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Now Lady Catherine was truly fearful. None of the options were palatable, but at least two of them would not stretch her neck.

“Where is Anne?” Richard demanded.

When no answer was forthcoming from his sister, the Earl sent his son to ask the butler. He returned soon enough.

“Aunt Catty keeps Anne locked in her suite; she claims it is for her health. I think it has more to do with the fact Annie is getting closer to the age when Rosings Park is her property,” Richard opined.

“You two go and free my niece from her prison,” Matlock ordered his son and nephew. He rounded on his sister. “I never thought you were so very depraved as this!”

Lady Catherine sank back into her chair.

No, this was not occurring according to her will.

She did not miss the anger and disgust directed at her, and now had a very real fear she would hang.

Suddenly, like a millstone falling on her head, she felt her age and realised that she did not possess the power she had always thought.

“Anne was enjoying the sun in the gardens,” Richard revealed. Anne was between him and William as they sauntered into the drawing room.

Seeing the quizzical looks from her uncles, Anne smiled.

“Jenki, that is Mrs Jenkinson, along with several servants, makes sure I am freed from the prison in which Mother places me. It allows me to get exercise and enjoy myself when I please. As she cannot conceive of her orders not being followed to the letter, Mother has never taken the time to verify my whereabouts,” Anne explained.

“I should have sacked that companion years ago,” Lady Catherine mumbled.

“You look much healthier than the last time we saw you,” Richard noted. “Certainly, you are not the sickly woman you are made out to be when it used to suit your mother. Unless she was trying to convince everyone William should marry you, then you were presented as the healthiest person alive.”

“I am not nearly as healthy as most, and as such I will never marry because, as my mother is well aware, there is little or no chance I will survive birthing a child.” Anne turned towards her taller cousin.

“Nothing against you, William, but I would not have agreed to marry any man, regardless of what she,” she cocked her head towards her mother, “demanded.”

“No offence taken,” William replied. “Even without your indifferent health, I knew we would not suit. We are too similar in disposition; we are both rather stoic. We would have gone days without a word between us, and besides, I do not love you in that way.”

“It is good we are here, Anne,” Matlock stated after he kissed his niece’s forehead.

“I am very sorry we did not come sooner. The reason we arrived…” He told Anne about her mother’s behaviour in London and the state of de Bourgh House and why it was in that state.

“I am sorry we did not know my sister was attempting to mistreat you. Why did you not write? We would have come and removed you from your mother’s, so-called, care. ”

“She has a few loyal bootlickers who hand her all the outgoing post, as well as the incoming if it is addressed to anyone but herself. We tried to take a letter to Hunsford once or twice, but her lackeys put paid to that,” Anne revealed.

If the looks aimed at her had been bad before, now, they were many times worse thanks to her traitorous daughter.

Lady Catherine sat stewing, impotent to do anything.

Her future was in the hands of those in the room, and if she were honest with herself, she would admit there was no reason to show her mercy.

Matlock laid out the options for Anne to consider with respect to dealing with her mother. “What you think is right, will be what we do,” he told his niece.

“Anne, do not forget I am your mother…” Lady Catherine tried to say.

“Do not dare try to manipulate me in that fashion,” Anne demanded.

“You are my mother in name only! All I was to you was a way for you to gain that which was not yours. You speak of others as fortune hunters, yet you are the worst of them all. I have never heard of another who tried to imprison someone to steal their property.” She turned to her uncles.

“I think banishment is best, but as far from here as possible and with no money to cause mischief or servants to do her bidding.”

“In that case, I think we should banish her to a cottage on Yell in the Shetland Islands,” Matlock suggested.

“An appropriate name of the Island for Catherine to live. She will have a five pound per quarter allowance, so no money for mischief.” He turned and faced his sister, whose mouth was hanging open as her future was unfolded.

“Your jointure, all de Bourgh, and any other jewellery you have will be taken to help pay your debts, which will include the redoing of de Bourgh House from the ground up. We will make sure you have nothing hidden before you leave. I will be applying to Their Majesties to have your courtesy title stripped, something which will not be denied. You will be supplied with appropriate clothing before you depart.”

As she heard what her future would entail, Lady Catherine, soon to be Mrs de Bourgh, considered that being hanged may have been better than this. She was to be a peasant!

By the next day, the handful of servants and staff who had blindly followed Lady Catherine had been dismissed.

During the month before Mrs de Bourgh left England’s shores—her brother’s application for her courtesy title to be stripped was granted without delay—Anne de Bourgh, with her uncles’ approval, made Richard the new owner of the estate, house in Town, and the de Bourgh fortune.

She only retained her dowry of five and twenty thousand pounds and lifetime rights to reside at Rosings Park.

Hence, before the former mistress of the estate sailed for her new, very modest home, and much to the delight of all of those who loved him, Richard resigned from the army and sold his commission.

William temporarily moved to Kent to help his cousin come to grips with the management of his estate.