Page 55 of The Longbourn Bloodline

When Elizabeth looked at Jane, she was dabbing her eyes, moved by the story.

“Well, I would have marched back to Pemberley and demanded my due share.” Lydia threw up her improvement journal, breaking the spell. “It is not a crime to marry a tradesman named Bingley.”

“No, it is not,” Jane said softly. “But as Mathilda had two elder brothers, Pemberley would not have passed to her.”

And here, Elizabeth had to laugh. “One never knows, though, if the branches run dry, where the next heir would be found.”

“True, true,” Mr. Bennet agreed. “And now, with the insertion of females to the line, the line will not dry, as long as the man who marries the heiress takes the name Bennet.”

Bingley colored visibly, covering up his consternation with a hurried sip of wine, and Jane said, “Perhaps we shall still require the remote branches if we stay here together, five spinsters.”

“You mean it might go back to Darcy again?” Kitty looked up from her watercolor. “Why, perhaps one of us might marry Darcy after all.”

At this, everyone laughed, except Charlotte. Elizabeth gave her friend another slice of seed cake.

“The question is,” Bingley continued, his brow furrowing with the honest concern of a man grappling with a moral puzzle, “ought I to tell Darcy about the connection? My father always said to keep it in reserve, but that sits badly with me. Darcy is my friend, and he was the one who wrote me. Told me what he did with the entail and how I might call on Miss Bennet and her family. I feel rather a fraud keeping a family connection secret when he has been nothing but open with me.”

He looked around the room, and his gaze settled on Elizabeth. “Miss Elizabeth—you know Darcy better than most, I think. Would he want to know?”

Elizabeth cringed at the curious looks directed at her, at Aunt Philips pausing with her fork halfway to her mouth, at Mrs. Hurst’s narrowed eyes, no doubt observing on behalf of Caroline, and then she lifted her head, because yes, she did know Darcy more than the rest of them.

“These past few weeks have brought Mr. Darcy’s character to light, and I find that he values honesty above almost everything.” She was surprised to find her voice steady. “We have developed a friendship while stewarding Longbourn, and he has confessed things that did him no credit. I appreciate that candor, and Mr. Bingley, I believe he would far rather learn of a family connection from a friend who tells him freely than discover it himself and wonder why it was concealed.”

“That is well put, Miss Elizabeth,” Bingley said, looking relieved. “I shall tell him when next we meet. Darcy deserves honesty, even about things that happened a century ago.”

Mr. Bennet raised his glass. “I quite agree, Mr. Bingley. Although I would suggest—and this is merely the counsel of an old man with a taste for dramatic timing—that such a conversation is best conducted over good wine and with some leisure. The family trees of the English gentry have a way of producing surprises, and surprises are better received sitting down.”

“You sound as though you expect surprises, sir,” Bingley said.

“I always expect surprises, Mr. Bingley. I find life far more tolerable when one does.”

“Hear, hear,” everyone assented, raising their glasses, and outside, the new year settled over Hertfordshire like a promise—cold and clean and full of things that had not yet been discovered.

CHAPTER TWENTY

BETWEEN TWO AUNTS

Darcy was ready to be burned on a stake after almost a fortnight at Matlock Park. The fire in the drawing room flared too hot, the wine was too sweet, and the candles flamed too bright as he endured being sandwiched between Aunt Catherine with her artillery of Anne de Bourgh’s excellent manners and Lady Matlock and her unimpeachable authority on all matters of social consequence.

Georgiana, thankfully, was well recovered by the second day of his arrival after that mad rush north, and the colonel enjoyed taking the role of second son of no consequence, dangling bait before the two draconian ladies using all five Bennet sisters as prospects.

“Old Darcy here handed the estate to them,” he’d opine to the predictable huffs of disdain and fury from either side of the drawing room. “As a second son with no prospects of my own, I suppose any of the Miss Bennets would greatly improve my station in life.”

“Out of the question,” Lady Catherine declared. “The Bennets are uncouth and without manners, with a mother of impossible vulgarity, and the estate is scarcely worth the name. When Mr. Collins informed me that he was the heir… well, I could scarcely credit it, and as it turned out, the entire venture was a dire misfortune for him. If he had married a young lady from Westerham, he would still be among the living.”

Darcy caught the sympathy on Georgiana’s face; her heart, always tender, recoiled at the thought of a woman widowed before the ink on her marriage lines had dried, though she had never met the parties involved.

“The Bennets,” said Lady Matlock with a speculative glance at her son, “are not without interest, as Jane Bennet is now the heiress of Longbourn, I understand.” She directed this to Darcy with an enquiring lift of her brow. “A young woman of considerable beauty, by Richard’s account.”

Richard’s eyes widened. “I said she was handsome. I did not say considerable beauty. You are inventing, Mother.”

“I am improving upon your limited vocabulary.” Lady Matlock returned her attention to her son. “An heiress, however modest the estate, has a certain value. Richard, you might do far worse.”

“I agree, Mother; however, Mrs. Bennet’s aim is higher than a mere second son, even one of the earldom. She has been directing Miss Jane Bennet at your nephew who elevated her from future ward to heiress.”

“The most absurd caprice of the year.” Lady Catherine’s fan snapped shut. “Giving away an estate, admittedly a lowly one, quite deficient, but land is land. It could have added considerably to our holdings. Once Fitzwilliam and Anne fulfilled the express wishes between my dear departed sister and me, a dynasty would be created stretching from Derbyshire through Hertfordshire and extending into Kent. Imagine owning estates in half of all England.”

“Oh, sister, you do go on.” Lady Matlock sniffed, twirling her fork in the seedcake. “I agree that our Darcy here has been quite foolish, losing his head to the Bennet girls, but truly, dear Nephew, if you were so bent on giving away an estate, had it never crossed your mind that your dear cousin Richard could have benefited immensely? Here he is, sharing the guardianship of dear Georgiana with you, and while I concur that you did not need that dilapidated wreck of a house with its wild and unruly inhabitants, you could have⁠—”