Page 6 of Gentlemen of Honor (Bennet Gang Duology #2)
Taking in the Sights
Elizabeth shifted in her chair in the Gardiners’ parlor, unable to get comfortable enough to read. She longed to be lost in the pages of Henry IV . Usually, she was drawn into the battles, imagining every lunge, every riposte. Today, the words fell flat, instead conjuring recollections of her bout with Mr. Darcy, and the shock on his face when she’d disarmed him.
That memory would make her smile, except that she’d raced off, leaving him in the clearing with Jane’s Bakers and Matthew’s spyglass.
She grimaced. The rifles hadn’t worried her, being spent, though Jane would have been dismayed to lose them if Mr. Darcy had commandeered the weapons. And the spyglass? She hadn’t given it a thought. Why would Mr. Darcy take their spyglass? Elizabeth had forgotten that he’d seen Matthew with it once, and hadn’t considered the carefully engraved oak tree with the stylized O.
Yet, he’d had the spyglass for weeks without repercussion. It was in his possession when he asked to court her. Had he been playing some elaborate game designed to hurt her, or had he not made the connection until after extending the offer?
Regardless, it was rotten of him to storm off to London. Childish, even. When she found a way to see him, she would tell him so.
“Is Shakespeare upsetting you, or will we finally come to your reason for requesting to visit?” Aunt Gardiner asked from where she sat on a nearby sofa, her seemingly endless sewing in hand. Even with the help of the children’s nanny, four little ones made for copious amounts of alterations and mending. Elizabeth had offered to assist, and volunteered the help of Lucy, the maid who’d accompanied her from Dovemark. This morning, however, Elizabeth was too agitated to sew. Or, apparently, to read.
With a clunk, she closed Henry IV . “You are ever astute, Aunt.”
“Will you tell me what is troubling you? Your uncle and I have our suspicions, but I prefer truth over speculation. ”
Despite her somewhat dour mood, that piqued Elizabeth’s interest. “What speculations have you formed?”
“Based on the letters I’ve received from you and your sisters and, I admit, gentle inquiries of the maid who accompanied you here, I suspect that either you are feeling left out, as Jane and Mary are both betrothed, or you, too, have found an object of affection but the gentleman has thus far been too obtuse to see the treasure he ought to claim.”
Elizabeth’s attempt to smile felt sad. “You are near the mark, I must admit. I am feeling left out, but only because this mysterious gentleman to whom you allude asked to court me, and then disappeared to London without a word. Had he not, I would be with my sisters enjoying my courtship as much as they are theirs, and begrudging them nothing.” Not that she begrudged them anything now. Simply envied them.
Aunt Gardiner frowned. “He asked to court you and then he left?”
Elizabeth could only nod.
“And you have cause to believe that he will not return?”
“I do.” Elizabeth sought about for words. How to explain to her aunt that Mr. Darcy had learned something about her that made him leave, yet not reveal what that something was? “He asked to court me and then came to possess certain information…” She trailed off, realizing that would only lead to more questions. “He uncovered a secret, and it is one about which I may not speak. It is not mine alone. I am sorry, but I truly cannot tell you more than that, except that upon learning what he did, he quit Netherfield Park and returned to London without a word.”
“And this secret is about your family?” Aunt Gardiner asked carefully.
Elizabeth supposed it was. At least, some of her family. She nodded.
Aunt Gardiner pursed her lips. She drew in a deep breath, let it out, took a quick look about the parlor, which held only the two of them that morning, and said quietly, “I know about the earl.”
Elizabeth gaped at her. “You know?”
“Your Uncle Phillips told Mr. Gardiner years ago, shortly after General Oakwood died,” Aunt Gardiner elaborated. “They consult about how best to keep Thomas and Matthew a secret. Where to invest your dowries. Many things. Do not judge your Uncle Phillips too harshly. Watching over you girls and your mother and brothers is a weighty responsibility for one man to bear alone, and your Uncle Gardiner and I have never told a soul.”
“I see.” Elizabeth’s mind whirled.
“I will forgo pressing you on how you learned the truth,” Aunt Gardiner continued. “I am certain, for all her gregariousness, that your mother did not tell you, and so must assume you were snooping. That is not a pleasant habit, Elizabeth.”
She dropped her gaze to her twined fingers, resting in her lap. “No, Aunt, it is not.”
“Very well. So long as you are aware of that.”
Feeling the weight of her aunt’s gaze, Elizabeth looked up. “I am.”
Aunt Gardiner nodded once, crisply. “Now, may I assume it is about your Mr. Darcy that we speak? I have heard him mentioned often in your and your sisters’ letters.”
“It is, but he is not my Mr. Darcy.” Or he wouldn’t have run off to London.
Ignoring the emphasis Elizabeth placed on ‘my,’ Aunt Gardiner continued, “I assume he and his relations do not wish to be tied to The Earl of Pillory? With that family’s reputation, I cannot say I blame him. In truth, it speaks well of Mr. Darcy in a way. Many people would seek any connection to an earl, no matter that he is widely suspected to have murdered all four of his older brothers and his first wife, for failing to give him sons.”
“I thought it was Papa Arthur’s brothers who were murdered by their kin,” Elizabeth blurted, shocked.
“Oh, undoubtedly. Both of the general’s older brothers died mysteriously. The eldest when the two were out riding together, I believe. I forget what happened to the other, but it was likewise an accident with but one witness, a cousin who was next in line for the title.”
Elizabeth scrubbed her hands over her face. Did Mr. Darcy know about Papa Arthur’s family? Would that, indeed, be another obstacle between them? One Elizabeth couldn’t promise away?
“Still, if the gentleman asked to court you, he owes you an explanation at least,” Aunt Gardiner continued. “But hopefully he fled in so cowardly a manner because he knew that if he faced you, he would be unable to bring himself to depart.”
“Mr. Darcy is not cowardly,” Elizabeth protested, stung on his behalf. He’d faced down her and Jane, even though the latter had two loaded rifles at hand.
Her aunt gave her a knowing smile and Elizabeth suspected Mrs. Gardiner had hoped to spur Elizabeth into defending the gentleman. “It is good to see that you hold him in affection still,” Aunt Gardiner said, confirming Elizabeth’s suspicion. “Now, how are we going to orchestrate a meeting? We do not move in the same circles as Mr. Darcy.”
They spent the remainder of the morning going through her aunt’s connections, but the best hope they found was that Aunt Gardiner believed she frequented one of the same milliners as Miss Darcy. Elizabeth did not care for the idea of employing the young woman thusly, even assuming they could talk or bribe the milliner into orchestrating such a meeting. It seemed wrong to approach Mr. Darcy’s sister without his consent, and to befriend her simply to reach him. Elizabeth had no direct knowledge of such, but she suspected Miss Darcy must have been thus exploited before, and that to do so would cause irreparable harm to any future friendship they might form.
Their strategizing halted when the time came for luncheon and Elizabeth’s young cousins joined them, freed from their nursery and lessons for the meal. Elizabeth then accompanied them, her aunt, and their nanny to the park. Elizabeth cheerfully played her cousins’ invented games and tossed stale bread to ducks, but she could not help looking about frequently, hoping against hope that Mr. Darcy would appear.
That evening, after the children went to bed, Aunt Gardiner raised the question of encountering Mr. Darcy with Elizabeth’s uncle. Fortunately, Elizabeth’s aunt also recounted the revelations of the morning, permitting Aunt Gardiner to remain under the misapprehension that Mr. Darcy’s abrupt departure had to do with his discovery of General Oakwood’s identity and to pass along that misconception. Elizabeth knew that a lie by omission was every bit as bad as one told outright but, somehow, it made her feel better that she wasn’t the one misleading her uncle.
Uncle Gardiner sat back in his armchair, regarding Elizabeth over the spectacles he’d donned to read the journal that lay open in his lap. He read a great many travel journals, preferring firsthand accounts of the far-off lands where he did business.
“You are certain you want a gentleman who behaved so badly, Elizabeth?” Uncle Gardiner asked when his wife finished her tale.
In truth, she’d simply meant to acquaint Mr. Darcy with her anger, but the more her temper cooled with time, the more she hoped that they could come to an understanding. It was not as if she would be a Boney Bandit any longer, after all. Not with Jane and Mary both to be married by spring. “As angry as his defection makes me, I do,” she admitted.
Uncle Gardiner nodded. “Well, then, I believe the simplest place to start is to send one of our footmen over to his residence with a few coins, and instruct him to discover Mr. Darcy’s habits, so that you may happen upon him somewhere.”
“You mean, bribe his staff?” Elizabeth asked. That seemed the sort of behavior that would displease Mr. Darcy. “He is very upright. He would not approve. ”
“Could you not simply request to meet the gentleman?” Aunt Gardiner asked.
Uncle Gardiner shook his head. “We have no acquaintances in common.”
“Then apply to his man of business,” Aunt Gardiner suggested.
“And say what? That I wish to bring my niece to speak with him?”
Uncle Gardiner’s tone held incredulousness, but Aunt Gardiner pursed her lips, thinking. She turned to Elizabeth. “Do you believe that mentioning your name would bring Mr. Darcy to a meeting?”
In a way, she did. He would be, she suspected, rather surprised to discover she was in London, and could not help but be curious. Still, he had left without a word on purpose, which suggested he did not want to see her. “I do not believe we can count on that.”
“You must come up with a different reason, then,” Aunt Gardiner said to her husband.
“Or we return to my plan of learning where he resides and bribing his staff,” Uncle Gardiner countered. “It will be far easier to learn his residence than who his man of business is.”
They debated this for some time, both coming up with various suggestions for what pretense Uncle Gardiner could use to seek an audience with Mr. Darcy. Elizabeth did not care for any of it. Not the notion of bribing his staff. Not tricking him into a meeting with her uncle so that she could speak with him. It all seemed underhanded. Would such methods not bolster whatever opinion he had formed of her when he realized she was Azile?
When she finally sought her bed, after declining every one of her aunt and uncle’s suggestions, Elizabeth felt no nearer to meeting Mr. Darcy than she had that morning. More than that, her mind roiled with her aunt’s revelation about the current Earl of Pillory. Thomas and Matthew’s grandfather.
Had the Hargreaves arrived? Were they as terrible as she, Jane, and Mary feared? Would they truly attempt to harm Thomas and Matthew? To torment, injure, or do worse, to a pair of boys they didn’t know and who had no intentions of claiming their grandfather’s title?
Of course they had no designs on the title, because they didn’t know about it. Would Thomas wish to be heir to an earl if given the opportunity? Even with all the despicable family members and the terrible history of villainy that came with the position? Did he and Matthew not have the right to know the truth of their origins?
She should leave London, abandon this ridiculous quest to speak to a gentleman who obviously did not wish to see her again, and return to Dovemark to protect her brothers. They might need her, and Mr. Darcy obviously did not want her.
Yet the thought of never seeing him again settled like a jagged stone in her gut.
Elizabeth’s mind swirled endlessly, unable to settle into sleep. She had no rest that night. Nor did she find any answers.