Page 4 of Rosings Park (Happily Ever Afterlife #2)

CHAPTER FOUR

D arcy rose from his chair alongside Elizabeth, intending to follow her out, but his uncle called him to order. “Sit back down, Darcy, and leave the women to their conversation. I have a few things to say to you.”

Elizabeth discreetly squeezed his hand before adjourning with the ladies. Once the door had closed behind them, Darcy turned to Lord Matlock. “That is well, for I have a few things to say to you also.”

His uncle grunted and reached for the decanter of brandy that had just been set out. “Yes, yes, I am certain you do. Now sit.”

It was a handful of long minutes before the gentlemen seated round the table had served themselves their beverage of choice and the servants had withdrawn. Once this much was accomplished, Darcy launched immediately into his complaints. “I would have thought, with all your blustering about familial harmony, you would have treated my wife with greater respect. I am not unconscious of your disappointment that I did not marry into the uppermost levels of society, but that gives you no right to be so dismissive of Elizabeth. She is my wife and ought to be treated as such.”

Marbury, who had already imbibed more glasses of wine at dinner than the rest of them combined, swallowed back a mouthful of brandy. “If you wanted us to treat your wife with respect, then you ought to have married a respectable one. There are any number of suitable ladies in London— my betrothed, for example.”

Darcy had the questionable honour of being acquainted with Lady Susan Cliffton, and he could not agree with his cousin that she was in any way ‘suitable’ other than being wealthy and well connected. She was a higher-born Caroline Bingley with more beauty than brains, and even then not much of either. “I prefer a wife whose company I can tolerate for more than a few minutes at a time, thank you. Not only do I love Elizabeth, I like her as well.”

Marbury’s laugh was interrupted by a hiccup. “One is not meant to like their wife, Darcy. That is the role of a mistress.”

Disgusting . Darcy had never thought well of men who bound themselves body and soul to one woman, only to give their heart—assuming they had one—to another. Knowing his uncle also kept an actress, Darcy held his tongue rather than deliver a stinging retort to the viscount.

Lamentably, Marbury had not finished disparaging Elizabeth. Waving his glass in Darcy’s direction, the contents of which sloshed onto the tablecloth, he declared, “Miss Bennet is a nobody. ”

Darcy’s response was forced through his clenched teeth. “She is my wife .”

“She used her arts and allurements to elevate herself to that position.”

“I am a gentleman, she is a gentleman’s daughter. We are equal.”

“She might be a gentleman’s daughter, but who was her mother? Who are her uncles and aunts? You are now kin to attorneys and tradesmen!”

“The Bennets have resided at Longbourn for nearly as long as my ancestors have held Pemberley, and they are due a greater modicum of deference than you have shown. They are respectable people with an honourable lineage. Let us not forget where the Fitzwilliam line began.” According to lore, the first Fitzwilliam was the by-blow of one of the Tudors—a dynasty begat on the wrong side of the blanket.

“Better the bastard of a king than a lowborn—” The word he used to describe Elizabeth did not bear repeating.

Darcy immediately burst out of his chair and made to leap at his cousin across the table, but Fitzwilliam intervened and held him back. “Outside! I shall have my satisfaction!”

Marbury, already red from a great deal of liquor, swore at him with words that ought not to be spoken outside a gaming hell. Even Fitzwilliam, accustomed to the worst sort of language bandied about by soldiers, shouted his outrage as he fought to restrain Darcy.

“Enough of that!” thundered Lord Matlock, standing from his seat at the head of the table. “Sit down, Darcy, for God’s sake. There will be no satisfaction other than an apology from my idiot son.” Turning to Marbury, he continued in a repressive tone, “There is no call to speak so commonly, or to insult your cousin’s wife in such a disgusting manner. What is done is done. Darcy is right. We ought to put aside our personal feelings about Mrs Darcy and welcome her to the family properly. We must provide a united front for society because nothing sets tongues wagging quite like familial discord. Now, apologise.”

Marbury’s only response was to glare unrepentantly at Darcy, who returned the look steadily. Should the viscount not offer amends—not that such a gesture was nearly enough—he was prepared to walk directly out of Rosings and never return, taking his wife with him. If he did not, he could not be held responsible for the violence he might succumb to.

“Apologise, or I shall dock your allowance. Do not test me, boy.”

At last, and with his reluctance on full display, Marbury muttered, “I am sorry I insulted your wife, Darcy. Do forgive me.” To his father, he asked in a sullen tone, “Ought I to get down on my knees?”

Lord Matlock disregarded his son’s last flippant remark and lowered himself back into his chair; Darcy and Fitzwilliam did likewise. “Very good. Now, I did not wish to speak of Mrs Darcy but rather Anne.”

Darcy’s temper was immediately smothered at the mention of Anne. He had been so wrapped up in his wounded pride over how his relatives had been treating Elizabeth that he had nearly forgotten why they had travelled to Rosings in the first place. He could see that Fitzwilliam and Marbury appeared similarly abashed .

Swallowing down the lump in his throat with a mouthful of port, Darcy asked, “How did she die? Was it one of her usual attacks?”

Lord Matlock nodded, his expression grave. “As far as we can tell, yes. According to Catherine, Anne had been doing poorly since before Christmas, but nothing to give her true alarm. When she fell ill one evening after dinner, it seemed naught but what she had endured countless times before. She was discovered the next morning, cold in her bed.”

How horrible. Darcy had seen Anne in the throes of one of her attacks many times and knew it could not have been an easy death. He rested his hand above his eyes and squeezed them shut against the image of her face contorted in a rictus of pain.

“Why was the doctor not called?” demanded Marbury. “Our aunt pays him well enough. He ought to be at her beck and call.”

Fitzwilliam snorted with derision, and Darcy was in charity with his feelings on the matter. “Nichols? Better he stayed at home else he likely would have hastened her demise. The man is a charlatan.”

Darcy dropped his hand into his lap, blinking dark spots from his vision. “What of her companion? Where was Mrs Jenkinson during all this?”

Lord Matlock shook his head. “Mrs Jenkinson was dismissed a month or so before Anne’s final illness.”

Darcy was not alone in his surprise at this pronouncement, for Fitzwilliam also cried out, “Dismissed! Whatever for?”

“I asked my sister that very question, but all she will say is that Mrs Jenkinson did not know her place, whatever that means.” Lord Matlock rolled his eyes, an unusual gesture for him. “In any case, a new companion had not yet been retained, leaving Anne more vulnerable than ever. I know not what Catherine was thinking, going so long without someone to help care for Anne, but there is no point in chastising her over it. What is done is done.”

Darcy could not help recalling that Lord Matlock had spoken of his marriage in the same fashion. He forced that resentful thought aside to say, “She has certainly been punished enough for her oversight.”

“Indeed. Of more urgency is Anne’s will.”

“What about it?”

“It cannot be found.”

Darcy was taken aback by this news. Although he had been intimately involved in the business of Rosings Park for many years, he had never had cause to seek out Anne’s will before. It had been written and signed during his father’s lifetime and was thus not a matter that required any action on his part. George Darcy did not leave loose ends. “What do you mean, it cannot be found? Is it not with her solicitor?”

Lord Matlock threw his hands up in a gesture of exasperation. “I have told Catherine time and again to send her business to my man in London, but she has always insisted upon using a local attorney, some fool in Hunsford village.”

“Even a local attorney would retain records,” said Darcy, striving to keep his tone reasonable. His uncle had left the business matters of Rosings to him for the last five years, at least, but surely he had not waited for his nephew’s arrival to approach Mr Stephens. “Has his office been searched?”

“As to that, Catherine informs me that there was a fire some months ago that destroyed the law office. All the records—gone. The attorney himself, a Mr Stanton?—”

“Stephens,” Fitzwilliam corrected, hand cupped around his chin and his eyes narrowed in thought.

“Stephens, then. He perished as well. Trapped inside, the poor fellow. His clerk survived, but he knows nothing of the will or even whether it was held at that establishment. For all anyone knows, Anne did not even have a will, however much Darcy—your father, that is—and I insisted she have one written up after she inherited.” Lord Matlock steadily shook his head back and forth, patently disbelieving. “This is exactly why women should never be left in control of these things. They always make a hash of it.”

Darcy overlooked his uncle’s editorial comment on the efficacy of women in legal affairs; he had heard it all before, and there was no changing the earl’s mind on the subject, even though Anne herself had been eminently capable. It was merely the weakness of her body, not her mind, that had prevented her from taking the reins of Rosings from her mother. Instead of tilting at that particular windmill, he focused on the dilemma at hand. “If the clerk did not know of Anne’s will, could she have possibly retained the services of a London attorney after all?”

The earl absently swirled his brandy, thoughtful. “I cannot see how, but I shall investigate the possibility when we return to town after the funeral. Perhaps your father’s man would know something of it. Darcy was at least as forceful on the subject as I at the time.”

“I am sad to say that Mr Pickering died last year, but his son took over the practice and might be of assistance. I have used his services since his father’s retirement, and he is a capable man.”

“Very well, I shall begin there. If nothing else, I shall ask him to look into the legalities of where the estate devolves to next, should the will never be found. There is no apparent heir since she never married nor bore children.”

Anne had come into her majority and inherited Rosings Park several years ago, per the dictates of her late father’s will. As the last of the de Bourghs, an ancient though untitled family, the next in line to inherit was not clear. They would have to confirm that the de Bourghs were, indeed, defunct before determining who was entitled to Anne’s assets. One might rightly assume she had left her holdings to her mother, but without a will stating so explicitly, there was no telling where the estate would devolve. It was imperative that they discover it, should it exist, else Lady Catherine might find herself amongst the hedgerows—though, of course, she would be immediately taken in by her Fitzwilliam relations should it come to that.

“I have a task for you,” continued Lord Matlock. “While I engage representation in London, I would like you to have a look about the house”—he vaguely indicated the cavernous room surrounding them with a haphazard wave of his free hand—“and attempt to discover a copy. Should you find it, many problems would be resolved. ”

Darcy rubbed his temple. His uncle’s inclination to foist every responsibility onto his relations was wearisome. “Have the household papers not already been searched?”

“My sister has never been especially gifted in overseeing her household. What papers we have been able to find have not been in good order—ripped, stained, pages missing, and such—and none of them were to the point of our search. Her steward was no help—the man has no more sense than this table.” Lord Matlock rapped upon the wooden surface before him, visibly exasperated.

Darcy, who had dealt with Mr Cummings himself, could not dispute this characterisation of Lady Catherine’s idiot steward. He was of the same ilk as Mr Collins, and blind obedience to his mistress seemed to be his only qualification for his position. Darcy had urged his aunt to dismiss the buffoon numerous times over the years, but she had adamantly refused, fond as she was of unquestioned reverence. Every man under her employ seemed to be crafted from this same mould, from stable boy to steward.

“We have looked in every reasonable place one might keep documents,” Lord Matlock continued, “only to come up empty. I am hoping that it might be tucked away in some unorthodox location, waiting for someone to stumble upon it.”

“Very well, I shall do my best.”

“Good, good. You may keep Richard here with you to assist, for he is on leave from his regiment until next month. Lady Matlock, Marbury, and I shall return to town on Monday. ”

Darcy looked to the colonel, who raised his glass in confirmation.

Swallowing the last of his brandy, Lord Matlock pushed back his chair, which squealed unpleasantly against the stone floor. “Well, with that sorted out, I suppose it is time to rejoin the ladies.”

“Not just yet,” replied Darcy, holding up a staying hand. His uncle halted his rise, waiting for more. “I have an announcement to make. Before I say more, I must have your solemn promise to reveal nothing of this to Lady Catherine. Given the circumstances, it would be unfeeling to mention it.”

Lord Matlock and Fitzwilliam frowned with concern, while Marbury refilled his glass, disinterested.

“I have recently learnt that Elizabeth is…ahem, she has informed me that I am to be a father sometime over the summer.”

Fitzwilliam slapped Darcy on the back hard enough to cause him to jerk forwards. “That was quick! You have only been married for—what? Four, five months?”

“Six. Since the end of August.” Though it felt like the blink of an eye to Darcy. How had it already been more than half a year since stumbling across Elizabeth at Pemberley? He recalled with warm fondness the wide-eyed surprise on her face when he had emerged from the lake like a ravenous sea monster. It had not been many moments later that he had recognised the second chance presented to him and devoted himself to winning her affections at last. They had been married less than a month after that encounter.

“Always efficient,” Fitzwilliam concluded with a snigger and a congenial shake of his head .

Marbury lifted his glass to his mouth and grumbled something nearly indistinct against the brim. “The lower classes do breed like rabbits.”

Darcy clenched his jaw, inclined to call out the viscount after all, but this impulse was forestalled by Lord Matlock’s congratulations. “That is excellent news. I am glad to hear that Mrs Darcy is mindful of her duty.”

Darcy could not call the pleasures they had discovered in the marriage bed a ‘duty’, per se, but he supposed any praise for Elizabeth from his uncle ought not to be criticised. It was enough that Lord Matlock was willing to allow she had merit. For now.

“Yes, well, I should very much like to return to her, if there is nothing else.”

So saying, the gentlemen set their glasses aside and rose, moving towards Lady Catherine’s favourite drawing room. Darcy was in the lead, eager to see his wife, while Marbury tottered along drunkenly at the tail.