Shock rooted Darcy to the comfortable seat of the chair. Dear Lord in Heaven, who else could Lady Catherine have gloated to? After a polite knock on the door to the parlour, Burke stepped in.
“Lady Matlock to see Miss Darcy,” he announced in a solemn voice.
Both Darcy and his sister had barely scrambled to their feet when the door swung wide open and back against the wall. Lady Matlock’s skirts preceded her into the room, a great rustling advance guard of dark green taffeta, and then the rest of her followed like a summer storm.
Upon spying Darcy, hisaunt marched up to him and jabbed him sharply in the shoulder.
“How dare you marry Anne without so much as a word to us?” she snapped, her voice pitched with indignation.
“I am not married to Anne,” Darcy repeated, for the second time that day.
Lady Matlock produced a folded sheet of paper; its edges already creased from anxious hands. “I hold a letter from my husband’s sister that states otherwise. Catherine claims you and Anne were wed by Special License and then shut yourselves away at Pemberley for three months. I came at once to fetch Georgiana, convinced you had abandoned her and Mrs. Annesley to fend for themselves.”
He drew a steadying breath. “She has been deliberately misinformed.”
“Explain your meaning.”
“Anne andRichardwere married two weeks ago.”
“Married? Richard?” The countess reeled back as though struck, one trembling hand darting to the nearest chair to steady herself before collapsing into it, rendered suddenly frail. For a long moment, she sat utterly still, eyes wide, mouth parting and then flattening into a thin line of fury. “My son — married — without even so much as a note to his own mother? Me, who has prayed for his welfare these many years? My son…who vowed never to wed. My son,” she thundered, her voice echoing beneath the vaulted ceiling, “who has never disappointed me so bitterly.”
Darcy knelt beside her, placing a gentle hand on her forearm. He struggled to temper his remorse.
“Aunt,” he said softly, “circumstances demanded haste. Anne insisted on marrying Richard at once, and we deemed it essential to remove her from her mother’s influence. Had Lady Catherine known—”
“Is Anne not of age? Does Catherine keep her daughter chained in an attic? They did not even extend the courtesy of allowing us, his father and I, the privilege of witnessing our son’s wedding.” Lady Matlock sprang up and began to pace, her skirts swaying in rhythmic agitation, a sight Darcy had never witnessed. Her usual calm was replaced by a fierce resolve that spelled trouble for his cousins, and perhaps for him, too. He was also responsible for the ruse.
“We should have sent an express to inform you and Lord Matlock,” he conceded quietly, meeting her cold, gleaming stare. She paused mid-stride and sank into another chair, deliberately distant. No more comforting gestures, he thought idly.
“Why does this family kowtow to that woman?” his aunt wondered out loud.
“She possesses a… commanding personality,” he began, then stopped when his aunt made a cutting motion with her hand. Not wishing to argue further, he resumed his seat near Georgiana.
“Spare me the dramatics! You are a grown man, master of an extensive estate with hundreds of tenants and servants, and yet you are incapable of telling an aged woman that you will not marry her daughter.” The withering glance she shot at him pierced him to the core. “I once recommended a suitable match, and you, in that famously frigid ‘Master of Pemberley’ tone, informed me that you would choose your own bride, thank you very much. Why could you not do the same to Catherine?”
Darcy settled back against the plush arm of the chair. He hadno answer, only the echoing question of “when”. When had he relinquished authority, wielded all his life, to the whims of his mother’s sister? Until Elizabeth, no other had ever held such sway over him.
“Brother.” Georgiana’s soft voice cut through the storm of his thoughts. “Perhaps now would be a good time to share your news with our aunt.”
The suggestion landed like a stone dropped into still water. His “good news,” rather than dampening his aunt’s righteous fury, would be as effective as pouring oil on an open flame. He could already picture the colour rising in her cheeks, the particular set of her jaw that preceded her most withering pronouncements.
“I do not think–” he began.
“That much is plain,” Lady Matlock said. “Georgiana, you will tell me. At least your word I can rely upon.”
The remark stung like a slap to cold skin. He had always considered his integrity beyond reproach. And yet, he and his cousins had deceived their aunt. For the greater good, he maintained. It had been for the greater good, had it not? Had they miscalculated? But the deed was done, sealed as firmly as a letter already posted. There was no undoing it, and whatever followed, welcome or otherwise, would have to be borne.
“I am courting a young lady,” he said, offering nothing further. He had no wish to add fresh fuel to the fire.
“Courting,” his aunt repeated, drawing the word out as though examining it for flaws. “And am I permitted to know her name, or shall I simply wait to read of the elopement in the papers?”
“She is someone I understand you hold in considerable esteem. There will be no elopement.”
“Has she a name?”
“Lady Elizabeth Bennet.”
For the second time that afternoon, Lady Matlock sank back in her chair, though this time the lines of her face rearranged themselves entirely, the severity dissolving into something almost girlish with pleasure.