Page 13 of Rosings Park (Happily Ever Afterlife #2)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A fter hours of fruitless, dusty searching that aggravated Darcy’s nose, he and Fitzwilliam sat in the leather armchairs inside their late uncle’s study sipping glasses of port in weary silence. It was astonishing how much paper a single room could contain while offering up nothing useful.
“Do you suppose Anne even had a will? I am beginning to seriously doubt it,” Fitzwilliam commented, swallowing back his final sip of port.
Darcy swirled the dregs of his drink in the bottom of his glass, staring morosely at the drops of tawny liquid. “One must assume that she did. My father tended to Rosings’s business when Anne came of age and would have seen to it.”
“Then why can we not find the blasted thing?”
“Perhaps it is hidden elsewhere in the house, somewhere we have not thought of yet. Or perhaps Lady Catherine did not retain a copy of her own and it was destroyed in the fire that took the attorney’s office in the village. It might even be in the custody of some unknown solicitor in London, though I do not think that likely, given how infrequently our aunt and cousin left Kent.”
“Could it be at Darcy House or Pemberley?”
Darcy shook his head. “No, I would have come across it at some point in the years since my father’s death. He also would have mentioned it to me, were it in our safekeeping. If the will exists, it must be here at Rosings Park.”
“Well, we can be sure it is not in this room,” Fitzwilliam groused, waving his free hand at the disarray they had created. Stacks of papers littered the desk, floor, and bookcases, sorted into dozens of piles based on their contents. There were receipts for laundry, decades-old correspondence, outdated tenant leases, invitations to dinner parties from years ago, scraps of terrible poetry in his uncle’s hand, and even a copy of Sir Lewis’s will—long since executed—but no sign of Anne’s.
“Tolerably so, yes.” Darcy exhaled harshly, frustration high. “I have been in this study so many times over the years, especially since my father’s decease when I took up Lady Catherine’s affairs, but I had no notion that it was so poorly organised. The estate books were always readily at my disposal, so I never looked inside the desk, save to search for a quill. How does our aunt ever find anything?”
“I sincerely doubt she ever enters this room, or even this part of the house. She leaves all the accounting to her housekeeper and male relatives and only concerns herself with badgering her tenants into her way of thinking. The place has been sorely neglected since Sir Lewis died.”
Recalling the state of Rosings’s finances and the stern lectures he foisted upon his aunt every year, Darcy grimaced. “I cannot disagree. I, and my father before me, have done my utmost to improve things, but the estate is crumbling. The house is in dire need of repairs, the tenants are unhappy, and there is hardly any money left to fix anything. It might be a kindness to the heir, whoever they may be, to let Anne’s will remain lost.”
Fitzwilliam laughed darkly at that and stood, moving to the decanter behind Sir Lewis’s desk. “I am sick of this subject. Let us choose another.” He took a sip of his refreshed drink, released a gasp of appreciation, and returned to his seat. Crossing his feet before the empty hearth, he raised his glass at Darcy and said, “Cheers to your impending fatherhood.”
Darcy hid his grimace by standing and repairing to the decanter himself.
“Why do I get the sense that you are not happy about this?”
Still refusing to face his cousin, who he knew could readily read his expressions, Darcy replied as lightly as he could, “I am happy. It is joyous news.”
“Which is why it is odd that you do not wish to speak of it. Whenever the subject of Elizabeth’s pregnancy is raised, your spirits take a decided plunge. Why is that?”
“I have no notion what you are talking about.”
“I know when something is bothering you, just as I am certain your wife does. If you could bear to look at her when speaking of the baby, you would see that she is confused and hurt by your reticence.”
Darcy clenched a fist down by his side. “You have barely known Elizabeth for a year. What makes you think you understand her looks?”
“Because, unlike you, she has an expressive face,” Fitzwilliam replied, quite reasonably. “Her eyes, especially, reveal exactly what she is feeling, as I am sure you are well aware.”
Of course he was aware of it. He drained half his glass before admitting, “I am frightened, Richard. For her.”
A beat of silence. “Because of what happened to your mother?”
“She is hardly the only woman to have died in childbed. It is exceedingly common, you must know that, and my concern for Elizabeth’s welfare is well founded.”
“You must remember that Lady Anne was always delicate and sickly. Elizabeth is a hale, hearty girl with five sisters—she has as good a chance as anyone of being delivered safely.”
Darcy set his glass aside and tangled his fingers in his hair, leaning back against the bookcase. “I cannot help worrying, nor can I help blaming myself for putting her in this position, in this danger . I have only just convinced her to love me, and now I could very well lose her forever. Is our time together to be so short?”
Fitzwilliam was up and across the room before Darcy had finished his speech, grasping his cousin by the shoulders. “Look at me, Darcy— look at me . You have not endangered your wife any more than any other husband. The begetting of children is a consequence of marriage, you know that. There is no blame to be ascribed to you for any of it.”
Darcy swallowed against the tightness swelling in his throat. “I cannot lose her. I could not bear it.” He pressed his thumb and forefinger against his eyes, suppressing the tears that burnt behind his eyelids.
“Elizabeth is strong, and she will likely give you an equally strong brood of children before all is said and done. I expect at least one of them to be named after me, by the bye. Perhaps two. But I absolutely forbid you to call any of them Frederick.”
A watery laugh escaped Darcy, splintering the worst of his anxiety and reestablishing his reason. When he had collected himself, he dropped his hand and blinked away the last of the moisture obscuring his vision. “That moniker is already taken, as you well know. Much to your brother’s chagrin.”
“He is only jealous that your dog bears it with more dignity than he does.”
At one time, Darcy might have defended his elder cousin on this charge, but Marbury’s most recent behaviour did not allow for it. “Indeed. I suggest that we take a break from our search”—he indicated the piles of paper surrounding them—“and return to it in an hour or two. I should like to see Elizabeth.”
“If you are not careful, you will send your dear wife to Bedlam with all your cosseting.”
Darcy scoffed but joked, “At least there she cannot wander off.”