Chapter 41

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

February 28, 1812

I t was not usual for a wedding to be so well attended. The breakfast afterwards, yes—and most of the neighbourhood would participate in that event, too.

Elizabeth sighed at the sight of the crowded pews as she peeked into the nave, feeling as though she was put on display for the entire world. It was Darcy’s fault, really. Had he not failed to show up for their first wedding ceremony, their second try at nuptials would not have caused such a stir. At least half the attendees probably hoped to witness another dramatic non-appearance.

She peeked again into the nave; Bingley stood before the Bennet family pew, waiting for the bridegroom, passing the time by engaging in quiet conversation with Jane. Darcy was conspicuously absent.

The vicar, Mr Palmer, appeared in the vestibule. “Miss Elizabeth, perhaps you and your father would like to await your bridegroom in a more private chamber? It is chilly out here.” He hesitated. “If you would like, you could come around the north side and enter that way.”

He is terrified of history repeating itself.

“Yes, that is an excellent idea,” Mr Bennet agreed immediately.

So is Papa.

“No,” Elizabeth said firmly. “Mr Darcy will either come, or the world has stopped spinning on its axis, or he is already at heaven’s gate, awaiting entrance. Nothing but death or the end of the world would stop him, I promise you.”

At that moment, the church doors were flung open, and Darcy barrelled through, his hair disarranged and cheeks red—as though he had run all the way to the church. She caught a glimpse, several yards behind him, of a tall, thickset older man struggling to keep up.

“Elizabeth,” Darcy gasped, reaching for her hands. “I am so sorry to be dela—” He paused mid-sentence to look at her, really look. “You are astonishingly beautiful.” Tugging her towards him, it appeared as though he might take her into his arms right then and there—had not Mr Bennet insistently cleared his throat. Darcy resumed his explanations instead.

“My uncle turned up at Netherfield just as I was leaving for the church.”

“Your uncle?”

At that moment, the doors opened again, the older man reaching them. “You did not need to run from the carriage as if your hair was afire,” he grumbled at Darcy, puffing for breath.

“Thanks to your younger son—yes, I did,” Darcy snapped back. He appeared to gather himself, straightening, but leaving one hand firmly clasping Elizabeth’s. “Mr Bennet, Miss Elizabeth Bennet—moments away from becoming Mrs Elizabeth Darcy—Lord Matlock. Matlock, Mr Bennet, Miss Bennet.”

Elizabeth curtseyed as best she could with Darcy’s hand clutching hers; he did not seem inclined to let her go. Her father acknowledged the introduction politely, but she could see his confusion. “Colonel Fitzwilliam’s father,” she murmured by way of explanation.

Mr Bennet stiffened.

“Let us get the ceremony underway,” Darcy said. “My lord, if you will accompany me.”

“Pleased to meet you,” the earl said genially, ignoring his nephew, and as if a church full of people were not waiting just beyond the doors, probably all straining to hear what the commotion was about. Of course, he was an earl, and likely accustomed to making the world wait. “There is a quiet little churchyard just beyond these doors. I wonder, Miss Bennet, if you would favour me with your company for a brief walk?”

“Now?” Mr Bennet and Darcy exclaimed in unison.

“Now,” the earl said, distinctly unperturbed.

“It is out of the question,” Darcy said.

“You cannot be serious,” Mr Bennet chorused.

Elizabeth could see that Darcy and her father were disinclined to accommodate him, but there was something in the earl’s expression—earnest, grave, with eyes so like Darcy’s own—that sparked her curiosity. Other than Georgiana, there was no one else here from Darcy’s family, although he had written to them. She had felt they were united in their disapproval, and probably this was nothing more than a chance for Lord Matlock to give her an earl’s set down. Her courage, however, rose to the challenge. She had never before met this man; she would give him a chance to be civil.

“I shall do it,” she said, speaking to her bridegroom, “unless there is a specific reason you wish me not to do so, other than the unfortunate timing of this conversation?”

“The earl can wait ,” Darcy said decisively.

“A few minutes of your time only, madam,” the earl said, facing Elizabeth, obviously sensing her as the more malleable party.

She turned to Darcy, smiling up at him. “Perhaps, sir, you would await me inside, near Mr Bingley—where my neighbours will all stare at you in obvious enquiry, wondering if this time I have abandoned you ?”

Mr Bennet’s brows rose almost to his hairline in astonishment. “Lizzy,” he murmured, “perhaps now is not the moment to indulge your unique sense of humour?”

Elizabeth did not blame her father for the protest, for Darcy was frowning ferociously. But as she looked into his eyes, trying to read them, his expression smoothed. “I suppose that is only fair,” he said, softly touching her cheek. He turned to the earl. “I give you ten minutes, no more, before I come to fetch her. And if you say anything at all which she finds objectionable, you will never speak to her, or me, again. Am I understood?”

Matlock nodded impatiently—unmistakably bridling, unaccustomed to chastisement by anyone at all.

Reluctantly, Darcy let go of his bride and stalked into the church. A torrent of gasps and whispers from the congregation accompanied his entrance. Elizabeth turned to her father. “Papa?”

He sighed, gave the earl a suspicious glance, and withdrew his pocket watch. “Oh, do choose this moment for your country stroll,” he said to them both with no little sarcasm, seating himself on the bench. “I am quite at leisure.”

The earl offered his arm; Elizabeth took it, and walked out with him into the weak winter sun.

For a minute or so, the earl was silent; Elizabeth was determined that he should be the first to speak.

“You must be at a loss, Miss Bennet, to understand the reason for my insistence.”

“I have been unable to account for it, sir,” Elizabeth concurred.

“And yet, at almost the moment of your wedding, you agreed.”

“You are soon to be my uncle. Duty and respect obliged my agreement. At least this once.”

He grunted. “Say what you think, do you? Probably what Darcy likes about you, contrary lad that he is.”

Elizabeth had no answer to this; Darcy was the least ‘contrary’ person she knew.

“His mother was my favourite person in the world. On her deathbed, she begged me to look after him. He made it difficult, however. Has his own ideas about everything he does, from where he would gain his education to how he ought to invest his money, to how I ought to vote on this bill or that in the House of Lords—he is the least governable man I know.”

Although he said this in a grumble, there was pride in his voice. Elizabeth could not do more than nod. They walked a little farther before he spoke again.

“He is at loggerheads with my youngest son. They have been the best of friends most of their lives, but Darcy says Richard behaved towards you in an ungentlemanly manner, failing to inform you of Darcy’s compulsory absence upon his wedding day, leading to the further postponement of your marriage. Richard agrees that this is what happened, but declines to provide his reasoning for such dishonourable conduct. Both tell me to ask the other for the entire truth of the matter, but neither will reveal the whole story. I am asking you for it.”

Both of them protect Georgiana. It is good of the colonel to refuse to defend himself, for her sake. It was the first kindly thought she had had towards Colonel Fitzwilliam since she learnt of his actions on her first wedding day.

“I am afraid that I am unable to help you with that,” she answered evenly.

He glowered, but it simply made her want to smile; it was Darcy’s glower, exactly. The earl wore the fearsome aspect for a few more moments, but seeing its lack of effect, he gave it up in a sigh.

“The older I get, the more I see of myself in Richard,” he said at last. “I have been strict—very strict with him. I did not want him waiting around, hoping his elder brother would die before he had a life of his own. My wife and I have emphasised, again and again, the need for a certain exactness of standards in his bride. I suspect he did not find your birth well enough for Darcy’s expectations. None of his business, of course,” he was quick to add, “and his situation is not Darcy’s. He should not have involved himself in the matter. He ought to have remembered that duty, honour, and gratitude for the many ways Darcy supports and assists his family demand our defence of his decision, and so I have reminded him. When I was a younger man, however, without a right understanding of the Darcy stubbornness, I might once have made the same blunder.”

He looked at her with some anticipation, as if hoping he had hit on the truth and that she would confirm it.

“You will have to ask him his motives,” she said simply, and the elderly man’s face fell, his shoulders slumping.

At his obvious dismay, something within her let go of her anger. It was in the past; she would not think of it again. The last thing she wanted was for the earl to keep poking at the old wound. If Darcy ever wished to renew his friendship with his cousin, she certainly would not fight it.

“I recommend, however, that we, none of us, dwell upon it,” she said. “Families are imperfect. They err. I will, doubtless, make my own mistakes in the future. If we acknowledge what we have done wrong, and vow to do better in the future, we surely can move past them. I am willing if he is, and so you may tell your son.”

His palpable relief at her words told her they were the right ones.

“Well then,” he said, straightening, smiling, and turning her about. “Well then. We had best get you into the chapel before Darcy comes out here to drag you back indoors. I still must have a word with your father. Come, Niece. Let us hurry you now to your bridegroom.”

And this was how Elizabeth found herself escorted up Meryton’s church aisle with her father on one arm and the renowned Earl of Matlock upon the other. It made her final wedding day a sight that few in attendance would ever forget.