Page 120 of New World Tea Company
Darcy assured his coachman, “I shall not remain long, and then we shall go to Mayfair for the evening.”
He approached the door and banged the brass knocker on the large door three times before a footman appeared. The servant was confused for a moment but then held the door open to permit entry by the powerful nephew of the Earl of Matlock. Handing over his hat and gloves, Darcy asked, “Where will I find my uncle?”
“His Grace is in his office with the countess and Lady Catherine.”
Displeased to have to address his uncle in the presence of both aunts, Darcy took a deep breath and walked along the hallway. There was a footman outside the door who moved to open the door for the young man. The loud voices in the office cut off immediately when the door opened and the earl called out, “I said for no one to disturb me!”
“Uncle, forgive me for intruding but I must speak with you,” Darcy said as he stepped into the room, ignoring the earl’s commands.
“Such bad manners!” muttered Lady Catherine. Lady Marie remained silent and did not address her nephew. Since the day they married, her husband had deferred to his sister’s opinionin everyday matters and the countess learned to remain out of family arguments.
In a few sentences, Darcy explained that his aunt had thrown away a fortune handing the funds to a charlatan who pretended to have a profitable business.
The earl asked, “Cathy, how much gold have you lost?”
“Darcy is mistaken!” insisted Lady Catherine. “The New World Tea Company is a real concern with tremendous profits,” the woman insisted. “They are the next East India Company.”
Reminding his sister of a fact of life, the earl said, “The East India Company has a strangle hold on trade with the east.”
Lady Catherine argued, “Wickham’s ships sail to the Americas, not the East Indies.”
“George Wickham does not have any ships,” Fitzwilliam Darcy insisted. “And this afternoon, I visited to Newgate Prison to identify two of the man’s confederates.”
“Do the constables have them in custody?” asked the earl. “They must be made to reveal where we can find Wickham and recover Cathy’s gold.”
“There will be nothing recovered,” Darcy explained. “My trip to Newgate Prison was to identify the bodies of Mrs Young and Mr Bounty. Wickham is the most likely suspect; he slit their throats and left them underneath the bed in the Sleeping Dog, a tavern where Wickham slept.”
The earl asked, “Is the man still about?”
“The prison governor thinks that Wickham sailed from London in a merchant ship last night. A flotilla of ships left for the Americas with the tide.”
The earl sat back and considered everything. Then he asked, “Nephew, what is the financial damage to Rosings?”
Darcy replied, “Aunt Catherine said the attorneys found buyers for the two properties in Gravesend. Their rents were three hundred pounds a year. There will be no pin money for Anne and her mother this year.”
“Can we blame the attorneys and force them to return the properties?” asked the earl.
“Only if you want to lose them as the handlers for your money and estate,” explained Darcy while shaking his head. “A lawsuit would be expensive and cost your family a great deal of goodwill.”
“It is your family as well!” exclaimed Earl Matlock.
“Not in regard to Rosings Park,” Darcy said. “Lady Catherine has driven me away completely with her demands that I marry Anne. When I returned to London at the end of April, I visited the attorneys in question with my estate attorney and relinquished all obligations to the Rosings Park estate.”
Surprised the earl asked, “How can you do this? The will of Sir Louis de Bourgh made you executor of his estate…”
Darcy replied immediately, “Until Anne reached the age of five and twenty, which she did last week.”
The countess met her sister-on-law’s eyes and smiled just slightly; Anne de Bourgh would not marry Fitzwilliam Darcy. For a moment, Lady Marie wondered if her daughter stood a chance to catch the rich scion of their family. Then she dismissed the notion because she did not believe that cousins should marry.
The four members of the extended family were silent for a moment before the door opened once again and the butler appeared with a silver salver bearing two letters. The man begged the Earl and Countess’s forgiveness for the interruption as he offered the letters to the earl. The man read the direction on each letter and returned one to the silver tray.
“Give that one to Lady Catherine,” the earl said as he opened the first letter and read the contents. The butler retreated to the door but remained inside the office. Only another moment passed before the earl cursed, “God’s teeth! Cathy, you are ruined!”
Lady Catherine opened her letter while the countess rose to move to stand beside her husband and read his letter. While the two women read the letters, the earl asked, “Darcy, who is Clarence Fredericks?”
Having read most of the message, Lady Catherine moaned and fainted, before she slid from the chair to lay on the floor until Darcy and the butler moved her to a sofa. The countess sent for smelling salts and asked a footman to go to a physician known to the family and ask him to come to attend a lady in distress.
When she was revived, Lady Catherine demanded that her brother have this man arrested and transported to Australia. Darcy objected and revealed that Clarence Frederick was the owner of more acreage than Rosings Park.
