Page 16 of Cousin Conundrum

Removing his hat and dropping the gloves inside, Darcy handed them over. “Certainly not. You were quite right to put my aunt’s men out, and you will not be put in the stocks. You have my word.”

Edwards let out a gusty, relieved sigh. “Thank you, sir. I will tell the lads you said as much. They did as they were told, but her ladyship’s men put some worry in them, let me tell you, sir.”

From how red-faced and unusually loquacious Edwards was, Darcy rather felt his aunt’s high-handedness had put a bit of fear into his butler as well. No one liked to have a member of the peerage threaten them, even by proxy. Removing his coat, Darcy added, “We will, however, be packing up the house soon.”

“Leaving London, sir?”

He nodded. “Yes. Within a week, I will be off to—” Darcy broke off. He trusted his staff, but… “Do you know, for the good of us all, no one need know to where I will be off. I will arrange for my attorneys to forward my mail.” His man at Watson, Hastings, and Vane would be far more discreet than a household full of staff.

Edwards stiffened. “I am not in the habit of passing along your whereabouts willy-nilly, sir.”

“My confidence in you is unshakable, Edwards,” Darcy assured him. “It will simply be easier for all if any who are asked can honestly report that they have no notion where I have gone.”

“Very well, sir.” Edwards sounded only partially mollified, but he accepted Darcy’s coat with his usual care. “Do you require anything else, sir?”

“Send Patrick to my chamber.”

“Immediately, sir.”

Nodding to his no longer scarlet-hued butler, Darcy sought his room. Undoubtedly, Patrick, too, required soothing. Darcy would also see that everyone who had helped thwart his aunt’s ridiculous attempt to force him to journey to Rosings received extra pay this quarter.

***

Elizabeth Bennet slipped behind the large oak that dominated Longbourn’s back garden, frowning. For several weeks now, she’d been spying on her younger sister, Kitty. Ever since she’d come across Kitty sitting on the bench beneath their housekeeper, Mrs. Hill’s, window, writing. At least, Elizabeth had been certain Kitty was writing, but when pressed, her sister merely presented a horrendous rendition of a tree.

Why would Kitty lie about writing? What could she possibly be hiding? And when had Kitty become a sister with secrets? Kitty did not have a thought in her head not put there by their mother or their youngest sister, Lydia. She often simply sat like a lump, waiting for Lydia to speak and then parroting her.

At least, that’s how Kitty had seemed. But once she decided to follow Kitty, Elizabeth discovered that her younger sister rose early every morning. Even earlier than Elizabeth, which she’d heretofore thought only Mr. Bennet did. Kitty then rambled about Longbourn chatting with the staff. She helped maids take down the wash or pull up fresh vegetables. She spoke with the stable boy with the stammer or helped one of the lads carry in firewood. Elizabeth had watched her sister assist in gathering eggs from the hens and carry pails of milk alongside the dairymaid. Fold sheets and shell peas. Even carry scraps out to the sows in the pen by the smaller barn.

Then Kitty would write and write in the little book she carried, and sometimes Elizabeth thought her sister truly might be sketching. But writing what? And sketching what? Kitty never looked up, except to frown in thought, the end of her pencil stuck in her mouth.

After all that, Kitty would return to the room she shared with Lydia, and not reappear until they came down to breakfast together. It was bewildering. Enough so that asking Lydia what Kitty might be doing tempted Elizabeth sorely. Yet, she could not bear the thought of not being clever enough to solve the riddle of Kitty’s behavior on her own.

Even if she could not quite apply all of her considerable mental prowess to the puzzle. Not with how distracted she’d become ever since the day she glimpsed that gentleman.

In the nick of time, Elizabeth stifled a sigh, recalling she hid behind a tree spying on Kitty, and trees did not issue sighs. The gentleman Elizabeth caught sight of in that fancy carriage, the one that rumor now ascribed to the man who’d toured the nearby estate of Netherfield Park, was a most breathtakingly handsome fellow. So serious, as well. Such a wondrous mixture of intelligence and strength. When their gazes met, Elizabeth experienced a physical jolt. A shock of sensation that raced outward from her belly to fill every limb.

How could one look, hardly a fraction of a look, cause such an uproar within her? No other man had ever made her feel such a way. Most made her feel no way at all, and yet this total stranger filled her with longing, even though she knew nothing of him.

Well, she knew he rode about in a fancy carriage and wore clothing that looked fine at a distance, but what did that truly tell her? He’d been in the backward facing seat, after all. He could be the clerk of the man who’d toured Netherfield Park, even assuming the carriage in question was the same one to visit the estate.

Or the brother, or some other friend or relation. Worse, he could be married. No reason existed to think a gentleman that compelling wouldn’t be married.

Fear he was already spoken for lodged in her throat, even though she had no way to know if she would ever see him again.

A rustle of skirts caught Elizabeth from woolgathering about the austere gentleman who tormented her thoughts. Blinking away a vision of him, she peeked around the tree to see Kitty rise from her seat outside Mrs. Hill’s window. Kitty studied the small journal she held for a moment, then snapped it closed with a satisfied air. Tucking it and the stubby pencil into her skirt pocket, she went inside.

Elizabeth turned her back to the tree again, frowning. Kitty would go to her room now, and not return until she did so with Lydia, about the time Elizabeth and her father were finishing breakfast and Mrs. Bennet arriving. Jane and Mary would both be halfway through with their meals, the two always spanning the gap between Elizabeth and Mr. Bennet, and the sillier members of their family.

That was how life had gone the previous morning, and the one before, and on and on, back and back, for all the mornings Elizabeth could rightly remember. Nothing ever changed in Longbourn. Jane reached her majority last year, and went to spend a month in London with their Aunt and Uncle Gardiner, and still nothing changed. Elizabeth would do the same soon enough.

Would anything change then? Would fate place her in the path of the gentleman she’d glimpsed? If not, then why the cruelty of permitting her to notice him at all? It could not be that impossible to find him again. His carriage was heading south when she sighted it. He might be in London even now. Would Elizabeth, though she had none of Jane’s superior qualities, actually find someone? Find him?

Or were they all destined to live out their days together, the seven of them?

Tugging the tattered edges of her good cheer about her, for at least she had the mystery of Kitty’s odd behavior to entertain her, Elizabeth went in to breakfast. Her father already sat at his end of the table, paper in hand and coffee service at his elbow. Behind the wall of his paper, he crunched on toast. It would be dry, but with far too much jam, Elizabeth knew, because nothing ever changed at Longbourn.

She took the seat to his right, electing to eat toast as well, but too glum for butter or jam. She nibbled, one of the staff bringing her tea, and studied the back of her father’s paper. He would have read the sides facing her first, so that if she cared to, she might comment on the articles.