Page 24 of The Winter of Our Discontent (Pride and Prejudice Variations #1)
I watched the admiration of one and the seemingly artless charm of the other as Yardley questioned my wife—my all-knowing, infinitely capable wife.
What an actress! She apparently knew the names and ages of all the children of Pemberley.
She had sources . She made it her business to know whether the wives on the estate were subjected to beatings and drunken belligerence.
I blinked more than once at the audacity of her performance, at the seeming earnestness of her concern.
My mind wandered. My aunt Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s oft-quoted lament about nurturing a viper in the pit of her Christian heart came to mind, and I suffered a moment of real apprehension.
I thought I could hem this creature in! I spoke inwardly in a kind of shocked realisation that I was, in fact, out of my depth and in deep and murky water.
“Sir?” Yardley was speaking.
“Forgive me. I was momentarily distracted. ”
“I was telling Mrs Darcy I ought to move to a cottage and take my place among your tenants.”
“A cottage?”
“Yes, if you have one at present unoccupied. I shall never earn the trust of a farmer’s wife if I wander back to the great house every evening to dine on pheasant.”
“I see. I have several cottages near Lambton, but they are far from the farms and very crude.”
“I have no aversion to riding. If Mrs Darcy might give me the name of a local woman to cook and clean, and if you, sir, could recommend to me a man of all work, I shall do quite well.”
“I am sure you are used to much better.”
“I can assure you the surgeon’s quarters on a frigate for three years running has cured me of all notions of luxury.”
“There is a stipend available, though that, too, is likely not what you are used to.”
He seemed amused at my attempts to dissuade him. “I see you have not read up on ship’s pay of late and more to the point, what is allotted those of us cast ashore on leave.”
Mrs Darcy looked tenderly upon our guest, which caused my resentment to flare. I wondered if next the good doctor would ask for a flail and a daily allotment of bread and water.
“Do you expect to be sent abroad again soon, Mr Yardley?” my wife was asking in the kindest of voices.
“I sail with Mayweather whenever he goes, but as it stands, he is beached for half a year or more, ma’am.”
“Mayweather—he was lately of the Lion was he not?”
“A fitting ship for him, ma’am. He wept for her when she went down.”
“How terribly sad we were to read about our losses. But I see I depress you with my irrelevant questions. If you will excuse me, I am sure my husband will send his steward to see to a cottage. Meanwhile, whenever you wish, we shall ride out so that I can make you known to all your many patients. Oh!” she said with a little blush, “I had nearly forgot. Miss Darcy charged me most particularly with a petition to look in on her companion, Mrs Annesley, who is sometimes laid quite low with her headaches.”
“I should be glad to do so,” he said, his keen grey eyes alight and his bow as effortless as any prince at court.
Richard met me later in the evening in my study—my last refuge from Mrs Darcy’s lavender scent, her books strewn here and there, and her crow eyes always pecking at me.
Yardley had conscripted Georgiana to the ranks of his worshippers by offering Mrs Annesley a packet of what looked like catnip to concoct as a tea.
Then he had said he was used to rising with the sun and begged to be excused.
I supposed he and Mrs Darcy could both fly their brooms through the canopy of trees at dawn, casting spells, and turning the milk cows to statues of salt.
“Lord, Darcy. I have never seen you look so foul tempered,” Richard said as he shut the door behind him.
“I begin to hate my life,” I growled from where I lay sprawled out in my chair with my legs thrown carelessly on my desk.
Richard walked to the window, framed by folds of brocade. He swept the drapery aside and peered out into the cold November night. The garden and lake beyond were faintly lit by a gibbous moon just emerging from a thin veil of cloud.
“Ah yes. I can certainly see how miserable things must be for you,” he said, his attention returning to the room and pointedly taking in its warmth and opulence .
“Shove off. You know nothing about my life.”
“Very well. I leave in the morning.”
“Where to?”
“Belgium.”
I snorted. “Hard duty, Cousin.”
Richard’s jaunty air hardened. “Aye, an orgy of pleasure. We are trying to form a coalition. I would as soon try nailing pudding to a tree or train ducks to parade.”
“Do you come for Christmas?”
“I dearly hope so. Porge wants me.”
“I cannot imagine why.”
“I am the only one of her guardians who smiles. But enough fighting for now. You really should not have married the woman if you were not going to try to make something of it. Honour be damned.”
“What evil streak makes you so keen to counsel me?”
“You are so ripe for provoking I find you irresistible in this mood. But you will have to wallow in your misery here in this backwater hovel with your baseborn wife. I am away to the continent to eat blintzes and dance the Austrian waltz.”
“I wish you safe travels.”
“You know I wish you well, Darcy. Come Christmas, I shall do better by you and make you smile.”
“Come Christmas, you had better be right side up with me, or I shall have you pitched out of the kitchen door with the table scraps,” I said irritably, but I will own, my cousin had somehow made me feel slightly less miserable.