The Carriage Ride Read online

  “What shall we talk about, Mr. Darcy?” Lizzy asked and wished she had thought to bring her fan. “Or is your preference not to talk at all.”

  “Quite the contrary. Conversation makes the hours pass.”

  “Considering our difficult past, I understand that your preference is to have time fly.”

  Darcy harrumphed. “Miss Elizabeth, you are determined to misunderstand me at every turn. I meant what I said: My preference is to enjoy your company.”

  “And you, sir,” Lizzy said, smiling, “continue to mistake an attempt at humor for criticism.”

  Lizzy turned the conversation to Mr. Darcy’s visit with his cousin at Briarwood. In his responses, Darcy’s affection for Lady Emily was evident, and it was obvious from additional stories that the Fitzwilliam and Darcy cousins had formed a bond as children that they carried with them into adulthood. Darcy shared stories of building treehouses and forts, long rides in the country, navigating rocks in a coursing stream, and examining the creatures that lay hidden underneath them with his Fitzwilliam cousins.

  When Lizzy enquired if any of these activities took place at Rosings Park, Darcy snorted. “Never! Our adventures happened outside Lady Catherine’s realm of gently rolling acres and well-trod paths. Besides, we always soiled our clothes, something our aunt could not abide.”

  Lizzy wondered if Lady Emily, the daughter of an earl, had also soiled her clothes.

  Darcy explained that when Lady Emily had married an Irish lord, the family was convinced that within a year, the bride would be writing letters to her family, longing for the comforts and conveniences of Olde England because, as a youth, Emily had had a weakness for wearing white, frilly dresses with pink satin ribbons. But instead of pining for her home country, the young woman had taken to life on an Irish estate with vigor and had turned her hand to breeding an Irish workhorse.

  “I could never have imagined Emily spending hours in a stable in work boots. But she has proved me wrong—something that is occurring frequently of late—as she has successfully bred the Connemara pony with a thoroughbred. The result is a fine sport horse. Do you ride, Miss Elizabeth?”

  “I do, sir, but only at a walk.”

  “But you are not afraid of horses?” Darcy asked with genuine concern. One of his greatest pleasures was riding.

  “Oh no! I love horses. It is just that most of the horses at Longbourn are the great beasts needed to pull a plow. The one carriage horse we have is ancient, and it would be an unkindness to ask Old Bess to trot, no less to canter. The truth is that my preference is to walk as it provides ample time for reflection. I know that you are aware that I frequently took advantage of Rosings Park many fine paths as I often saw you about on your stallion enjoying the out of doors.”

  With that comment, Lizzy’s mind returned to their encounter in the park where Mr. Darcy had handed her his letter, and the conversation lapsed. In the quiet, Lizzy thought about the man sitting across from her and what a puzzle he was. Despite the humiliating spectacle of Hunsford Parsonage, he was obviously making quite the effort to be pleasant—and was succeeding. At the Meryton assembly, and at Netherfield Park, the gentleman from Derbyshire had been proud and aloof, but at Rosings, she had found him charming and frequently engaging. During their time together under Lady Catherine’s roof, he had made considerable effort to engage her in conversation and had been generous in his compliments—always a good thing. Was this not more evidence that she had misjudged Mr. Darcy as, just minutes earlier, she had accused him of a deliberately misunderstanding her? Was she not guilty of the same offense?

  Darcy interrupted Elizabeth’s thoughts by inquiring after Maria Lucas. “I am surprised that she is not returning to Hertfordshire with you.”

  Happy to have her thoughts diverted, Lizzy explained that as the day approached for her departure, Charlotte realized that the house would be too empty if all her company left at the same time. Charlotte had succeeded in convincing her parents to allow Maria to stay at least another two weeks.

  “Maria was happy to extend her stay as she has relished her time in Kent. She had never before dined in a place as grand as Rosings Park. With every invitation, her imagination soared.”

  “Yes, Rosings Park is impressive, but there is a price to be paid for viewing the Old Masters and the fine dining. The young lady was subjected to my aunt’s soliloquies.”

  “Maria is fifteen, and at such an age, deaf to all that is not of particular interest to her.”

  “Ah, to be fifteen again,” an envious Darcy responded.

  “Was she always that way? I mean, your aunt has such strong opinions on everything. Nothing is beneath her notice.”

  “It is my belief that that is how Lady Catherine emerged from her mother’s womb. And I must correct you as to the use of the word ‘opinions.’ My aunt does not opine; she speaks in certainties.”

  Lizzy smiled at Mr. Darcy’s answer, and it made her think of a rather silly discussion that she had had with Lady Catherine about, of all things, turnips. “Before coming into Kent, I did not know that beets were in every way superior to turnips. I thought it was a matter of personal preference, but in that I was wrong.”

  “You catch on quickly, Miss Elizabeth. At Rosings, the best way to avoid confrontation is agreement.”

  “And, apparently, I must eat my beets.”

  Darcy smiled at Elizabeth’s comments and her amusing riposte. There was so much to admire about the lady, but it was her rapier wit that often left him smiling even when he was the subject of her jabs. Of course, her quick wit only serves to enhance her beauty, charm, and grace—to say nothing of her fine figure. And an image of Elizabeth at the Netherfield ball appeared before him in which the finest attributes of the female form were on display.

  “I seem to have lost you, Mr. Darcy.”

  “Ah yes,” he answered, reluctant to let go of the image. “We were speaking of my aunt.”

  Darcy revealed that Lady Catherine was his mother’s half-sister and the first Lady Stepton’s only child. After his wife’s death, the Earl of Stepton had not immediately remarried as his tastes ran toward heiresses, and there were few available at the time. He would have to wait six years before he found a bride with a suitable dowry to tempt a return to the altar. As a result, there was a considerable age difference between Catherine Fitzwilliam and her two younger siblings: her brother, the heir to the earldom, and her sister, Lady Anne. At a young age, and already in possession of a strong will, Lady Catherine had staged a coup, dominating, first, the nursery maid and then the governess, establishing dominion over both the nursery and schoolroom of her younger brother and sister.

  “My mother was of a very different temperament from that of her sister. My father provided the best description of Mama in a testament delivered at her funeral: ‘My dearest Anne was all that is light and bright and good. Those who knew her were better for the acquaintance.’”

  “What a lovely testament to your mother.”

  As Darcy spoke of a particularly close relationship with Lady Anne Darcy, he looked out the window at Kent’s green acres, a reminder of his mother’s youth at Briarwood.

  “When I was at Winchester, enduring the harsh rituals of a public school, my mother visited frequently, bringing baskets of banned substances to be shared with boys whose parents rarely visited—just one example of her kind heart. During idle summer hours at Pemberley, Mama and I would read the ancient myths of Greece and Rome or speak of her French mother, whom she adored.”

  “Your grandmother was French?” Darcy nodded. “How did your grandparents meet? I mean, France and England have been at war for…for forever.”

  “They met in London.”

  Although Darcy’s grandmother, Marie Devereaux, was the daughter of a chevalier, the Devereauxes were untitled and owned only a few hundred acres near Lisieux in Normandy. They were, however, prosperous merchants and owned a warehouse in London. When it appeared that war was imminent between France and Britain, the Deve
reaux family moved to England. As Darcy’s Great-grandfather Fitzwilliam was a connoisseur of the finer things in life, he often visited the Devereaux warehouse with his son, Darcy’s grandfather, in tow.

  “But if they lived in England, and England was at war with France, where did they get their merchandise?”

  “The same places they always did.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “Smuggling, Miss Elizabeth. Cross-channel smuggling. Romney Marsh was a favorite landing site, followed by Hythe. The fortunes of the Devereauxes and Fitzwilliams, as well as the de Bourghs, were all founded on smuggling. In times of war and in times of peace, ships, large and small, brought English textiles to France and returned with silk, lace, perfume, and brandy.”

  “But what about taxes?”

  “The tax man was paid, if you take my meaning.”

  “I would never have thought it of the Darcys. Smugglers!”

  “Oh, not the Darcys! A very respectable Derbyshire family. It was the Fitzwilliams who were the scoundrels. My father would often tease my mother that he had married her for the purpose of saving her from a life of crime.”

  “But that would mean that Lady Catherine’s fortune was—”

  “…made from ill-gotten gains.”

  Lizzy was absolutely delighted. “And you are very much a Darcy.” Lizzy could never have imagined someone so obviously prim and proper as Fitzwilliam Darcy being the descendant of a smuggler.

  “You sound disappointed about the Darcys.”

  “Not at all, sir. Although a family of pirates makes for more interesting stories, it is those who follow the rules who avoid prison!”

  “Exactly!” Darcy said, laughing. “However, I would like to think that I have a bit of that rebellious Devereaux blood running through my veins—that I am capable of defying convention.”

  Yes, Lizzy thought. If Mr. Darcy’s offer had succeeded, their marriage would have definitely been viewed as defying societal norms, and Mr. Darcy’s words spoken at the Parsonage echoed through her mind: “In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”

  It would have been better if Mr. Darcy had succeeded in concealing his struggles and had said nothing about my inadequacies and family, but if he had done so, would it have changed anything? Under what circumstances would I have agreed to become Mr. Darcy’s wife?

  It was as if Darcy could read Elizabeth’s mind. “I have a tendency to speak my mind—even when it works against me,” he said with real remorse.

  “I am the same way. I should hold my breath to cool my porridge rather than say things I may come to regret.”

  Darcy was puzzled by Elizabeth’s answer. What did she mean by regret? Was it possible that she was having second thoughts about having so adamantly and irrevocably rejected his offer of marriage? Was it possible that his letter had actually done some good—that when his side of the story was known that she realized he was not an ogre and there were logical reasons for his actions?

  “But to answer your question about how my grandparents met, they were introduced at a warehouse near the London docks—an inauspicious start to what would prove to be a great romance.”

  “It was in that temple of commerce that Robert Darcy was introduced to Marie Devereaux. Family lore has it that they were immediately smitten and remained so for all the years of their marriage. Unfortunately, for my grandmother, she was a widow for more than twenty years. Although a bright light in my life, she was always dressed in black. I can still picture this petite figure flitting about Pemberley like smoke from a chimney, her ebony train trailing behind her.”

  Darcy felt as though he were monopolizing the conversation and inquired after Elizabeth’s grandparents. Lizzy knew nothing of her father’s parents as they had died when her father was still a young man. As for her mother’s father, she had been told that he was quiet, contemplative, and dedicated to his practice as a solicitor. He took great pleasure in reading and had acquired a substantial library that he had willed to his son-in-law when he died just two years after Tom Bennet had wed Fanny Gardiner.

  As for Grandma Gardiner, there was nothing contemplative about her. In her youth, she had been a noted beauty who lived for parties and dancing, and as the belle of the Meryton neighborhood, she had succeeded in capturing the heart of the quiet solicitor whose good looks and occupation made him quite the catch. As she aged and her beauty faded, her interests turned to two pursuits. The first was in finding good husbands for her daughters, and in that, she had succeeded. While Aunt Phillips had married a solicitor, Mama had wedded a gentleman farmer who was in possession of a fine house and a prosperous farm. But it was the second pursuit that gave her the most pleasure. Her delight in passing on “news” to anyone who would listen had resulted in Grandma Gardiner being crowned Meryton’s queen of gossip, a laurel she happily wore, and had passed on her favorite diversion to her two daughters. Although Lizzy had loved her grandmother dearly, the older Lizzy got, the more she realized that Grandma Gardiner’s penchant for gossip was not without repercussions. In not every case had the tittle-tattle been benign.

  “My father’s mother died when he was young. As for my mother’s mother, she was…” Knowing of Mr. Darcy’s low opinion of Mama, she hesitated to tell him that the apple had not fallen far from the tree. “My maternal grandmother was known for her exuberance” and left it at that. “But we were speaking of your mother. I gather from what you have said that your mother favored your grandmother in temperament?”

  Lizzy much preferred to turn the conversation to Mr. Darcy’s family as she very much wished to avoid any reference to Mama’s behavior, especially at the Netherfield ball where she had announced to the room that a betrothal between Jane and Mr. Bingley was imminent.

  “Yes. My father would often say that Anne, that is, my mother, was the rose and that he was the stem, and although she was the most beautiful part of the rose, that the one could not exist without the other.” Darcy hesitated before continuing. “Even though they were compatible in most things, their natures were very different. My mother was a social butterfly, to use my father’s expression, flitting from one social event to another, while Papa preferred to be at Pemberley. I was in my first term at Cambridge when I received a letter stating that my mother was unwell with influenza but that I should not be alarmed as she had a strong constitution and was already on the mend. But only two days later, my father sent a carriage to hasten my return. When I arrived at Pemberley, Mama was in her final hours.” Darcy leaned back into the cushion in an attempt to hide his emotions. “Poor Papa. He had never imagined life without her. I do not think he ever got over the loss.”

  “That is the only disadvantage of a happy marriage. One person must say goodbye.”

  “Yes. Even at my age, and I am only twenty-eight, I find that life is filled with goodbyes.” And for what seemed like minutes, Darcy stared into Lizzy’s eyes.

  “And your sister, Miss Darcy, does she have any memory of her mother?”

  Darcy shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. She remedies the deficit by probing and prodding my memory so that she might grasp hold of the woman she so much resembles. You see, Miss Elizabeth, the Darcys are the complete opposite of the Fitzwilliams—something I am sure you noticed when you saw Colonel Fitzwilliam and I standing together at the pianoforte. My mother was fair-haired, blue-eyed, and blessed with an amiable, outgoing disposition. On the other hand, the Darcys are dark-haired and dark-eyed and have a tendency to be overly serious and, perhaps, too wedded to their own opinions.” The seriousness of the moment was eased when Darcy smiled. “You would have liked my mother, Miss Elizabeth. She, too, had a fine wit and knew how to use it.”

  Darcy spoke of the year of Lady Anne’s marriage to a member of Derbyshire’s landed gentry. In 1782, when Lady Anne Fitzwilliam had first visited Pemberley as Lady Anne Darcy, she could hardly believe how great was the distance between Pe
mberley and Briarwood. In her mind, it was as if she had travelled to another country.

  “At the time, the Pemberley estate was heavily forested, and the roads to the estate, shall we say, in need of improvement. My mother, seeing endless miles of woods, had remarked that she had thought she had brought all that was necessary to live a life of comfort in Derbyshire, ‘but, alas, I did not bring an ax.’”

  Lizzy’s smile gave Darcy encouragement, and he continued.

  “There is an even better one. As a member of Erasmus Darwin’s Lunar Society… Are you familiar with the society?” Lizzy indicated that she was. “My father considered himself to be an amateur scientist, and a scientific mind is in need of order and symmetry. So, when the time came to design the gardens at Pemberley, their opposing ideas presented a problem.”

  The elder Mr. Darcy favored the formal Italian Renaissance garden. Inspired by the classical ideals of beauty and order, the symmetry of the foliage was enhanced by fountains, follies, and classical statuary. For George Darcy, balance was everything. On the other hand, Lady Anne, who had fallen in love with the wildness of the Peak, wished to replicate the scene with a garden of wildflowers: cowslips and stitchwort, pansies and cranebills, and rugged stone steps to provide definition—not a statue or folly in sight.

  “Although I was quite young, I remember these discussions, and in the end, my father prevailed. Pemberley’s gardens are in the Italianate style, but outside the breakfast room, there is a garden overflowing with native plants and wildflowers. Now, it would appear that my father had won the battle of the gardens, but one morning, at breakfast, as he crowed about his victory, my mother reminded him that it was not every day that they visited his garden, but it was a fact that they ate breakfast every day in the breakfast room with a view of her garden. My father was delighted and stood up and bowed in acknowledgment of her victory.”