Page 25 of London Holiday (Sweet Escapes Collection #2)

Chapter twenty-five

“ M y Lady,” Collins bowed, sweating and panting. “I am come as you directed, My Lady, and I pray most earnestly that I may be of service. I am not too late?”

Lady Catherine ceased her pacing, just long enough to curl her lip faintly. “You are two hours early. I did not summon you to arrive until later in the evening.”

“Oh, My Lady, I must beseech you—”

She spun and marched to the window. “You may as well be of service while you are here. My daughter’s spirits are distressed, and I will have you read to her. Smith!” she summoned.

A maid appeared shortly and bobbed her curtsy. “Yes, My Lady?”

“Is Miss de Bourgh well enough to receive a caller?”

The maid bowed her head. “Miss de Bourgh is asleep, My Lady. I may rouse her if your ladyship desires.”

“No! Foolish girl, nothing but her wedding should rouse Miss de Bourgh. Never mind, Collins, I have no need of you at present.” With a flick of her hand, she dismissed both servant and toady and resumed her pacing.

“My Lady,” he protested, “may I not offer some comfort during this uncertain time?”

“Comfort! I want no comfort but my daughter’s security.”

“Indeed, My Lady, you are the most beneficent, wise, loving mother a young lady could desire. Would that all young ladies were so well guarded and provided for! Why, my own dear betrothed could not even claim the comfort of a proper governess, but her manifold charms and natural intellect will surely be found pleasing when tempered by your ladyship’s kind condescension.”

“No governess! Are there not five of them? A sordid lot they must be if all else you have told me of them is to be believed. Their father ought to be publicly disgraced, and their mother does not deserve any thought at all!”

He bowed. “Your ladyship honours me with her excellent memory! But I assure you, most wholeheartedly, that I have selected the noblest, the most intelligent among them, and her family’s gratitude for my forbearance regarding other matters—”

He was never able to complete his speech, for the butler appeared behind him and nearly startled him out of his wits. He jumped, his hands patting his own chest in consolation for the fright incurred upon him.

“Forgive me, My Lady,” the butler bowed, “but the gentleman has called again. He says his object is most urgent. Does your ladyship wish that he be sent away?”

“I have no cause to quail at his pleasure. Have him shown in, and my parson shall remain as a witness of his cruel intent.”

A moment later a short, sharp-looking man entered. He was balding slightly, but his frame was lithe and graceful. He cast a disdainful eye in Collins’ direction and addressed himself directly to the lady without preamble. “Have you considered my offer?”

“Consider! What is to consider? I am in no position to negotiate with a criminal.”

“I am hardly a criminal! I offer you a perfectly respectable solution to your difficulties, My Lady.”

“Respectable!” she snorted. “You ask for nothing less than nobility, and in exchange for what? A pretty song, a bit of tainted gold? You may as well ask for the crown jewels in exchange for a jig.”

His face heated. “I offer you an alternative to abject penury, My Lady. You shall not prevail against the gentleman you have selected; his obstinacy is well known by all. Think you that idle threats and deception will work upon a man such as Mr Darcy? If that were possible, why has it not already produced the desired marriage? You have had all day, and still, he eludes you.”

“Fitzwilliam Darcy will do his duty and redeem his cousin, have no doubts on that point,” she snapped. “I know his precise whereabouts and have already dispatched a carriage to retrieve him. Moreover, I have all the inducement I require to see that he performs as expected.”

The man shook his head. “Very well. You know where to reach me when your scheme fails, but I shall not wait upon you forever. My offer can only extend as far as your creditors will permit.”

“Mr Barrett!” she whirled on him, her tone scathing, “our conversation is finished! Your name is abhorrent to me, and your family’s connections so far beneath the de Bourgh heritage that your words are vile. Remove your disgraceful presence from this house at once!”

He frowned, cast one more look toward Collins, and departed without another word.

The lady was less easily silenced. “The lecherous slanderer! To think that I must give audience to one such as he, whose money has been made in such a manner! I shall have my satisfaction of Darcy. He has done this with intent to insult and wound! How could he have known to go there, of all places?”

“My Lady,” Collins shook his head in that patient, long-suffering manner well-practised by all in his profession, “I am afraid I am most confused.”

“Barrett is not worth a second thought,” she assured him. “But Darcy! I will have words with him. How has he discovered it? Someone must have told him.”

“I am certain it is all a mistake, My Lady, for how could any discern your ways? You are all that is wise and charitable, and your foresight is impenetrable!”

She snagged a greasy bit of paper from a nearby table and waved it in the air. “He has discerned it somehow and means to ruin me! And he has done it publicly, taking some girl to Vauxhall as his entertainment for the day. Why, he has even named her and had word sent to her guardians so that all may hear of it!” She sneered and read aloud from what appeared to be a stained, damaged note. “Eliza Benwick from Gracechurch street.”

Collins’ eyes widened. “I beg your pardon, My Lady?”

She continued as if she had not heard. “This Mr Gardiner shall receive not a word of notice from me. Serve him right if his ward is ruined. He ought to have guarded her better! His rights to satisfaction are nothing to mine.”

Collins had grown pale, his limbs quaking. “My Lady… may I submit my humble services to help recover Mr Darcy for our dear Miss de Bourgh? Perhaps a man of the cloth might be able to persuade him where another cannot.”

She turned and evaluated him with half a measure of approval. “A laudable notion, Mr Collins. Do go, and return this evening for my daughter’s marriage ceremony. Be certain to bring your betrothed, for Anne shall require some manner of bridesmaid.”

“Miss Elizabeth, a word, please.”

She was already two paces ahead of him, almost fleeing from him as soon as the balloon had set them down. He could think of no reason for her sudden haste, for she had truly seemed to relish the latter half of their flight, and even graciously thanked the balloon master for his troubles on her behalf. There could be no cause now for her to put it behind her so quickly, other than himself.

“Miss Elizabeth,” he pleaded again, “I beg you to hear me.”

She slowed, and he could perceive a conscious reluctance in her profile as she looked down and to the side. “Oh, not now, please.”

“I am afraid I must. I have behaved abominably, Miss Elizabeth, and I humbly beseech you to forgive me. ”

She turned, but only halfway. “Was it not I who was so little in command of myself that I nearly endangered us up there?”

“We were far from danger, at least of the mortal kind. It is another danger of which I speak.”

“You must think me a fool!”

“Miss Elizabeth,” he stepped around to her face, forcing her to stop. “I think nothing of the kind. You were frightened. Is there any disgrace in that?”

A fire had sparked in her eye, and she lifted her chin with a hint of defiance. “There is disgrace in tempting a respectable man to something abhorrent to him. I assure you, sir, it is not my custom to seduce men for my own purposes.”

“Seduce? Abhorrent!” He almost laughed, but the matter was too serious for that. “You mistake me, Miss Elizabeth, for I find you quite the opposite.”

“And what of my connections? Of my station in life? Can you deny that any such connection would be reprehensible to you, and to your family? Would any hold me blameless, when they knew of my circumstances, for grasping at a man so far removed from my own circles that it could only have been achieved by the vilest sort of compromise?”

“Miss Elizabeth, it was only a kiss,” he reminded her. “And if I recall, it was I who initiated it, not yourself.”

“Because my foolishness beguiled you into the act!”

He shook his head. “What is this, Miss Elizabeth? None forced me. It was my own inclinations, and I am sorry that I imposed upon you at a vulnerable moment. However, you were a willing enough participant and even seemed to enjoy the remainder of the flight holding my hands.”

“Then you believe I make a practice of wanton behaviour?”

“I could never believe that of you.”

His tones were so firm, so determined, that it seemed to jar her from her resolve to despise herself. She blinked, her lips parted, and her expression seemed to break. If he did not speak some other words of absolution, he feared that next, she would begin to cry, and that would prove his final undoing.

“Miss Elizabeth,” he spoke more gently, “have you any notion of what other women might have done in your position? Were I dependent upon another’s goodness—and I thank God that I am not!—would any other have befriended me, treated me with such unmerited regard, and bestowed on me such gentle reserve in all matters of import? No, indeed! I could never admonish a single act of yours. It is my own behaviour which troubles me.”

Her eyes, bearing that peculiar sheen which caused his inner being to twist in torment, lifted to his own. “Fear not that I will make any demands of you, sir.”

“William. I am your servant, remember?”

A hesitant smile blossomed, and she looked down to the ground. “Very well, then. William. You are quite safe from me.”

Ah, if only she knew! He repressed a grimace of pain. “Am I forgiven, then?”

She sniffed faintly and smiled. “Quite. I believe I must thank you for finding a means to calm me when I had so far lost my faculties. I am utterly humbled!”

“I am afraid I hold the claim on that. My failing was not a mere moment of terror, but years of blindness and arrogance. Had I looked to my affairs better, we would not presently be seeking a way of eluding men who are in my own employ.”

“I must confess to some curiosity on that point. I did not intend to ask about what is not my affair—”

“I believe it has become your affair. I have none but myself to blame, for had I not simply assumed my due, had I taken care to know the inner workings of my own house and not remained ignorant to any but my own personal cares, I might have apprehended the danger long ago. I imagine my aunt found the work easy because I made it so. Do you know, Miss Elizabeth, how mortifying such a discovery will be when word begins to circulate? I shall be the laughing stock of…. ”

“The ton ?”

He clenched his teeth and held her gaze steadily. “Of everyone.”

One side of her mouth curved. “It is not only you who have cause to regret poor relations in his own house. I have learned that bitter lesson only recently, and shall perhaps pay for the follies of another with my own future.”

His brow pinched. “Miss Elizabeth, we have been rather close on the matter, but what is your trial? How can such a man as that Collins fellow have any thought of success with one such as yourself?”

She drew a slow sigh. “My mother’s first object, when she found herself in possession of five daughters and no sons, was to marry them off respectably before my father could die or any of their daughters could disgrace the family. It seems that not all of us took to heart that caution about marrying ‘respectably.’ When one falls, four suffer, and when two are humiliated, three are shunned.”

He closed his eyes. “I see.”

She offered a tight little smile, forgiving and entirely false. “It is not your concern. Come, we must see our way out of this place.”

He nodded, all business once more. “I believe I know the way, but you will have to trust me.”