Page 56 of The Longbourn Bloodline

“Aunt, pray do not scold my brother for his generosity,” Georgiana interjected. Even though she was but sixteen, she had never been afraid of the two women sitting on either side of them, breathing fire and smoke like two leathery dragons holding teacups while hoarding their barbs like gems. “I think he was quite noble. Their entail did not include daughters, unlike ours, and the Bennet sisters would have been thrown out of their own homes when their father passed.”

“Noble!” Lady Catherine looked as though she might choke on the word. “It was foolish. Sentimental. And I begin to suspect it was motivated by something other than justice.”

Lady Matlock, who obviously had a more avaricious interest in the Bennet estate, set her teacup down with a decisive click. “Catherine, perhaps we might discuss this more calmly. Fitzwilliam has made his decision, and it cannot be undone. The question now is what happens next.”

“What happens next is obvious,” Lady Catherine declared. “Fitzwilliam marries Anne, as was always intended. Pemberley and Rosings are united, and the regrettable foolishness at Longbourn is forgotten.”

Darcy exchanged a look of weary understanding with Georgiana, silently grateful that Anne was safely ensconced upstairs, nursing a headache surely aggravated by her mother’s relentless presence.

“Or,” Lady Matlock continued, as though Lady Catherine had not spoken, “if Richard will not consider Jane Bennet, he might at least consider Anne. A practical match. Rosings is well managed, and Anne’s health, whatever its limitations, does not preclude⁠—”

“I am sitting right here,” Richard observed mildly.

“Yes, doing nothing. As is your custom.” Lady Matlock folded her fan with crisp precision. “Someone must think of these things.”

“Richard has no prospects,” Lady Catherine said at a volume that made the Colonel, a man accustomed to cannonfire, wince. “Darcy will marry Anne, and it is high time he fulfilled the wishes of his mother.”

“Nothing has been settled.” Darcy’s voice was pure steel, so that even the fire seemed to pull back from its excess. “Nothing was ever settled, Aunt. My mother expressed a wish, and a wish is not a contract.”

“I beg your pardon?” Lady Catherine’s face had gone the color of old parchment.

“Aunt, we have had this same conversation over every Christmas, every Easter, and several times in between. I refuse to be bound by a wish between two sisters.”

The silence that followed was the kind that preceded either capitulation or war. Lady Catherine chose war.

“This is that girl’s doing,” she spat. “That Bennet creature. Richard told me about her—impertinent, ill-bred, with a mother who is a disgrace to her sex and a father who finds amusement in his family’s humiliation. You have lost your senses over a country nobody with no fortune and no connections.”

“Enough.” Darcy’s voice cracked. “You will not speak of Miss Elizabeth Bennet in such terms.”

Georgiana gasped, even though a smile cracked her face. Richard nursed his brandy with the air of a man enjoying a puppet show, and Lady Matlock’s expression sharpened, her eyes narrowing.

Lady Catherine’s nostrils flared, rising like a leathery dragon stretching out her spines, her bony fingers extended like claws.

“Miss Elizabeth Bennet. So, the imp has a name. I have heard of her, Fitzwilliam. She is the second daughter who impertinently refused Mr. Collins’s great condescension and drove him to his death.”

“Mr. Collins died in a riding accident,” Darcy said flatly. “Miss Elizabeth had nothing to do with it.”

“She refused him! If she had accepted, as any sensible girl would have done⁠—”

“If she had accepted, she would have been married to a fool who did not deserve her. As it stands, she is free, and her family’s future is secured, and I—” He stopped, aware that he had said too much.

“And you?” Lady Catherine’s eyes narrowed. “What are you, Fitzwilliam? In love with a woman who gave you nothing in return for an inheritance?”

“Aunt Catherine.” Georgiana’s voice was surprisingly firm. “That is unkind, and it is not your concern.”

“Not my concern! When my nephew throws away his prospects for a country chit with fine eyes and no sense⁠—”

“Her eyes are extraordinary,” Darcy said, challenging any of them to rebuke him.

Richard choked on his brandy, and Georgiana’s face split into a grin. Lady Matlock raised an eyebrow that conveyed a treatise. And Lady Catherine drew herself to her full height, her long and wrinkled neck extended, and announced that she would retire, as the company had become intolerable.

“Then I suggest Brother and I retire to Hertfordshire where his friend has leased an estate,” Georgiana said, her eyes twinkling. “So I can become acquainted with these delightful cousins, and one Elizabeth Bennet who has caught the fancy of my brother. A miracle, as my brother’s eyes are quite immune to conquest.”

“I will not have such impertinence from you, Georgiana.” Lady Catherine thundered. “Your mother would be⁠—”

“Sister, perhaps Anne requires her mother’s concern?” Lady Matlock pointed her fan in the direction of the staircase. “It is well past luncheon, and she has been alone since dawn.”

“My concern is primarily for her marriage prospects, sister.” Lady Catherine refused to be managed, and neither would she hear dissent; she merely raised her voice to drown out the opposition.