Page 9 of Losing Lizzy
Mrs. Guthrie, his housekeeper, explained, “Mr. Nathan and I took up a collection to aid Davis’s family.” His housekeeper did not need to explain that no one else took the time to learn the fact Davis had been the chief wage earner for a family of seven after his father’s death.
“I do not know what difficulties I may encounter reestablishing myself at my bank and other facilities, but as quickly as it may be done, I will see to Mrs. Davis and her children, as well as to have you reimbursed for your forethought.”
“There be no need, sir,” Cook said. “Miss Darcy see’d to our donation to the family.”
Darcy smiled weakly. “My sister possesses a kind heart. She is very much like my mother in that manner.”
“She be a Darcy. None of us would expect anything less. You be the very best to employ so many of us when the world be falling apart,” Cook continued. “We be blessed.”
He accepted their praise of his sister and his family with a nod of his head. “Nevertheless, I shall see to Mrs. Davis until times are better. At the least, she deserves her son’s pay for the foreseeable future. All I ask is you bear with me for a bit longer, and, hopefully, we will know a return to what we expect as part of the Darcy household. Until Mr. Thacker can accept his old position or I can employ a new butler, I will ask Mrs. Guthrie, Samuels, and Jasper to respond to the door and to assist with a variety of duties.” He turned to his two long-standing footmen. “If I may, as Mr. Sheffield has also left my employ, I will require one of you to assist me in the morning with clothes, something other than these borrowed ones, for which I am most thankful.” He gestured to what he had worn when he departed the British ship earlier in the day. “I was not granted new clothes for nearly four years, and the ones I wore on the ship were in rags when the British navy rescued me.” He reminded himself to offer his servants a smile. Those gestures which had once been so natural to him had disappeared. “I am assuming nothing has been removed from my quarters. Mrs. Fitzwilliam says she and the colonel chose not to move into themaster’s suite.”
“It is as you left it, sir,” one of the maids reported.
Again, he nodded his gratitude. “I will leave you to your duties then.”
Now, as he stood in the middle of what would have been Elizabeth’s rooms, a great sadness filled him. The room was as he remembered it. He had had it painted and the furnishings refreshed in expectation of Elizabeth’s arrival as his bride. The jeweled hairbrush and two combs rested on a silver tray on a vanity, both were to have been wedding gifts from him, along with the silk night-rail and matching wrapper hanging on a hook near the dressing room door that connected their quarters.
“Where have they sent you, my Elizabeth?” he whispered to the darkness. “Do you still think of me? There has not been a night since the Meryton assembly I have not thought of you, my love.”
Tears filled his eyes. He had not shed one tear in the nearly four years of his imprisonment—prayers, certainly—curses, many—pleading, often, but no tears; however, he shed them now for what could possibly be the death of his dream.
“There is no doubt someone meant to separate us, love. Have you also come to that conclusion? Perhaps or perhaps not. If what Georgiana shared of how you appeared to think I meant to punish you for your refusal at Kent, you may not be aware of those who set themselves against us. Yet, I am praying, after your initial fit of temper, you realized I could never have walked away from the prospects of perfection in our joining. It was too tempting to know anything less.”
He sat upon the bed and removed his borrowed boots, stockings, and jacket, and then crawled across the bed to rest upon the pillows meant for her. “Beginning tomorrow, I will set my world aright, and I will be coming for you, Elizabeth Bennet. I will not countenance the idea you have chosen another. I will come for you, and Heaven help anyone who thinks to cross me again. You will finally be my wife.”
Chapter Four
“Good morning, Mrs. Dartmore.”
Elizabeth looked up from her task of unboxing the books Mr. Sheffield had ordered from London for several of their regular customers to view Mr. Sidney Townsend. She groaned internally, but placed a smile upon her lips. Mr. Townsend, for the last four months had made a point of calling upon her, despite the fact she had never encouraged the man. He would appear at the most inconvenient times and insist upon walking her back to the store.
“Good morning, sir,” she said politely, as she wiped the dust from her hands on a rag she kept under the counter. “I have just unboxed the new shipment from London. Allow me an extra minute or two, and I shall have your book wrapped properly for you.”
“I do not mind the wait when I have such a lovely lady to keep me company.”
“I shan’t keep you long,” she repeated. Retrieving the book the man had ordered from the stack sitting upon the nearby table, she busied herself cutting the brown paper required to wrap the book.
“Do you enjoy poetry, Mrs. Dartmore?” Townsend asked.
Elizabeth glanced to the book in her hand and hid the frown forming upon her features. “I have yet to develop an overwhelming love for Lord Byron, but I am not opposed to reading his works upon occasion,” she said diplomatically.
Mr. Townsend’s eyebrow rose in disbelief. “I thought most women preferred the romantics these days.”
Elizabeth had her own questions as to why a man would purchase Byron’s works unless to impress some woman upon which he had set his sights. She prayed such was not Townsend’s purpose. If so, he would know no purchase where she was concerned. She swallowed the retort rushing to her lips. “I fear I am not much of a ‘romantic,’ as many call this new movement toward ‘sensibility,’ rather than ‘sense.’”
Mr. Townsend leaned against the counter in a casual manner. “A woman of your fine countenance should possess a protector—a man who holds you in affection.”
Elizabeth immediately thought of Fitzwilliam Darcy. After his absence from their wedding, she had despised him, thinking he had betrayed her, but, since coming to live with Mr. Sheffield, she had grieved for the loss of the man who had owned her heart. She had cherished Mr. Sheffield’s remembrances of his young master, tales she would share with Lizzy Anne when the child was older and began to ask of her father.
“I have been held in affection,” she said in solemn tones.
“Yet, you are a young woman,” he argued. “You should consider marrying again.”
“I am a young woman satisfied with her life as it is. My daughter and I shall do well together,” she countered.
“What happens to you if Mr. Sheffield chooses to marry Mrs. Harris?” he demanded. “All of Brighton says it will be so.” Elizabeth had begun to wonder something of the connection between Mrs. Harris and Mr. Townsend. Was the gentleman also attempting to woo the widow? Or, had he and the widow joined forces to separate her and Mr. Sheffield, each with their own reasons to lodge a wedge between her and her guardian angel. “You might wish to consider my suit, Mrs. Dartmore. I would see both you and your child wanting for nothing. Your Elizabeth Anne requires a father. I could be that man in her life.”
“And you wish a mother for your two young sons?” she questioned. She had yet to take the acquaintance of thegentleman’s sons, so she held no opinions of the children, but the man’s close presence made her want to scratch at the hives she was certain had formed along her arm.
