Page 15 of Till Death Us Do Part: Book 2
Darcy thought the words should be enough to give his wife some peace, and hopefully lay the groundwork for reconciliation. To help things along, he wrote a similarly circumspect note to his steward, Knight, and another to his Uncle Matlock asking him to call on Mrs Darcy and see if he could smooth things over just a bit. He briefly considered doing the same with Bingley but abandoned the idea when he thought about the elder sister.
Darcy thought that since the die was cast, they must make the best of it. He disliked the idea of wooing by proxy, but it was his only choice short of abandoning his cousin to his fate. He had given that idea due consideration, but in the end, he just could not do it.
Darcy tried his best to work out exactly what was driving him, since his actions in going alone and in person to do the negotiations were thoroughly out of character. In the end, he decided it was a combination of honour, family obligation, affection, and the one thing his wife rightly accused him of more than once. Hispridewould not allow him to step aside and donothing, and neither he nor his uncle could think of a better way to tackle the problem.
He supposed he also might have a less than noble motivation. This might be his only chance to have something like an adventure; to do something outside the fate he had been born to.
With the letters complete, Darcy asked Captain Seymour to post them.
The captain offered to deliver them personally to the next mail packet they met or post them the next time he was in a British port, one of which should happen within the month.
Darcy really believed the letter, as short as it was, might have some effect on softening his wife’s anger at least a little, and it was the best he could do to give them as good a chance at reconciling as he was likely to get.
It was a good plan, and it probably would have worked, had the letters not gone down with Captain Seymour when the Manilla was wrecked off the coast of Texel on the 28th of January, just over a fortnight after they handed off a rather peaked-looking Darcy to a French ship for the last few days of his journey.
7.Winter
“Mrs Darcy”
… …
“Mrs Darcy”
… …
“Mrs Darcy”
… …
The words, spoken in little more than a whisper and repeated over and over, eventually caused Mrs Elizabeth Darcy to blearily open her eyes in confusion. Those eyes saw a blurry, grey-haired, impeccably dressed man about her father’s age, incongruously kneeling on the floor on one knee. Even odder, she felt as if he was shaking her slightly. The man smiled kindly, or more like the way a father smiled when his child did something naughty, clever, and amusing at the same time, leaving him uncertain whether punishment or laughter was in order.
Elizabeth raised her head and regretted it, because it felt as if a horse had kicked her. With a groan, she let it drop back to—nother pillow. She was lying somewhere unfamiliar and a bit confusing.
Her nemesis whispered, “It would seem you found the brandy, and are not quite accustomed to it, my lady.”
She grumbled, “Apparently.”
Her nemesis whispered gently, “I would ordinarily let you sleep, but it might be better if we quietly moved you to your own bed. I have a concoction I keep for the master’s use, if you like. It will make you feel as if you were burned at the stake for a few minutes, but you will feel much better afterwards.”
Still thoroughly confused, she blearily asked, “Why?”
Still whispering, the man said, “I believe, madam, that you might be more satisfiedlaterif your evening’s activities remainprivate, not to mention that this sofa will soon feel like a torturedevice and your mouth will taste like sawdust. Naturally, you may correct me if I am wrong, send me to fetch your lady’s maid, or chastise me for impertinence if I am out of bounds. I simply wish to aid you,quietly.”
She finally began to form some idea of just how embarrassing it might be if the housekeeper, the butler, the steward, and all of the servants (which amounted to everyone in the county), became aware that the newly minted mistress of Pemberley had drunk herself into a stupor all alone on New Year’s Eve, less than a week into a fifty-year sentence—an endeavour which mightnotbe the best idea ever put forward.
“I believe you speak sense, my good sir,” she replied blearily. “Who are you exactly?”
“Bates, madam, your husband’s valet.”
Elizabeth started and jumped up to a sitting position, scared to death, head pounding in pain. “He is here!”
Looking startled, and not the least bit happy that a man’s wife seemed to fear him, Bates replied quickly, though softly, “No, madam. I apologise for the confusion. He travels without me. I am to spend a few months with my daughter and her husband. I am just here to straighten a few things.”
Even though it hurt, Elizabeth laughed a bit. “Was straightening the mistress one of the things you had in mind?”
Bates showed surprisingly good humour for a class of men trained to compete with butlers for inscrutability. “It was not my original plan, but we all must adapt to circumstances.”
The alarm of potentially seeing her husband again had woken Elizabeth fully, but she still felt half dead. “Does the master need your concoction… ah… often?”
