Love is in the Air–a Sneak Peek at a work in progress…

Good morning! Hope you all will enjoy this little nugget which is a part of a larger work I have going.  We begin in London where Darcy has been summoned to the Matlock town house by his cousins for an important announcement!

No one has edited this and I am probably the worst proofreader in the world so please forgive the clangers!

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Darcy went into his uncle’s house one blustery morning in February, and found Colonel Fitzwilliam standing over the billiards table with Sir Frederick Moore, the particular friend of his elder cousin Viscount Saye. The two men did not appear to be in the middle of any game and merely stood there with port in their hands. The two men greeted him and Darcy accepted a drink from Fitzwilliam. “Where is Saye?” 

“Went to his bedchamber to get something,” Fitzwilliam replied. “Said it was of utmost importance that we all see it.” 

Darcy shrugged just as Saye entered holding a hat box from one of the best haberdashers in London. He gave Darcy a curt nod and said, “‘Bout time you turned up.” 

“What is this about?”

With a grand flourish, Saye plunked the box in the centre of the billiards table. “This,” he announced, “is my box.”

Nonplussed the others merely looked at it. “You had better not damage the baize, Saye,” Fitzwilliam remarked. “His lordship will have your hide.” 

“How ever would my box damage the baize?” Saye shot his brother an incredulous sneer. “You do say the most stupid things sometimes.” 

“Very well, a hat box. So what?” Darcy took a sip of his drink. 

“One of you greenhorns may open it if you like,” Saye turned to pour himself a drink even as Sir Frederick scoffed at the appellation of greenhorn.  

Fitzwilliam rolled his eyes at Darcy who said in low tones, “Just open it, let’s get this done.” 

Fitzwilliam did as bid. Inside was a collection of fabrics in every colour, some fashionable and fine and others decidedly not. While the two others looked on, Fitzwilliam used his hand to stir the scraps about until he determined there was nothing else in the box. He looked up at his brother, who stood smirking with hand on hip, and said, “Have you taken up sewing? Is this your mending?” 

Sir Frederick laughed, and said, “I have some stockings for you, Saye!” 

“Hardly.” Saye chuckled. Then with a quirk of his brow, he said, “These, my fine fellows, are my…bits of muslin.” 

“Bits of muslin?” Sir Frederick asked as Fitzwilliam said, “You do not mean—”

“The ladies I have loved.” Saye sighed and tucked his own hand into the box, rifling through the scraps wistfully. “Generous souls, kind enough to permit me some liberties and foolish enough to grant me a souvenir of the event.”

Darcy frowned at him. “You should be ashamed of yourself if you were the ruination, or even contributed to the ruination of such a vast quantity of women. I shall not believe it of you Saye. Even you are not so much a reprobate.”

Saye waved a hand at him. “A few kisses here, a tickle of the fichu there. No one was complaining I assure you. In any case, I must give it up now.”

“But why?” asked Sir Frederick. 

The lid of the box was then replaced. Saye laid his hands, palms down, on top of his box and closed his eyes, his attitude mimicking that of a penitent in prayer. “It would be unseemly for a husband to have such a box in his possession.” He opened his eyes and announced gravely, “I shall consign it to the flames.”

Darcy, and the two others apparently, were too amused by his theatrics to have an immediate response. At last Fitzwilliam asked, “You are getting married?”

Sir Frederick asked, “I did not even know you had your mind on any lady in particular.” 

In reply to this query, Saye produced a page from his coat, unfolding it with great ceremony.

“Is this what you have laboured over these past several days?” Fitzwilliam asked.  “I have seen you hard at work and could not imagine what had so captured your interest.” 

Saye possessed a shocking ability to be methodical at times. While he was rather indifferent to most of life’s plans and rituals, when he was scheming, he planned with alacrity.

“Only an excessively worthy endeavour could have extracted such labour from me,” Saye agreed. “’Twas no easy matter; the ladies of London have been abundant and pleasing this year but I daresay I have whittled them down to the best of the lot. Nearly my entire autumn has been spent separating the wheat from the chaff.”

He drew a deep breath, raised his hand and brandished the page towards his friends. “And now, gentlemen, I present to you my wife candidates.”

Fitzwilliam took the sheet from his brother and although he almost hated to know, Darcy looked over his shoulder to see the names on the page, and found himself looking at a chart. 

“Good lord, Saye, what have you done?” Fitzwilliam asked.  

“There was an enormous scandal when Father was still at university,” Saye explained. “The gentleman of that era had some habit, it seems, of scoring the eligible females of the ton.” 

“Scoring them?” Darcy asked. 

“I have heard of this,” Sir Frederick said excitedly.  

“They drew up a sheet just as the one you see before you and assigned marks for beauty, figure, grace, and the like—just as you see here. In any case, someone got hold of it and it was published in The Morning Post. As you might imagine, everyone was enraged, there were at least five duels in the next week, and two ladies cried off of their engagements.” 

“So naturally, seeing that it caused widespread offense and scandal, you wished to revive the custom?” Darcy asked, being sure to sound as sarcastic as he could.

His censure was lost on Saye who smiled and nodded, saying, “Just so. A splendid system, in my opinion. I began with a list of every female aged eighteen and over who are among London’s good families,” Saye explained. “Then I considered her fortune, her person and her education.”

“Education? I am surprised that was of any consequence to you.”

“Oh indeed it is,” Saye replied earnestly. “I could not abide having fools roam about Matlock, could I?  We have Richard, and that is idiocy enough for any house.” 

Fitzwilliam replied with a half-hearted elbow to his brother’s ribs. 

“Of course that still left me with quite a few so I spoke to some people over the autumn, found out who had embarrassed themselves at the various house parties and such…eliminated them for various causes from a general dislike of any of their family members to rumours of shrewishness. I also had a good hard look at the mothers—best way to tell how a woman will age you know. That left me with thirty to which I applied these scores, and then narrowed to the top twelve.”

“And a fine group it is!” Sir Frederick enthused. “Shall you propose to the highest score?” 

“No, no,” Saye assured them. “I am no mathematician. Having ranked them so I now intend to woo them in the usual way. I intend to dance with them, to call, to promenade, to take tea. ’Tis the Season of Saye!—and I shall use it to my best advantage. These ladies will receive my full attention until I find them wanting.”

“What if they find you wanting?” asked Darcy.

It was proof of Saye’s overall assuredness that he could not take offence at such a remark.

Historical note: the chart shown was real, published in the Morning Post on October 2 1776 and it is true that no one is certain of its authorship, but the scandals and duels I mentioned are my own embellishments to the tale

Other note: I have no idea what this book will be called… this bit could end up on a virtual cutting room floor some day but I hope you enjoyed it anyway!