Page 27 of The Scarred Duchess
“No... I mean, yes! It was that Golem and his bodyguard.”
“What in the devil’s name are you ranting about, boy?” thundered the magistrate.
Wickham exhaled loudly. “The manservant, Villiers, is bodyguard to the Golem, Darcy’s cousin.” An exhale in exasperation followed. “Richard Fitzwilliam.”
“A fifteen-year-old lad and his bodyguard dismantled you four apes in seconds?”
George Wickham shuddered. “He hardly needed help. Richard Fitzwilliam is a killer.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
March 1797
Gardiner,
I am at my wit’s end. Franny refuses to leave the mistress’s suite. I have had Mrs Goulding and the vicar visit, to no avail.
Please find a way to come to Longbourn. I know not what to do. Mayhap Mrs Gardiner may lend a sympathetic ear.
Bennet
Bennet sat with his brother Gardiner by the warm hearth. It would have been a comfortable setting to partake in good port if the mood had been less grim. The absence of Andrew Gardiner, dead nearly two years, hung over them still.
“Copper ran off,” Bennetremarked. “Again.”
“He is probably at my father’s grave.”
“Yes. That is where we usually find him.”
“He will adapt. Or not.” Gardiner looked at the window.
Following a knock on the door, Hill entered with tea. “Mrs Gardiner ordered it. She will be in directly.”
“Uh-oh,” murmured Gardiner.
“It has been four days since Franny has spoken a word to me,” Bennet observed.
Gardiner pursed his lips. “My wife surely will have words. For you.”
Bennet swallowed. “And?”
“I suggest you swallow your pride and listen very, very carefully.”
Mrs Gardiner entered moments later. The men stood.
“How are you, my dear?” asked Gardiner.
“I am troubled.” She looked at Bennet before asking her husband to take his nieces for a walk away from the house. “An outing in the fresh air will be beneficial.”
A moment later, Bennet was seated across from Mrs Gardiner. Her recent avoidance of him gave him much worry; that Gardiner did not stay set off alarm bells. He did not want a meeting such as this to descend into hostility. She brushed out her skirts. “May I speak frankly?”
“Please do.”
She cleared her throat, then squared her shoulders, meeting his gaze. “You have failed to support Mrs Bennet—as a wife, mother, and mistress of this estate.”
Despite feeling immediately injured by her words, he controlled his temper. “How have I been neglectful?”
“She had a companion and masters while a solicitor’s daughter, did she not?”
