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“You did nothing? Oh, my nerves, where is my papa? You have ruined me! What am I to do?” Fanny Gardiner started crying; one of her so-called talents was her ability to cry on demand.

“ What have you done to my daughter ?” Elias Gardiner yelled when he saw the man standing in front of his clearly distraught daughter, crying, and exposed for all to see.

Every person at the assembly was watching the performance.

Few doubted the truth of what happened, even if her indulgent father was too blind to see what his daughter was.

Or, pretended well enough people wondered if he realised it.

“As I was telling the young lady, Sir, I saw her start to fall, and I tried to be of assistance…” Thomas stated as calmly as his frustration allowed.

“Be of assistance?” Fanny sobbed, acting the height of desperate and wronged. “You compromised me! You ripped my dress and exposed me before all of Meryton!” She wailed loudly as she looked at her father with big tear-filled eyes. “I am ruined, Papa. What will happen to me now?”

“This man will marry you, darling, or I will call him out!” Her irate father announced, even though he had no knowledge of either fencing or pistol shooting.

“Papa,” Hattie Phillips said quietly, “I saw it all. The gentleman did nothing other than try and save my sister who tripped over her own feet. He never touched her gown so I cannot imagine,” she said with an accusatory look at her sister, “how the dress was rent as it is now.”

“Oh, hush Hattie.” Fanny hissed.

“Go to your husband and keep out of men’s business.

” Gardiner knew then that his older daughter spoke the truth, but if he could make this man take his unruly and unkind daughter off his hands, his life would be much more pleasant.

He had struggled to deal with his youngest since his wife had passed four years previously, so this was ideal for him.

Hattie Phillips was used to being dismissed by her father, so she turned and went to her husband.

“I am a gentleman of honour, Mr.?” Bennet did not know the father or the daughter’s name beyond the ‘Fanny’ that he had heard called across the room.

“Gardiner, Mr. Elias Gardiner, solicitor.” Gardiner said, puffing up with self-importance.

“I am staying at Longbourn. Can I expect you and Miss Gardiner at ten on the morrow?” Bennet asked as the reality of his fate sunk in. He had been trapped by what he was sure was a fortune hunter.

As soon as Mr. Gardiner nodded, Lord Thomas Bennet turned on his heel and made for his carriage.

By the time his conveyance started to move, his thoughts started to circle around in his mind.

‘ How many times has Sed told me to never go into a place like this without my guards, and what do I always do?

′ Bennet berated himself. ‘ I tell him he worries too much. Look at where I am now! Oh God, what have I done for You to punish me so? And my Sarah! This will break not only my heart but hers as well. ’ As the full realisation of the love that he was about to lose hit him, Thomas Bennet started to cry, his tension releasing with deep wracking sobs of despair.

As soon as he was relieved of his outerwear by a butler, surprised that his Lordship had returned so soon, Bennet ensconced himself in the study with a bottle of his best port.

His first task was to send an express to Sed and Rose at Birchington House on Russel Square in London.

Lord Sedgwick Bennet had recently married the delectable and very pleasant Miss Rosamond Davies.

It was a love match, and he liked his sister-in-law very well, her wit and thoughtfulness were well beyond her twenty years of age.

Unlike many in the Ton, Lord Thomas did not question Sed’s choice of an untitled daughter of an insignificant baronet with only ten thousand as a dowry for an instant.

He liked the unassuming, strong woman, the instant his brother introduced her when they were courting.

When they married and she became the Marchioness of Birchington she did not change who she was and never took on the airs and graces of many in the Ton.

5 August 1786

Longbourn, Herefordshire

My Dear Brother and Sister,

Sed, the worst has happened. You have warned me so many times that I should protect myself, and tonight at the assembly in Meryton, I was compromised by the worst kind of woman.

She is pretty, but that is all she is. Her character, from the few minutes I was forced to be in proximity with her, was spiteful and dismissive of her sister while whinging to her father.

To call her silly and stupid would be an insult to all silly and stupid people!

Should have, would have, could have will not change the fact that as a gentleman of honour, I must marry this… harridan!

My heart is broken, not only for myself but for Sarah, and yet I must deliver the news to her.

The doxy and her father, a solicitor with not much more character than the daughter, will be here at ten in the morning.

Once the unpleasant business is settled, I will be for town.

I will have to see Sir Randolph to draft an airtight settlement.

I will not settle more than five thousand pounds on this woman that entrapped me.

I do not say this lightly, but I hate the woman, and I have never hated anyone in my life before. Please do not say anything to Father. Once I have been to see Lord Jersey and spoken to him and Sarah, I will come to you, and we can go to Father at Bedford House together.

I love you both and will see you on the morrow.

Thomas

As soon as he sealed the missive, he had his personal courier hie to Birchington House in Town directly.

The following day, a few minutes before ten the knocker was heard on Longbourn’s door.

Miss Gardiner, looking like the cat that caught the canary, was eyeing the estate and the house with avarice.

‘ What pin money, what jewels I will have, and oh the carriages that I will have. I will be the envy of all of Hertfordshire,’ she told herself as her father and she were shown into Mr. Bennet’s study.

“Good morning Mr. Bennet, how are you on this fine day?” Gardiner offered with exaggerated pleasantness. Bennet was already disgusted with the Gardiners, and he had no intention of revealing his true title and connections to these swine.

“Mr. Gardiner, please let us dispense with the pleasantries. I believe that you know your daughter entrapped me.” Both father and daughter made to refute the claim, but he did not allow them to talk.

“I should leave her ruined at her own hand and take the duel, which I believe will be preferable to being married to one such as she.” Both father and daughter blanched at this statement, each one for different reasons.

“Unfortunately, however, unlike some in this room, I am a gentleman, and one of honour. As such, I will return from town five days hence with a special licence and the settlement. As soon as you sign the settlement we will marry. If you refuse to sign it, then we will part and go our separate ways.” Lord Thomas saw that Gardiner was about to interject but concluded the meeting.

“This is not a negotiation, this is a take or leave it situation. Either you sign and I marry that,” Bennet spat out with disgust, “or not, and our business is concluded.”

Gardiner was a fairly shrewd solicitor, so he knew when not to speak. ‘ I will sign no matter what, as I will get Fanny out of my house .’ he thought.

“Will you not propose to me?” The child batted her eyelashes at him.

“No, I will not! Now leave!” Bennet pulled the bell and Mr. Hill appeared with two large footmen to show the Gardiners out.

As Fanny Bennet left, she passively considered that she may have miscalculated.

The man had called her ‘that’ and seemed to hate her.

How could he hate one so beautiful as her?

Surely, she was not so pretty without the expectation of marrying a wealthy man such as he.

With the reminder that he was rich, she again thought about the pin money and jewels and was instantly happy again.

Bennet was on the road to London within the hour after the objectionable people departed.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

A very dejected Bennet knocked on the door at Birchington House and was welcomed in with a bow by the long-time butler, Mr. Sam Hodges.

He was directed to his brother and sister’s private sitting room.

When he walked in expecting censure, he saw only sympathy and for the second time in four and twenty hours, Thomas Bennet, Marquess of Netherfield, wept like a baby.

Once he had calmed himself and taken a sip of port, he related his heart-breaking visit to Jersey House on Portman Square.

He had told Lord Jersey everything that had transpired about the entrapment, all of it.

The Earl had recommended that he pay them off, but as much as he had wanted to, his honour was engaged.

After they had spoken, Lord Jersey had summoned Lady Sarah to his study.

She had entered and was instantly full of joy when she saw Lord Thomas was with her father, thinking he was there to declare himself.

Her joy was soon turned to anguish, and her anguish to tears.

It took a long time for her to calm, but when she did, the look of resolve on her countenance was one neither man in the study had ever seen before.

Thomas then related her words, the only words he had heard in the last four and twenty hours that had offered him the thinnest sliver of hope.

“I cannot believe that God Almighty is such a cruel being, Lord Thomas. You are the only man that I love, the only one that I will love, and I know, as surely as I am sitting here now, that one day, be it sooner or later, we WILL be together. I just know it!”