Tempted Chapter Three

Well, here we are at Chapter Three!  I hope you are all staying healthy and well. I keep working away at this beast, trying to make it mind.

This week’s offering includes a bit of  Elizabeth’s back story, but that will not be the case in every chapter.  I think you’ll find that the Bennets are still the Bennets, no matter where or when they live, and a Darcy is still a Darcy even when he gets sucked into managing something he never wanted.

Enjoy, and stay tuned for next week! If you’re catching up, you can read Chapters  One and Two here.

 

 

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Wyoming, United States
April 1900

“The English are so strange!” Katherine Bennet, better known as Kitty among her sisters, crossed her arms and gazed out the window at the street below.

“Why do you say so, Kitty?” her eldest sister asked mildly. Jane reclined with one of Elizabeth’s books, trying to remain focused on the authoress’ hundred-year-old dialect as she whiled away the afternoon.

“They send ever so many officers over for the horses. Look, five new men in uniform have just come from the train.”

“More English men in uniform?” gasped Lydia, the youngest. She bolted to the window and fairly shoved her older sister aside to afford herself a better view. “Oh, I simply adore the way they talk! I could listen to them prattle on about tea and crumpets all day!”

“It is not tea, but war they speak of, Lydia,” admonished Mary. “If you listened to more than their accents, you might know that.”

“Yes, but why should I bother? None of it makes any sense to me, but it makes me giggle every time they say ‘R-oi-ght, then!’”

“Oh,” Kitty sniggered, “or the way they walk so stiffly, as if they had a broom handle stuffed up the backs of their coats.”

“All soldiers must march like that, Kitty, not just the English ones,” Jane said.

“I do not think it at all proper,” Mary interjected, “that we ought to mock men of good character so.”

“Who said they had good characters? Anyway, it does not matter, as Uncle Gardiner will not allow us to speak to them.” Lydia pouted and flopped to the sofa seat beside Jane.

“Lydia,” the eldest sister reasoned gently, “we are living in his house now. Surely, our uncle has a right to determine whom he will host in his own home, and since he provides for us, we must heed his wishes.”

“Oh, bother, Jane. Father is paying him for our board, you know,” Kitty protested.

Jane opened her mouth to explain how very much more the generous keep on six women must cost their uncle than the meagre amount their father provided each month, but it was a fruitless argument.

“Oh, my girls!” The door burst open to admit their mother. “You will never guess what I have just heard! That Colonel Marcus—you know, I always thought him such an agreeable man, though your father did not—his replacement just arrived today, and he came to pay his respects to your uncle. The new colonel is named Fitzherbert, or something like that it was, and he is the son of a duke back in England! Fancy that, girls! Why, he must be the wealthiest soldier in the whole army, and he has come here! What a fine thing it is!”

“Come, Fanny—” a stern, masculine voice issued from behind her—“you must not go on so.”

“Oh! Uncle, is it true?” Kitty and Lydia bounded to their uncle with pleading eyes and softly clinging hands. “Can such a man truly exist?”

“I saw him in the general store,” Mary said. “He surely does. Oh, Lydia, you act as if he is descended from Apollo! He is just another Englishman.”

“But a duke’s son!” cried the youngest. “Uncle, please tell me if it is true!”

“Not entirely,” Uncle Gardiner finally managed. “He is the son of an earl, which is a considerable step down from a duke if I understand properly. I would wager he is a second or third son, or he would not be in the army but back in England, living in style. So, you see Fanny, he is not quite the prize you first took him to be. Be good enough to let the poor man alone to attend his duties while he remains in the area.”

“I shall not believe you,” objected his sister. “Even the second son of an English earl must have his means, and to have been given such a prestigious appointment! He must be very well connected.”

“Mother,” Jane reasoned, “I do not think they give the horse buyers much honour within the regiment. I think if you were to ask him, he would much prefer to be commanding soldiers.”

Mrs Bennet would not be deterred. “But that is so dangerous! No, surely the preferred appointments are ones such as these, where a colonel may still wear his uniform and serve his country in safety.”

“Now, Fanny,” Mr Gardiner asserted with finality, “you may put such notions aside. English soldiers do not come to the American frontier in search of a wife. If they entertain feminine companionship at all, it is not done with regard to the dignity of the lady. While under my roof, I will not allow—”

He never finished his statement, for at that moment, the door opened behind him. Elizabeth’s entry might have passed quietly enough, had her mother not determined to enlist her aid against her uncle. Apart from Jane, who had already mildly disagreed with her, Elizabeth was the only one of her daughters who had ever proved capable of dissuading Mr Gardiner from his course.

“Lizzy!” she bubbled. “Oh, Lizzy, did you see all the officers just come from the train?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes, I heard something about that. I think most of them had already gone off to the corrals by the time I returned. Oh, Jane, I knew you would like that book! Tell me, how far have you come?”

Jane held up the book with a faintly wan expression. “Five chapters worth of flowery prose. You said it gets better?”

“Oh yes, most assuredly.”

“Lizzy!” interrupted her mother. “You must hear all about the new officers! Did you know that Colonel Marcus is to be replaced?”

“I believe it was his replacement I encountered on the way home. Rather high-handed, if I do say so. Oh, Uncle Edward, Father said he needs a new order of shoes and nails for the remounts.”

“I will see he gets them, Lizzy.” He smiled, a twinkling expression of victory, and patted his niece on the shoulder. “Mary and Lydia, I believe it is your turn to help your aunt in the general store this afternoon. Run along, girls, for she has several new bolts of fabric to sort and shelve.”

Mary stood placidly enough, but Lydia began to whimper. As the youngest daughter of Thomas Bennet, former Angus rancher, one would naturally expect that she had encountered her share of work. However, by the time of Lydia’s birth, the ranch had known several years of relative prosperity. All had been comfortable indeed before that last year when sickness had struck down the Bennet herds and forced the family into insurmountable debt. Lydia’s days of hard labour had been short enough, and she felt, with all the more resentment, the demands her uncle placed upon her in exchange for her keep.

An instant after expressing her typical reluctance, however, a new thought came to her. She flushed up, her eyes and cheeks bright, and turned to a little looking-glass at the end of the room to see that her hair fell as she liked it.

“I believe,” Uncle Gardiner commented drily, “that the British have all gone on to their duties with the horses, Lydia.”

“Uncle—” she came near, her tones serious and wheedling—“do you not think I should wear my hair up, as do Jane and Lizzy? It would look so much better for working behind the counter. I think I could sell twice the fabric and notions to the lady customers if I looked the part.”

“When you turn seventeen, and not a day before. Off with you, now!”

Lydia scowled slightly, then turned to give herself one last look in the glass. She tilted her head, pressed back her shoulders, and gave a sharp tug at the back of her blouse to wrap it more snugly into her skirts.

Uncle Gardiner cleared his throat.

Lydia sighed loudly and departed with Mary.

“Lizzy, how was Father today?” enquired Jane.

“Oh, I do wish you would not ride out to that horrid place alone!” Mrs Bennet lamented. “Goodness knows what might befall you in that horse camp.”

“While there, I am always with Father,” Elizabeth objected. “He is well today, by the way. You know he was kicked last week, but he is mending well enough.”

“Lizzy,” Uncle Gardiner sighed, “I fear your mother is right. There are simply too many strange men about town now. I do not think you should be riding alone—no, not even with one of your sisters. Perhaps Billy Collins can ride with you. I do not think any will trouble you so long as you have a man with you.”

Elizabeth groaned. Not her cousin! Billy could scarcely sit a horse without being strapped to the saddle, and nobody prattled such banalities! “What of John Lucas, Uncle? We would be safe with him, I am sure.”

“John Lucas works for Mr Drysdale now and will be wanted at the rail yard. I can spare Billy well enough.”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes toward Jane, finding a sympathetic gaze awaiting her. Uncle could spare their cousin so well because Billy was essentially worthless, and everyone knew it—save for Billy. That Uncle Gardiner still kept their cousin employed was more a testament to his generosity than any merit on Billy’s part.

“Come, Lizzy,” soothed their uncle. “I know you will not argue with me. You heard what happened with Mary King—why, it makes my blood boil just to think of it! I cannot bear for such to befall you on your visits to your father.”

Elizabeth was still pouting, but only faintly. In a last half-hearted objection, she offered, “Mary King was walking alone after dark, Uncle Edward. I am mounted during the day.”

Her uncle only lifted a brow, shaking his head. Dearly as she loved him, she could do little but concede.

“Cheer up, Lizzy,” chirped Kitty. “Just wait until Mother tells you all about the new colonel. He is a duke’s son!”

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London
July 1900

“Darcy, my ears must be deceiving me. Tell me you have not fallen to the arts of that chit from the wilds of America! Why did you not send her packing at once?”

Darcy’s knee bounced as he sought words to appease his relation. “The ladies had nowhere else to turn, Aunt. They may indeed have no claims upon our family, but no gentleman could turn them out, friendless and distraught as they are.”

“Distraught!” The Dowager Countess of Matlock waved her laced handkerchief and dabbed her eyes. “If anyone has reason to be so, it must be I—just widowed, and now this news about my dearest boy! Certainly not this nameless hussy of no family and no class. What connection can she possibly have to my son? It is all a sham and a lie, Darcy, and I cannot fathom how you have succumbed to her ill-gotten tale of woe.”

“I have the truth of it in Richard’s own hand, Aunt—or, at least, enough of it that I believe the rest she has summarised for me. Richard wrote of her while he was there, and then again after he reached South Africa.”

“He told you he was married? I do not believe it.”

“Not in so many words….” Darcy hesitated. “He spoke of the lady and that there was something more he wished to tell me, but I suspect his sense of delicacy and the demands of his circumstances prevented him from writing all. It was an exceedingly short note, barely more than an assurance of his safe arrival in Capetown. One does not entrust the announcement of his marriage to such an abbreviated missive. He said he would write again soon, but he never did.”

“That girl has presumed upon us during a time of tragedy. I will not have her polluting my house, and I insist you send her away from yours before my niece is infected with her atrocious manners.”

“I have not found her manners to be particularly wanting. Uncultured, to be sure, but not deliberately so. She flaunts all that alarming frankness of her breed and is understandably unsettled just now, but she is not impolite or demanding, and neither is her sister. Their male escort—a cousin from what I understand—is less prepossessing.”

“Darcy, do you not hear yourself? She is not alone and friendless! Turn her out, I say, and let her trouble another family with her lies!”

“What is this?” Reginald Fitzwilliam, recently made Ninth Earl of Matlock, breezed into the room, still fussing with his buttons. “Mother, you will have all the servants listening at the doors. Lower your voice, I insist!”

“I shall do no such thing!” retorted his lady mother. “Have you not heard what Darcy has done? That creature who tried to call last week, claiming a relation to us, has asserted that Richard married her while he was in America. And Darcy has taken her in, offered her party hospitality, of all things!”

Matlock shifted wide eyes to Darcy. “You don’t say. Richard married? I do not believe it.”

“She appears to have a legitimate marriage certificate. I was no more inclined to credit her story than you, but from piecing together the facts I know with what she has told me, I believe she is truthful. If that be the case, and she is married to Richard, it is our duty to see her cared for until…”

A choking sound from his aunt stopped him, and Darcy paused and lowered his eyes in sympathy. He had not been without his own private displays of grief, but a lady and a mother was permitted some more public liberties. His poor aunt had not been at all herself since her husband’s sudden death a month ago, and now this.

“There, there, Mother,” Reginald soothed. “They will have this all sorted out in no time, you shall see. No one simply disappears from the battlefield. Richard’s rank is some protection—like enough, he was captured for ransom.”

Darcy leaned slightly forward. “Have you heard anything?”

“Not yet, but I have made inquiries. I was just over at Whitehall again this morning. If someone captured him for money, they will get it. It turns my stomach to bargain with such tactics, but for Richard’s sake, I would barter with the devil.”

“You have my full support, whatever the demand. I hope they will be satisfied with English gold.”

“Thank you, Darcy. I knew we could count on your help. Now, Mother, let me ring for your maid. Darcy and I have some matters to discuss, and we should not like to burden you with such talk.”

The dowager countess sniffed and tossed back her shoulders. “You needn’t coddle me as if I were some fainting lily. Was it not I who raised two fine sons and kept the estate solvent while my husband found his amusements elsewhere? But I know very well when a woman’s sentiments are not wanted in the room. You needn’t ring, for I am perfectly capable of finding my own way. I shall bid you a good day, Darcy, and heed my words! That strumpet will bring nothing but trouble.”

Darcy stood as his aunt rose. “Good afternoon, Aunt.”

Reginald sighed in relief as she departed, then beckoned to a side table. “Dear Mother! That telegram nearly killed her, you know. We all thought it could never happen! Do not be too much put out with her, for it is only the shock of it all that has brought on this pettiness.” He poured them each a snifter of brandy, then sagged into a chair with his glass.

“You needn’t apologise for her. We are all out of sorts over the affair.” Darcy finished his drink and set the empty glass aside, turning it thoughtfully on the surface of a side table. “Have you thought of writing directly to some of his fellow officers in the Derbyshires? His superiors may be restricted to the official line, but others might be more helpful. Perhaps a more subversive approach would yield some answers.”

Reginald’s brow furrowed. “No, I had not. I wonder how I could know whom to write. I have already shaken down every secretary and general I could find, and I am now rather a conspicuously unwelcome figure about the war offices.”

“I saw Bellamy at the club the day before the telegram came, and he said his cousin is stationed at Pretoria. I will ask him to send a letter for me.”

“Capital notion, Darcy. Yes, perhaps there is more to the story. The official report, or as much of it as I could glean, is that Richard’s squadron was ambushed at Roodeval on the seventh of June. Nearly all of them were killed and their bodies stripped of uniforms and weapons, but some vanished without a trace. Do not tell Mother, but I shudder to think what those poor devils must be suffering!”

“There were none who escaped with their lives?”

“Six, all bloodied and barely this side of the grave.”

“Are all the dead identified?”

“From what I heard, yes. No chance that any of them could have been Richard. I suppose I should thank heaven for that, but death might be a mercy compared to… well. I shall not think of it, for I can do nothing about it, and my dear Sheila will scald my carcass if I try to drown myself in a bottle again.”

“Surely the Afrikaners would not resort to torture.”

The earl scowled. “I hope not, but a wounded man stands bloody little chance, with all the sickness there.”

Darcy stared at the floor, his mind tumbling with useless, disconnected notions, none of which could do anything to help.

Reginald drew another slow sip from his glass. “I suppose there is little more we can do at present. Let us speak of something else. What is to be done about this girl who claims to be my sister-in-law? The very idea! No one who knows Richard at all would credit it.”

“You may believe I questioned her thoroughly. She knew him—even told me some things about myself that she could only have heard from him, and not things he would have shared with a random stranger.”

“Well, what of it? He may have been drinking, or excessively lonely.”

Darcy lifted his glass to stare pensively through its distorted bottom. “Possibly. But I do not believe she was of that sort. For one thing, she has too righteous a temper. No woman in that line of work could afford such indignation and vigilance regarding her person.”

“Hmm. Then, you do not approve of Mother’s idea of sending her packing?”

Darcy glanced at the door through which Lady Matlock had departed, then back to Reginald. “There is at least some truth to her story, and I have had my solicitor begin making inquiries in America. For now, I think we must believe her. If she is his wife, and she is later found to be with child—”

“Naturally. But how should we know it to be Richard’s? We know nothing of this girl, or her history.”

“All the more reason to keep her close. Not many can fool me for long, and you may be assured that I am watching her.”

“But to keep her here, in London! What if she is a fraud? You will have the rumour mills working overtime, and nothing said will be kind. I’ll not have my brother slandered, either in absentia or posthumously.”

“Yes, I thought of that. I am sending the party quietly to Derbyshire, and I shall follow within the week. I presume you will be in London for some while, rather than returning to Matlock?”

“Naturally. What, you’re not thinking of sending them all to Matlock!”

“Of course not. Much as I dislike the notion of asking Georgiana to host them, I would not ask you to take her in yourselves.”

“But Georgiana is too young to play hostess,” Reginald protested. “She ought to have someone with her—a companion or a relation, something like that.”

“She is out—I see nothing improper in it. She can manage perfectly well with Mrs Reynolds until I arrive. I agree it would be convenient to have a female relation present, but there are none. Your own family remains in London, and my aunt does not need such trouble at present. Besides, keeping this newcomer at Pemberley instead of here in London or at Matlock provides a clear barrier between her and Richard’s home, if she is perceptive enough to note the slight.”

“You think she is simple?”

“Far from it. Bluntly American, but anything but simple. In fact, I shall have to guard myself carefully around her, for she has a quick turn of mind and a razor-sharp tongue.”

“Heaven forbid!” Reginald shuddered. “I have enough of that in my house already. Pray tell me she is not some uncomely milkmaid.”

“She is tolerable, I suppose, though I still do not know how she tempted Richard into marriage.  However, she has so far displayed the proper sorrow and gratitude I should expect of one in her position, tempered with an unusual degree of dignity. For that, you ought to be relieved.”

“I?” Reginald snorted. “And why is that?”

“Because—” Darcy rose and straightened his waistcoat. “I mean to exact repayment for my troubles on your behalf, and the less vexing they are for me, the easier my terms will be for you.”

Reginald forced a smile, but it did not touch his eyes. “Naturally. As soon as Richard is found.”

Darcy strangled a sigh. “Naturally.”