Page 40 of The Next Mrs Bennet

A ll of her hoping the Duke would not return had been for nought. Elizabeth was led into the drawing room by Mrs. Hill, where the corpulent old man sat in her mother’s favourite chair on this unwelcome visit, which thankfully was rather wide, but he still had trouble fitting on it.

Her parents were standing before him, just like they had the day before, the only difference was Jane was thankfully not present on this occasion.

It was the only positive Elizabeth could grasp for this day. Jane would be spared the spectacle of having to see the farce which would play out in the drawing room. How she wished she too was with her older sister, but it was not to be. Elizabeth raised her chin like she had the previous visit and looked at the Duke unflinchingly. She did not curtsy or say anything in greeting.

Fanny did not miss the blatant disrespect aimed at His Grace by her undeserving daughter. She made to move towards her daughter but the Duke raised his hand stopping her in her tracks.

“But Your Grace, how can I allow her rudeness in not greeting you to stand?” Fanny beseeched.

“If I feel something needs to be done, you must trust I have the capacity to make that decision,” Hertfordshire drawled.

‘ What a pity ,’ the Duke told himself silently. ‘ If the husband had cared about her it would have been fun to take a tumble with her. What a waste of a pretty woman. ’

“Yes, Your Grace,” Fanny demurred. Inwardly she was furious. If Miss Lizzy did anything to spoil things… Her musings were interrupted by her daughter’s speaking.

“Am I to assume you are still determined for me to marry you?” Elizabeth enquired. She knew she was being rude to the man, but she cared not. She would do anything she could to convince him he would not find a bride at Longbourn.

“As you can see,” the Duke averred.

“Why would you, a man of above sixty years…” Elizabeth stopped as the duke interjected.

“A man of soon to be seven and sixty years,” the Duke clarified.

“Then why are you pursuing a young lady, one who will not marry you mind you, who is more than fifty years your junior?” Elizabeth demanded.

“Elizabeth Rose Bennet, how dare you speak to a duke in that fashion,” Fanny screeched. She could not allow this blatant disrespect to stand.

She pulled her arm back intending to deliver a well-deserved slap to her second daughter’s face. Seeing his master nod, Wickham moved with speed and caught the shrew’s hand before she was able to strike the future Duchess. Fanny felt her arm in a grip which did not allow her to move.

“Let me be rightly understood, no one in this household will lift a finger against my soon-to-be fiancée,” the Duke thundered.

Fanny shrunk back in fear. The Duke should have been angry with her wilful daughter, not herself. She thought about disciplining Miss Lizzy once the Duke and his men had departed, but she remembered his words and did not want to take a chance he would back them up with actions.

“As to your question, Miss Elizabeth, my reasons are my own. Although I will inform you there are certain attributes I sought in a wife, and you have all the ones I desire,” Hertfordshire explained.

“And what are these attributes I supposedly possess?” Elizabeth insisted on knowing.

Bennet watched silently, as he had yester-afternoon. As long as Lizzy did not give in, there was nothing the man could do. He may be a duke, but the church would not change its law for him or any other, save the Monarch.

There was no surprise her father was not defending her. It was no less than Elizabeth expected. She would have to defend herself.

“Do you love your family?” the Duke asked a seemingly incongruous question.

“Of course I do,” Elizabeth bit back. “What sort of simple question is that?”

“Allow me to tell you what I will do for your family if we marry.” Seeing the firebrand was about to protest, he raised his hand. “All I ask is allow me to complete what I desire to say, thereafter, you may say what you will.” Elizabeth gave a tight nod of acceptance. “This estate is entailed to the male line, is it not?”

“It is Your Grace,” Bennet confirmed.

“Am I correct the beneficiary will be some distant cousin, named Collins?” This time Bennet nodded to the Duke. His Grace turned back to Elizabeth. “If we marry, with one condition, I will have the entail broken…” He held up his hand again to stem the words which were about to be loosed by Miss Elizabeth. “I am not done. In addition, each of your sisters will be dowered to the amount of five and twenty thousand pounds, dependent on the same condition being met.”

Before Elizabeth could respond, her gleeful mother interjected. “What is the condition?” Fanny trilled.

No more entail, massive dowries for her deserving daughters—even Mary and Kitty, little did they need it. Fanny could not believe her ears, such massive dowries! It would have been even better had there been an increase of her portion as well, but she would make sure to commandeer some of the funds meant for Mary’s and Kitty’s dowries for herself. That way, she too would be wealthy.

“Your daughter birthing me a son. As soon as there is an heir and he attains the age of one, I will do as I have now promised. Until then, I will present a draft for ten thousand pounds to Mr. Bennet, to be split between the four remaining daughters, who will after all be my sisters.” The Duke looked at Mrs. Bennet pointedly. “There will be restrictions on the money. No one will be able to divert it for any other purpose.”

Her joy diminished somewhat, but her daughters would be rich and there would be no more entail. There was still much for Fanny to be glad about. She could only imagine Sarah Lucas’s face when she revealed her daughter’s wealth to her.

“As much as I would like to see the entail broken and my sisters well dowered, I am not a cow in the dairy to be bartered and sold,” Elizabeth responded icily.

With the possibility of the entail being broken, after a slight pause and a flush which revealed his shame, Bennet said quietly: “That is rather selfish, Lizzy.”

“In the extreme,” Fanny screeched as she saw her dream of no more entail and her daughters becoming heiresses being blown away to nothing like light wisps of smoke on the wind.

“I desire to speak to Miss Elizabeth in private,” the Duke demanded.

“There is nothing you cannot say in front of my traitorous parents,” Elizabeth spat out.

As much as she knew her father was indolent and weak, she never expected him to be willing to sell her like a piece of furniture.

“Leave us,” the Duke commanded.

Elizabeth began to leave with her parents when the Duke’s man stopped her by holding onto her upper arms. Her outrage at her father grew exponentially as he and her mother exited the drawing room and closed the door without looking back at her.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

Not many minutes passed before the man named Wickham summoned the Bennet parents back into their drawing room.

Bennet felt guilt when he saw his daughter’s tear streaked cheeks. “Lizzy, did someone hurt you?” Bennet asked with genuine concern.

“Other than you Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, no one has harmed me physically.” Elizabeth glowered at the smug-looking duke when she spoke.

“Your daughter has something to tell you,” the Duke reported with an evil grin.

“I agree to marry His Grace,” Elizabeth informed her parents through gritted teeth.

“My man will hie to London to acquire a special licence and we will marry as soon as it arrives. On the day we marry, I will present you with a bank draft for the amount I agreed to provide before the birth of my heir,” the Duke revealed.

His daughter would not look at him, and Bennet remembered she had called him Mr. Bennet, not Papa. “We must meet at my brother-in-law Philips’s offices for the settlement. Without one, I will not sign the document giving my permission for my daughter to marry and then there will be no license.”

“Agreed. We can make for the solicitor’s office directly. It will be far quicker than travelling to mine in London,” the Duke allowed.

Her part done, Elizabeth fled the drawing room for her and Jane’s bedchamber.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

An hour later, Jane found her sister sobbing on the bed. Never had she seen Lizzy half as upset as she was now.

“Lizzy, what has occurred?” Jane enquired as she sat on the bed and began to rub her sister’s back to try and soothe her hurt.

“I…am…to…marry…that…reprehensible…old man,” Elizabeth managed between sobs.

“No Lizzy, please tell me it is not true,” Jane begged.

“W-wish…I…could.”

“What happened? I thought you were the one of us who would never give in on this.”

“Do…not…want…to talk…about…it.”

If anything, rather than subside, Elizabeth cried even harder than she had been before. Jane was at a loss to understand what had occurred to make her sister agree to marry the very old man.

If it were her, Jane knew she would not have been able to withstand the pressure from her mother, but Lizzy would never give in to anyone. So why had she now?

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

The Drawing room, an hour or so previously

“Talking to me alone will in no way change the fact I will never marry you, no matter what you offer my family as the price for my purchase,” Elizabeth insisted.

“Do you remember I asked if you loved your family?” the Duke questioned.

“I do, unlike you, I am still young enough to remember what was said minutes ago,” Elizabeth riposted.

Rather than get upset as she hoped he would, the Duke and his man, the one she had already grown to hate, Mr. Wickham, only grinned like fools.

“According to Wickham here,” the Duke inclined his head towards his man, “you love your older sister the most and will do anything in your power to protect her, will you not?”

“Who would not do what they could for one they love?” Elizabeth hedged.

“Indeed. If you continue to refuse me, I will tell your mother she is correct, I chose the wrong sister and I will propose to Miss Bennet. We both know she does not have the fortitude you do,” the Duke stated nonchalantly as he flicked some imaginary lint from his oversized waistcoat.

The fact he would never marry one as meek as Jane Bennet was not something the object of his desires needed to know. He had always been good at bluffing—and when needed, cheating—when playing cards.

The instant angry tears began to roll down her cheeks, Lord Archibald Chamberlain knew he had won. She would be the challenge he had wanted and he would take pleasure in bedding her to beget an heir.

“If I am to be forced to marry a vile old man, then I have some terms which are to be added to the wedding settlement…” Elizabeth had laid out a few things without which she would not agree to marry him.

“Agreed. I will have those items written into the marriage settlement,” he confirmed. “You do not want to know how much I will settle on you?”

“I care not.” Elizabeth spat out as she wiped some of her tears of anger from her eyes.

“After we marry, you will be presented at court, and then we will retire to my main estate of Falconwood,” the Duke related.

“Please summon Mr. and Mrs. Bennet back in, the sooner I am out of your company the better,” Elizabeth stated with a hard edge to her voice.

One thing she resolved, as she waited for those who had given her life but were certainly her parents no longer, was that she could not tell Jane why she had agreed to marry the heinous old man. Jane would never recover from the guilt which would plague her if she knew the truth.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

Elizabeth stuck to her resolution. She told Jane nothing regarding her reasons for accepting the old man. It was her burden to carry.

Eventually, Jane’s gentle ministrations to her back relaxed Elizabeth to the point she was overtaken by sleep. When Jane noted the change in her sister’s breathing indicating she was slumbering, she continued to rub her favourite sister’s back.

She could not even imagine the pressure which had been brought to bear on Lizzy to cause her to capitulate.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

Philips pulled his brother into his private office, leaving the Duke dictating the terms of the settlement to the law clerk.

“Bennet, you cannot condone my niece’s marriage to a man who is practically of an age to be our fathers!” Philips exclaimed.

“You see the advantages to us aligning with him. The entail, dowries…” Bennet began to answer.

“With conditions,” Philips interjected.

“There are one or two more than I expected, but nothing I am unwilling to agree to.” The guilt of Lizzy marrying this man was already lessening.

The Duke had restricted the money for his daughters as he had said he would, but the interest from the four per cents would most probably be paid out to Bennet. Another four hundred pounds per annum, which Fanny would be unaware of would purchase many books and much port after Lizzy was married.

“Does our Brother Gardiner know you are selling Lizzy for your and Fanny’s comfort?” Philips interrogated.

“Not yet, soon…” Bennet began.

“You can be sure I will be sending an express to Edward and Maddie this very day,” Philips insisted.

Bennet would have preferred to have more time before another disapproving brother remonstrated with him, but the settlement would be signed in the next hour or two so there would be nothing anyone could do to stop things. Not that Gardiner would have been able to even before the documents were signed.

Philips had had some reservations about the wording of some of the outside of the norm items which had been incorporated in the settlement, especially the additional document Bennet would have to sign. However, his disgust with his brother-in-law was so great he decided to hold his peace. If Bennet wanted to accept the terms as they had been laid out, then so be it.

The duke was settling two hundred thousand pounds on Lizzy, but what would that be worth if she was suffering in an unhappy marriage. Philips had never been more disgusted with his Bennet brother and sister.

An hour later, the settlement was signed. Also, an express rider was well on his way to London.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

“I cannot believe they would do this!” Gardiner exclaimed when he read the express from Philips.

“Edward, what is it?” Maddie enquired worriedly.

“We leave for Longbourn at first light,” Gardiner told his wife as he handed her the page.

“Yes, indeed we do,” Maddie agreed with a moue of distaste aimed at the Bennet parents.