Authors: Elizabeth Ann West
In the drawing room, the ladies were of a decidedly different bent. As Kitty was asked to pour the tea in her first official practice of London living, Mrs. Gardiner started the conversation about the upcoming plans to visit her home county of Derbyshire.
“It is such a lovely place, with rolling hills and stunning pastures. There is a particular shade of green that I confess I miss with all my heart.” Mrs. Gardiner reminisced and carefully stirred her tea. She tried to keep her emotions under good regulation, but a wave of homesickness flooded her heightened senses, and her eyes began to mist over. Not wishing to make the girls uncomfortable, she looked up at the ceiling for a moment and then back down with a warm smile back in place.
“I am so happy to hear we share a home county! Our home is my favorite place in all of England. Just wait until we can walk the gardens, Elizabeth, and I can’t wait to see you plan your roses,” Georgiana exclaimed.
Elizabeth coughed on her tea, but steadied herself. “Pardon me, but my roses?”
Georgiana nodded most enthusiastically. “Yes, all of the Mistresses of Pemberley plan their own rose gardens. I spend more time in my mother’s, but I do also like Great-Grandmother Darcy’s circular path of increasingly deeper shades of pink.”
“There is more than one rose garden at your home?” Kitty asked.
Georgiana looked at the three Bennet sisters and realized she had committed a faux pas. She hadn’t meant to emphasize the difference in their stations, and her brother had warned her of just that very thing.
Mrs. Gardiner patted Elizabeth’s hand and offered her a warm smile. “How foolish of us to make all of these plans about your Easter trip! Dash over to your uncle’s study, and see if the gentlemen are finished with their smoke, would you, dear?”
Elizabeth agreed silently and placed her teacup and saucer on the table to her left.
She calmly exited the room but her mind was racing. She was expected to plan a garden? A garden that would stand as a testament to her abilities for generations to come? Just how much responsibility had she taken on without proper consideration? The expanse of Pemberley grew by epic proportions in her mind as she considered just how large an estate must be to have multiple rose gardens. As she neared the door, she took a few moments to gather her wits when she could hear Mr. Darcy’s voice loudly from inside.
“And she wanted a second silver serving set just to be prepared should the Earl and Countess come to call and the first one be tarnished! I tell you, if we hadn’t escaped, I might have just told the woman she could live at Pemberley to stop all of the shopping excursions!”
Elizabeth’s cheeks burned as she could hear her uncle and Richard laugh along with her fiance at the silliness of her mother. Incensed, her loyalty immediately flew to her family. Elizabeth felt very indignant that Mr. Darcy had no right, no right whatsoever, to make fun of her mother. Didn’t he realize that as a daughter of a solicitor, a visit from his aunt and uncle would very likely be the highlight of her life as a widow? How could he be so cruel?
Biting her lip, Elizabeth set her features to channel the serenity of her older sister, Jane, as she knocked on the door. With no response, she knocked once more, more purposely, and her small knuckles finally made a pert, hollow sound the men inside could hear. The laughter immediately stopped and the door swung open to show her uncle’s perspiring and ruddy face.
“Aunt wished for me to see if you gentlemen would care to join us as we are discussing the upcoming trip to Matlock.” Elizabeth curtsied and turned on her heel without waiting for a response.
“Oh, dear.” Mr. Gardiner said, and he quickly turned around to look at the man he largely considered to be his future son-in-law, if not in name, then at least in spirit. “I do believe we are about to enter the lion’s den, my lads.”
“I’d say we should all guard our loins, but I think only Darcy here needs to take that advice.”
“The cavalry man being cavalier, how novel,” Darcy spouted, dryly. In actuality, his heart thumped wildly against his chest, and his stomach felt unsettled. How much of his unburdening had Elizabeth heard? His palms slick with cold sweat, he downed the last of his drink and exited the room as a man ready to face the music.
Instinct told him to take a detour to the sitting room by way of the dining room. Handsomely rewarded, Elizabeth stood on the opposite side of the room with her back to him. He cleared his throat but she didn’t turn.
“I believe I owe you an apology. What you heard—”
“Was not your honest opinion? Was not true? Pray tell me, which is it?” She stood as a statue for a moment awaiting his response. Behind her, Mr. Darcy simply opened and closed his mouth a few times, confounded with finding the right words to say.
She turned around with angry tears poised to fall. Darcy was stricken, and as she looked at his face, pale with concern, she blinked her eyes a few times and the deluge released. Within moments of closing her eyes to try to stem the flow of tears, she felt once again the comfort of being in his arms.
“Elizabeth, sweet Elizabeth,” he whispered. Registering his voice, she shoved him away.
“No, sir! You are not permitted to embrace me and make me forget my feelings.”
“I make you forget your anger when I hold you?” he asked, trying to diminish her distress with distraction.
“That is not the salient point, sir. What I meant is you may not come walking into this room—”
“This room in particular? I had no idea I was banned from the dining room.” Darcy sniffed as he looked around, pretending to be offended.
“Again, you are twisting my words!”
“I’ve learned from the best, my little rabbit.” And in a rare show of flirtation, Fitzwilliam Reginald George Darcy wrinkled his nose up and down, and his Elizabeth laughed. After a few moments of listening to her tinkling laughter and resisting the temptation to whisk her off her adorable feet, Darcy remained patient. “I am most truly and humbly sorry.”
Elizabeth sighed and wrapped her arms around her intended to embrace him for once. Her hands could barely meet around the back of his coat, and taking a deep breath, she slightly squeezed. The feeling was still a shock to Darcy. He froze, unsure of what advances she would welcome from him. Eventually, he relaxed and embraced her back with gentle pressure. All too soon, she pulled away.
“Just because you have not heard the worst of my words about your aunt, does not mean I did not utter them. We both have relations that . . .”
“That we would wish to banish to the Colonies?”
Elizabeth shook her head.
“Not invite to dinner?”
Biting her lip, Elizabeth nodded. Catching Mr. Darcy’s eyes, she released her grim expression and couldn’t help but smile at the dashing man before her.
Lifting her hand and pressing his lips against the back of it, he gave her a smile that showed off his dimples. “Madam, if we can endeavor to resolve our differences in such a manner once we are married, then I prognosticate a truly happy union, indeed.”
Elizabeth’s heart fluttered at his mention of their future married state as she allowed him to escort her back to the sitting room for further discussion of their trip.
A small voice continued to complain in the back of her mind with certainty that she could never live up to the expectations of being Mrs. Darcy of Pemberley. These whispers nagged her from the dark corners of her insecurity. But for a night, she made an effort to banish those thoughts for another time and resolved to end at least one dinner party with Mr. Darcy on a happy note.
Chapter Seven
Bleary-eyed, Fitzwilliam Darcy finished his tenth letter for the morning before setting his pen down and rubbing his face with the palm of his hand. A yawn escaped from his mouth as the door to his study was knocked upon. “Enter.” He leaned back in his chair as his sister came into the room, clearly ebullient from a well-rested night. Darcy, meanwhile, had suffered through two weeks of early rising to finish his work before a reasonable hour in order to pay a call on the Gardiner residence and then return or stay for dinner and an evening’s entertainment.
“Good morning, William. It’s quite warm out today, and I’ve just received a note back from Mary. We are in agreement for a picnic this afternoon with the Miss Bennets in Hyde Park.” Georgiana smiled brightly and made a tiny clapping motion with her hands.
“I am happy to hear the plans are set. Have you visited the kitchens to discuss this with Mrs. Palmer?”
Georgiana’s smile faded. “Er, no. Would not Mrs. Kensington take care of the details?”
“To be sure, she is most capable of planning a small picnic, but I think it best for you to undertake this excursion. Good practice for your own future and all that.” A small pout began to quiver on his sister’s lip, and Darcy laughed. “None of that false fear, if you please. Now off with you, I am too exhausted to trifle with any silliness you have planned to play at this morning.”
Making a face at her much older brother, Georgiana Darcy curtsied and exited her brother’s study. This new workload he was placing on her shoulders was most vexing, and she was beginning to find truth in what her brother and cousin had always told her. There was truly no fun in growing up.
Giving his arms a stretch, Darcy looked once more over his correspondence before growling at a pile of at least another fifteen letters that all required his reply. He glanced at the clock on the mantle and resolved to respond to five more before he had to leave to meet with his solicitor. Mending his pen and opening a new bottle of ink, the Master of Pemberley and other properties set back to work.
Across the city on Gracechurch Street, Elizabeth Bennet was happy to entertain her younger cousins with tales of the daring Bennet sisters in Hertfordshire so many years ago. After telling of the time she and Jane triumphed over the mean Lucas’ boys by disguising a rather deep mud puddle with well-placed sticks and foliage, young Master Gardiner only wondered one thing.
“Did your Papa whip you?” he asked, eyes wide. Since being warned of such a fate by his own father last week for running in the hall and knocking into Mother, Peter Gardiner was very keen to know more about what did and did not constitute a whipping offense.
Shocked at the mention of her father, Elizabeth took a beat to swallow and considered her answer. Her father had never raised a hand to any of his daughters. She shook her head and gave her young cousins a weak smile.
“My papa would have! He does not like it when you break the rules.”
“Only when breaking the rules can hurt another, Peter. Now you two are late for your lessons, and Nanny is waiting.” Mrs. Gardiner appeared with a bouquet of lovely daffodils in her arms and swooshed into the room to replace the wilted flowers hanging limply in a vase positioned in the main window. Her two children scurried up the stairs without argument. “I hope they didn’t distress you much.”
“Not at all. I was happy to give Nanny Pierce a break.” Elizabeth rose to take over the flower arranging duties from her aunt. Mrs. Gardiner collapsed into a chair and fanned her face. Smirking, Elizabeth turned away from observing her aunt and stood on her tiptoes to see higher over the vase to the street beyond. The hustle and bustle of the street was too chaotic for her to make out very much, but a strange man standing on the far street corner gave her pause. He wasn’t moving, and he was too far for Elizabeth to see the details of his face, heavily shrouded by his hat. Shrugging, she reasoned he must be waiting to deliver a message or have other such business to conduct.
Seeing her aunt still in distress, Elizabeth picked up the footstool and moved it closer to her aunt’s feet, helping her to prop them up. “I could have called a maid,” the older woman scolded Elizabeth, who just responded with a wan smile.
“I carefully balanced the needs of my dearest relation with the convenience of waiting for a servant and ultimately concluded that I could indeed deign to move a mighty footstool.” The two women shared a laugh, and Elizabeth took a seat near her aunt. Mrs. Gardiner couldn’t help herself and absently rubbed the small, growing bump in her midsection. Noticing her niece eyeing her hands’ movements, Madeline Gardiner looked down and blushed.
“Forgive me; I suppose the surprise your uncle and I planned to share at dinner tonight is ruined.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “We all knew you were expecting weeks ago.” Madeline Gardiner’s mouth dropped in shock.
“Was I so very transparent?”
Again, Elizabeth laughed and shook her head. “No, but I’ve practically spent half a year here every year since I’ve been out. I’ve witnessed all of your symptoms for all four of the children.”
Wincing slightly, Mrs. Gardiner adjusted her posture to stop the aches and pains of her body accommodating itself to the life growing inside. “I don’t recall feeling so tired and worn with the other four. Oooh.”
Elizabeth worried as her aunt’s face paled, and she quickly stood up. “I will send for the doctor. And Uncle.”
“You will do no such thing! Sit back down!” Her aunt continued to take a few breaths through her nose and then suddenly smiled. “This is nothing but normal. I’m sorry you had to witness my imposition.”
Slowly, Elizabeth returned to her chair and arched her eyebrows. “Are you sure I shouldn’t tell Uncle?”
“I simply tried to do a little too much this morning, and my body is reminding me to slow down. Now, forget me for a moment. Let’s talk about you while we have the privacy. Do you have any questions about your future with Mr. Darcy?” Elizabeth reddened and looked away. Mrs. Gardiner reached over to pat her hands. “It’s perfectly safe, dear. Women do talk about these things, and you are very soon to be married. I’ve watched him with you, and I don’t think you have anything to fear in that corner.”