It had been much more entertaining to label Lady Catherine as a woman jilted, further polluting the bad blood between the two families.

(Lady Catherine liked to tell whoever would listen that it was this smearing of her name that had led to her being unable to find a husband until she was well into her thirties. Darcy was more inclined to believe it was her over-dominant personality and her tendency to disregard propriety whenever it suited her that made her an ineligible prospect in the eyes of many).

Because of family loyalty, and so as to avoid Lady Catherine’s loud and incessant tantrums, Darcy had always kept a distance from the Braxtons, despite considering them to be sensible and quality people. He had never before cared for the feud that was shared by the two families, and was even less enthusiastic about it now. Darcy did not know Lord Braxton well, but he could only hope that the man was more sensible than his aunt. If the two former betroths were equally absurd and obstinate, the interview he was about to walk into was bound to be a long and tedious one.

Darcy turned to his cousin one last time,

“Wish me luck, my friend.”

Richard nodded seriously, as if he were sending a cadet into battle, “Godspeed, Darcy.”

Darcy grimaced, Godspeed, indeed.

Elizabeth had spent the day following her grandfather wherever he went, promoting her cause as best she could.

“He is a very intelligent, very principled man.” She had said to her grandpapa as she had accompanied him on his walk around the back garden. Lord Braxton had only pretended not to hear, causing Elizabeth to sigh at his stubbornness.

“He is also very tall, very handsome.” She tried next as she joined him a little while later to water and prune the plants in the greenhouse, a hobby he had taken up after her uncle Arnold had started taking over the majority of the duties in managing their family estate in Wrexham, significantly lessening his father’s load. She had noticed over the years that her grandfather seemed to have a certain partiality towards pretty faces. It did not matter if the other person was an acquaintance, or a friend, or even just an employee. Lord Braxton tended to like people who possessed pleasing facial symmetry and proportions better than people who did not. This little titbit did make him pause for a moment, but in the end, the older man only huffed, and turned away.

Now, it was almost noon, and he was sitting in the library, a book open on his lap. Elizabeth sat at his knee, her chin resting on the arm-rest of his Chesterfield chair as she looked up at him with her best attempt at a beseeching gaze,

“I really do love him,” She whispered, hoping to implore him by sharing her heart with him, “He is too serious at times, and often makes me want to hit him over his head for his arrogance, but no one has ever cared for me like he does. No one has ever looked at me the way he does.”

Her grandfather sighed, then closed the book on his lap and turned to look at her,

“His family is abysmal.” He said shortly.

Elizabeth gave him a bright smile, “I do not care.”

“He has an absolute harpy for an aunt and a spineless coward for an uncle. Just the thought of you having to tolerate them for the rest of your life pains me, Lizzy.”

“If we are considering aunts and uncles, we cannot really leave my relatives out of the equation, can we? Just the fact that Darcy proposed despite having encountered the Bennets at their pinnacle of ridiculousness in Hertfordshire can be considered a small miracle, do you not think so?”

Lord Braxton scoffed, “Lizzy, the man would be as dumb as a post to not fall in love with you and propose, as would any other gentleman in the country. You are smart, funny, beautiful, and more than anything, as charming as a young lady can be.”

Lizzy shook her head, but smiled affectionately at him, “You are biased because you are my grandpapa, and I love you for it. But the matter remains that Darcy has seen the worst of my family and has still decided to marry me. I beg you to not consider an aunt who lives primarily in Kent and an uncle whom we might only have to encounter a couple of times a year, enough of a deterrent to turn you away from him.”

Lord Braxton sighed, “Lizzy-”

“At least meet with him!” Elizabeth interrupted, not wanting to listen to him protest against it again, “Let him convince you if I cannot. I am certain you will like him very well once you meet with him and try to get to know him.”

Lord Braxton pressed his lips together, wanting to argue but unable to when his granddaughter was pleading with him so earnestly. Her eyes were sparkling like a night sky filled with stars as she looked up at him, her lip jutted out in a persuasive pout reminiscent of how she tried to cajole extra candies out of him when she was all but six years old. Lord Braxton looked up at the ceiling, knowing this had not been a fair fight from the beginning,

“Very well, I shall meet with him.”

She gasped, she giggled, she surged up to press a kiss against his cheek and then wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug, “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She whispered frantically, before pulling away just as abruptly and running out of the room, “I shall see you presently, Grandpapa. I need to talk to Grandmama about tea for the occasion!”

Darcy fidgeted with the cuffs of his sleeve as he walked into the Braxton house. The butler walking ahead of him was a stout man in his early sixties with clear blue eyes and an inscrutable face. Darcy thought he might have seen the man give him a discreet onceover, but no well-trained staff would behave so in the presence of their master’s guest. The man directed him to an empty parlour decorated in lavender paper hangings and silver-gilt furniture. Darcy was too nervous to take a seat, and found himself walking towards the small collection of impossible bottles that were arranged tastefully on the mantel over the fireplace. There were almost half a dozen of them, each featuring a miniature, intricate ship of different make and model.

One of the bottles caught his attention, and Darcy stooped to get a closer look. He recognized the model, having gone to the Devonport Dockyard with Richard to see the original a few years ago when it had arrived back in England after the Battle of Trafalgar.

The HMS Victory.

It was an impressively accurate rendition of the battleship and once he had recognized one, Darcy found himself observing the others even more closely, hoping to see if he remembered any other ones,

“Are you interested in warships?” A deep voice interrupted Darcy’s study, surprising him enough that he jumped, turning around abruptly to see an older gentleman standing at the door of the parlour.

Lord Victor Braxton of Wrexham was an intimidating-looking gentleman. Darcy might have been both taller, and in stature, but Lord Braxton had a particular look in his eyes that reminded Darcy too much of one of his more daunting tutors at Eton. Darcy felt like a nine-year-old little boy under that stare.

It had been almost two decades or so years since anybody had looked at him in that manner.

Lord Braxton raised a brow in an action that was very similar to his granddaughter’s, though it lacked any of her charm and playfulness, “Well, are you?”

Darcy blinked, then recalled the question he had asked him initially,

“Oh! Yes, I suppose. My cousin and I used to follow the country’s maritime conflict quite religiously back when we were in university. We spent quite a few of our holidays going down to Portsmouth to visit the dockyards and hear the stories.”

Darcy did not know if his answer had been right or wrong. Trying to take the attention away from himself, he turned to the display on the mantle and cleared his throat,

“But these bottles are impressive. Where did you buy them?”

“I built them.”

Darcy blinked, turning to the older gentleman again. Did he detect offence in the tone of his voice when he responded, or was Darcy’s mind only playing tricks on him? He had never been good at talking to people. The small, miniscule social cues that seemed so apparent to everyone else had always eluded him. He cursed himself for never having practised before. For believing himself above having to impress anyone.

Ever since meeting Elizabeth, it seemed that his pride was always coming to bite him in the back.

Lord Braxton too, seemed to be silently observing him, his eyes scanning his face, moving down to his chest, then further down to his feet,

“My Lizzy was correct, I suppose. You are a handsome man.”

Darcy had no idea how he was supposed to respond. He would have thanked the man if the compliment had not sounded so reluctant. Darcy had a feeling Lord Braxton would have preferred it if Darcy had been ugly.

Darcy stayed silent, and for a moment, the two men just stared each other down. The silence was oppressive, and though in any other situation, he would have been unaffected, Darcy found it difficult to maintain his composure,

“It is very nice to meet you, Lord Braxton.” He started, ignoring etiquette by introducing himself to a person of obviously higher rank, “I am Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley.”

“ Fitzwilliam .” Lord Braxton’s lips turned down in revulsion, “It is a distasteful name.”

Darcy had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep his reaction in check. His jaw clenched, then unclenched. He thought of Elizabeth. Clever, charming, artless Elizabeth with her quick, pretty smiles and her soft, warm embraces. If, at the end of this interview, he got to marry the woman he loved, Darcy could let more than a few insults roll off his back.

“I hope you do not take offence, young man. ‘Tis was just a harmless little comment.”

“Of course.” If his voice was a little too low to be polite, neither of them mentioned it.

“Come. Sit, Mr. Darcy.” Lord Braxton motioned towards one of the settees, “Tell me more about the ships you saw at Portsmouth with your cousin. I would have liked to visit myself, of course, but at my age, even a journey to London is often too arduous.”

As much as the navy fascinated Darcy, He really did not want to talk about ships. He wanted to talk about his courtship with the man’s granddaughter, and then get his permission to wed her. Still, it did not seem like he had much of a choice.

Sighing internally, Darcy began to recount the very first trip to Devonport he had taken with Richard in his first year of university.