Page 9 of Tempted (Heart to Heart Collection #2)

Chapter 9

I t had been two more weeks of sheer monotony for Elizabeth, punctuated by hours of nerve-wracking tension and self-doubt—otherwise known as mealtimes. Miss Darcy was always excessively polite, but never warm. Never happy to have their company. Jane continued to make daily excuses for their hostess, claiming youth and shyness were her only faults, but Elizabeth could only think of the girl's many and unfathomable advantages, and decided she was unfeeling and artificial.

Of the three of them, Billy had adapted the best to estate life in genteel old England. He spent most of his days admiring the library or begging questions of the groundsmen or the housekeeper, and it was his particular delight whenever a travelling party came to tour the house. On these occasions, he would fall into step behind Mrs Reynolds as she conducted the tour, taking it all in with rapt astonishment as if it were for the first time. Mrs Reynolds, to her everlasting credit, never exhibited the faintest sign of impatience with him, a feat which impressed Elizabeth more than she could say.

Elizabeth could typically be found brooding about the gardens in the morning, then seeking the cool quiet of the library in the afternoons. She longed for some diversion to take her mind from her troubles, some exertion to change the stale air out of her lungs and clear the cobwebs from her taut muscles, but she still feared causing any ripple in the perfectly calm waters of the ancient estate known as Pemberley. Instead, she kept out of the way, clasping her fears for Richard and anxieties about her uncertain destiny to her own heart.

One sunny morning over breakfast, Miss Darcy surprised Elizabeth by inviting them all out for a riding party that afternoon. Elizabeth had many times considered Mr Darcy’s offer of his stables but had never yet been bold enough to presume he had truly meant it. She lowered her spoon, glanced at Jane, and answered with what she hoped was the proper balance of enthusiasm and reserve. “That would be delightful, Miss Darcy.”

“Excellent,” the young lady replied in her accustomed cool monotone. “I shall have four horses saddled at half-past one.”

“Oh!” Billy raised his hand. “Might I beg off? I have never thought it much sport, and I had so hoped to spend some time in the library this afternoon.”

Miss Darcy lifted a single golden brow. “If you prefer, Mr Collins.”

“Ah, yes. You see, I came upon an antiquated book that I simply must look over called Fordyce’s Sermons. It appears to be an excellent treatise on all matters moral. Have you heard of it, Cousin Elizabeth?”

“Never,” she confessed, but from across the table, she was quite certain that she saw Miss Darcy concealing a smirk behind her napkin. She composed herself too quickly for Elizabeth to be sure, and rose from the table.

“Then it shall be ladies only,” Miss Darcy announced. “Have either of you any preferences regarding your choice of mount? I shall have the groom select a suitable horse, according to your wishes.”

Jane and Elizabeth exchanged glances again. “Nothing in particular,” Elizabeth answered for both of them. She was certain that if the proper Miss Darcy could manage the classically trained horses in her stable, she and Jane would have no difficulties whatsoever.

“I s that a side-saddle?” Jane whispered nervously. “I never imagined that! Where does your right foot go?”

Elizabeth had caught the side of her lip between her teeth, but she let it slip now and adopted an air of cheerfulness. “Come, Jane, how difficult can it be? See how gentle that gelding looks? I am sure he is very docile.”

“He is enormous!”

Elizabeth appraised the horses in silence through the veil Margaret had insisted was “proper” for a lady riding out. The Thoroughbreds were several hands higher than her pony at home, and on that saddle, she would feel as if she were perched in the clouds with nothing to hold. She swallowed, then braced herself as a groom approached and offered to assist her. Once in the saddle, the horse’s neck seemed to stretch a mile in front of her, and the only way she felt stable was by squeezing her right leg around the hook on the pommel and leaning forward. When the horse walked, she was forced to shift her weight two or three times to find some sense of balance.

“Shall we?” Miss Darcy asked. She was elegantly poised on a pretty brown mare, looking smart and composed in a navy blue riding habit. Elizabeth noted the way she held her riding crop and those complicated double reins and tried to copy her.

“Ready.” She smiled and hoped she looked more confident than she felt.

Mercifully, Miss Darcy kept their ramblings to a walk at first. After some experimentation, Elizabeth discovered that she truly was shockingly secure in the saddle. She hoped she would never be called upon to gallop such a giant horse while seated so, but this, she could manage. And it was a relief to be out of doors and moving again.

“I have not heard how you came to know my cousin,” Miss Darcy asked at length.

“Erm…” Elizabeth cleared her throat. “I was galloping back to town after visiting my father at the corrals.”

“Corrals?” repeated Miss Darcy.

“Ah… I believe you would call them paddocks… after a fashion.”

The young woman's brow wrinkled. “They were at your father’s estate? Is it far from the nearest town?”

Elizabeth wilted and gestured helplessly. “I fear it would be too difficult to explain. I met Ri–I mean Colonel Fitzwilliam as he tried to perform a gallant deed on my behalf.”

“How very like him!” Miss Darcy mused. “Of course, you were grateful.”

“Not at the moment,” Elizabeth confessed. Then, seeing the redoubled look of dismay blossoming on the countenance of her hostess, she hastened to add, “But I did come to appreciate his kindness and thoughtful manners.”

Miss Darcy nodded curtly. “Naturally. And as you have said it, may I presume that you do enjoy a fine gallop, Mrs Fitzwilliam? And what of you, Miss Bennet?” she asked, twisting in her saddle to regard Jane.

Jane managed a strangled response in the affirmative. “Yes, but I am not a fast rider,” she pardoned herself. “Not nearly so fast as my sister.”

“Well, then—” Miss Darcy straightened in the saddle and adjusted her grip on the reins. For the first time in their brief acquaintance, the girl appeared to be smiling… and it made Elizabeth's blood run cold. “We shall make a fine go of it. Only a gentle canter, Miss Bennet, and no fences or brush today, but what do you say we venture over yonder rise?” Without waiting for more than a cursory nod from her guests, she chirruped to her mount, and the fine brown mare leapt into a ground-eating stride that soon left them behind.

“A canter!” Jane cried in dismay. “What in blazes is that? Why do they always have to give everything fancy names?”

“Hush, Jane,” Elizabeth hissed as she tried to sort out the double reins. “Just follow her. We were raised on the back of a horse. Are you going to permit Miss Manners to best us?”

“Yes!” insisted Jane as she began to turn her mount.

“Jane!” Elizabeth cried. She waited until Jane grudgingly subsided, then flicked the crop—far more clumsily than Miss Darcy had. The rangy chestnut lurched, and she let out a yelp at his first massive stride. Soon after, she discovered that he was anything but the docile creature she had first taken him for. He began to huff like a freight train and pushed against the bit as if expecting her to hold him in.

Elizabeth swore under her breath, a colourful phrase she had learned from rough-riding men. The thinner rein was twisting around her littlest fingers, the thicker one seemed stuck to her ridiculous gloves, and she was making a hopeless snarl of the mess. Why would anyone need so many reins? She could feel her right leg trembling in fatigue and tension, and her left leg clamping desperately against the horse’s side, which only urged him on faster. Every nerve and sinew were strained until she could not make her body do what she wished. Her rump was slapping the saddle like a greenhorn, but she was too tense and frightened to care—particularly not when her mount breezed by Miss Darcy’s without any sign of slowing.

“Don’t fall off, Elizabeth,” she kept muttering to herself. “And watch out for holes!”

Fortunately, the manicured landscape seemed devoid of burrowing rodents, but it cost Elizabeth a great deal of her dignity to finally turn her horse’s head and force him into a reluctant, surging kind of circle. At last, the beast permitted her to check his stride, and she dragged him down to an eager trot, looping around to come beside the others.

“What do you think of him?” Miss Darcy asked with a peculiar cheer in her voice. “My brother suggested you might like a horse with some spirit, so I had the groom saddle Fitzwilliam’s new hunter for you. He goes well, does he not?”

Elizabeth gritted her teeth. “He certainly goes.”

London September 1900

D arcy sighed into the leather chair in his cousin’s drawing-room, grateful for the Earl of Matlock’s scotch as he recounted his findings related to Richard—or, rather, lack thereof.

“General Houghton implied there might yet be hope for Richard’s return. Nothing official, just rumors he would not repeat. I tried to ask for more, but he just clamped his teeth and invited us to dine with him someday, which is his way of informing me that even if he did have more information, he could not share it.”

“Bellamy has not heard from his cousin?” Reginald asked again. “Letters do take some time—”

“They have had no word since we last had a letter from Richard. He did write on my behalf, but I cannot decide if we need merely wait longer or give up on that.”

Reginald stroked his chin. “I am half tempted to go there myself and talk to some of the officers.”

“To South Africa!” Darcy scoffed. “They would never permit you off the ship.”

“You forget that I have more influence now,” Reginald reminded him.

“Precisely. Do you think the officers want the new Earl of Matlock reporting back to the House of Lords how badly matters are proceeding there? They will take you to some general’s house, ply you with spirits and empty promises, and send you on your way. What influence you have has already been brought to bear, for they know well and good who Richard is to you. If they had him to return, they would have done so by now.”

Reginald hissed and sagged back in his seat. “But we must do something. ”

“I mean to go myself,” Darcy declared.

“What makes you think you would have more success than I?”

“My connection to Richard is less obvious than yours. I can travel on the guise of looking after my investment.”

“Which investment?”

“The remounts, of course. My father amassed a small fortune when the estate needed it most by buying up foreign horses and selling them to the army. Through Houghton, I had a stake in those American horses that Richard was training for cavalry mounts, as did several others.”

“Blasted waste of his time.”

“Be that as it may, I would rather have had him stranded in the middle of nowhere overseeing cavalry remounts than charging the cannon.”

Reginald narrowed his eyes. “Bloody hell, Darcy. It was you who had Richard sent to that god-forsaken wasteland!”

“Indeed, it was, and I am not ashamed to own it. I had words with the general and specifically requested that my business interests with the army would be overseen by someone better suited to the task. Colonel Marcus cost me a deal of money with his heedlessness, and those American mongrels he hired sounded little better.”

“When we find Richard, you had better hope he never learns of your little back-room deal with the general. He will flay you where you stand.”

“He is welcome to. I only wish he had not managed to have the assignment overturned so quickly.”

Reginald sighed. “That was probably Father’s doing. Had he only known what his meddling would procure…”

“Stop there. He knew Richard’s dearest wish was to be with his men, and he did as his son asked of him. Many a father would not do so much. But here, we forget the matter at hand. At this time of year, the weather round the Cape is still unpredictable, so I should think it might require nearly three weeks before I arrive. I’ve no notion of how long I would need to remain.”

Reginald shook his head and set aside his glass. “Wait a month before you go. It will be spring there soon, and perhaps by then we will have heard something more.”

Darcy frowned but relented in silence. The earl stood to idly poke the fire—more out of restlessness than necessity—and both turned a moment later when the door opened. The Countess of Matlock—the younger—breezed into the room with a cursory nod to Darcy.

“Good evening, Your Ladyship.” Reginald greeted his wife with a ceremonial bow and extended his hand.

She waved him impatiently away. “Enough of that, my dear. I’ve had enough formality for one day, and it is hardly necessary before Darcy.”

“Enough of formality!” he cried in mock concern. “My dear, what has happened?”

“That son of yours—”

Darcy smothered a tight smile as he watched Reginald and his wife wrestling with the trials of parenthood—most particularly, the parenting of a rather spoilt, slightly over-mothered noble heir. Theirs was not a conventional match of fortune and pedigree, nor yet was it a love match. Rather, it was something of both. Sheila Fitzwilliam, née Covington, was the gilded daughter of a New York capitalist who, like many others, had come to England in search of a husband and a title. Buccaneers, some called them. The arrangement had its charms for both families, and particularly for the son of a depleted earl who was not too old or staid to be won over by the lady’s bold character and handsome face.

Darcy listened in amusement as the couple bantered over the most recent antics of their son—the earl steadily insisting that the boy ought to be sent to boarding school, the countess avowing that the event would take place over her dead body. For all their apparent disagreements, there was always a warmth and a regard present between them that frequently inspired a poignant longing in his own heart.

“—Let us ask Darcy his opinion on the matter.” The countess turned pointedly, her hand on her hip and an expectant look in her eye which he had come to know well enough. Just behind her, Reginald was rolling his eyes and casting up his hands. It was a scenario that had played out a dozen times before, and one in which neither gentleman ever prevailed. Nonetheless, Darcy inclined his head patiently.

“My pompous spouse believes that the child should not be permitted to make a sound at table, but I say that is a bit of primitive idiocy. Now, my dear little Sebastien feels compelled to act out—no doubt, he is frustrated that none permit him to behave as a child ought, so he has resorted to playing tricks on his Latin tutor and hiding from the maids.”

Darcy slid his eyes to the earl, who merely crossed his arms and scowled. “I would defer to the opinions of both,” he offered slowly. “While children, particularly boys, no doubt require much exercise and freedom in their idle hours to render them civilised creatures, I see no harm in requiring proper manners at table.”

“What he requires,” the countess declared, “is to be sent back to Derbyshire for the last of the fine weather this year.” At this, she tossed a daggered look over her shoulder at her husband.

“Can I help it if my present duties have obliged me to remain in London?” the earl protested. “But there is nothing stopping you and the children from going. I thought you should have gone to the estate with Mother a fortnight ago.”

The countess’s cheek twitched—Darcy saw it clearly and wondered at it. That the lady had no desire to part so long from her husband in favour of her mother-in-law was plain, but the notion was as foreign to him as many of her other whims. It was only what was proper and expected, after all, but the woman’s sentiments frequently held more power over her actions than decorum.

At last, she relented. “Very well. I shall order my things packed. Oh, Darcy, I am sorry you had to witness that. It is the strain, I suppose, telling on us all. I did so hope that something could be heard of our poor Richard by now. Have you learned nothing new?”

“I am afraid not.”

“Darcy here—” the earl gestured—“thinks he might discover more by going to South Africa himself, but I advised him to wait on the weather. Perhaps he can accompany you to Derbyshire, my dear, for there seems little more he can do here in London, and no doubt he will be wanted at Pemberley before he goes.”

“A wonderful idea!” the countess cried.

“But, regrettably, impossible,” Darcy informed her. “I have business, which will require me to remain some days longer in London.”

“It is no matter, for I shall beg Georgiana for an introduction to her guests. At last, I shall have a chance to meet the young Mrs Fitzwilliam! I must come to know her, of course, for not only is she my sister-in-law, but a fellow American. Why, that adds so much lustre to the notion of going back to Matlock that I shall scarcely miss you, my dear!”

“Hold just a moment—” Reginald began to protest, but Darcy was already shaking his head in flat denial.

“I regret that the idea is out of the question, Your Ladyship.”

She puckered her mouth and narrowed her eyes at him.

“Darcy only means that… er, the poor girl has suffered enough. We would not wish to frighten her with a horde of family at such a time,” Reginald explained.

“Nonsense! A horde of family is precisely what she needs. Why, you cannot send the child off to that dreary old estate with no word of her husband and nothing to do! I would not wonder if she were fit to run mad.”

“Come, my dear,” Reginald reasoned, “we cannot even be sure she is Richard’s wife. The last thing we wish to do now is create a fuss over her arrival and—”

“Do you mean—” she whirled upon her husband—“that you still have not even acknowledged her? You are keeping her locked away like some scandalous secret? My husband, I am ashamed of you.”

“It is only in defence of Richard,” the earl clarified. “Until we can be certain—”

“Certain, nothing! I shall go and comfort her myself, and you needn’t fear that I will spread talk. But the girl must have some welcome, if you will not do it.”

“Georgiana is there,” Darcy protested. “She has seen admirably to the guests.”

The countess curled her lip, and if Darcy could guess the cause of her disdain, he chose to overlook it. She recovered smoothly, hoisted her chin, and patted her husband sweetly on the cheek. “I was always fond of Georgiana. I hope she does not object to me occupying her guests on occasion. And Darcy, I have heard that Anne is back from the Continent. She will wish to accompany me to Matlock, I am sure.”

After that, the lady swept from the room, leaving both Darcy and the earl groaning in surrender. “Better send word to Georgie at once.”

Darcy nodded. “I wish I could put them all back on a ship and be done with the whole affair.”