Prologue
Autumn, 1794
Rosings Park, Kent
Lady Catherine de Bourgh smiled as she stared into the mirror, taking in the sight of herself and her dearest friend, Frances Bennet. They were both finally out of their mourning garb for Sir Lewis and Mr. Bennet, and today was the first time the two women were wearing cheerful colors, for it was Fanny Bennet’s wedding day.
Lady Catherine had made the match herself, for she was always determined to be useful. A month after taking in the poor woman who had lost her husband in a carriage accident not a mile from Rosings, she had begun to think of matching Fanny with the vicar of Hunsford. Of course, she would be loath to part from her new friend, whose residence at Rosings with her two young daughters had given her such comfort during the year that she was obliged to remove herself from society as she did her duty to the late Sir Lewis’s memory. They had spent every day together, watching little Jane and Elizabeth play with herdarling Anne, gossiping of local matters and sharing the stories of their lives.
Perhaps Fanny Bennet was not the sort of woman Lady Catherine might have befriended amongst her set in London, for though a gentleman’s wife she was the daughter of a tradesman, but their grief and Lady Catherine’s insupportable boredom had made their friendship a welcome respite.
“Oh, my dear, how ever shall I part with you?”
“I shall be a short walk from the manor; I daresay we shall meet every day, if you wish it,” Fanny said, admiring the fine wedding gown Lady Catherine had ordered for her. “La! I am as nervous as I was the first time!”
“Mr. Cardew is a decent man, and if he does not treasure your girls, they shall be quite welcome in the nursery with Anne; I know she will be sad to see them go, and likely ask for them daily.”
Fanny smiled tearfully. “You have been too good to us! I hardly know what I would have done without you! My poor brother has been far too preoccupied with his growing business and with seeing my sister settled, and now he is courting our cousin Madeline – I am sure he would have neglected me, and I should have ended in the hedgerows when those awful Collinses took possession of Longbourn!”
“Do not distress yourself,” Lady Catherine chided her friend, who was still prone to fits of hysteria over the horrid ordeal that cost her first husband his life.
Fanny smoothed out her dress and then looked at Lady Catherine with utter misery. “What if I cannot give Mr. Cardew a son? When I lost little Mary, I was sure Mr. Bennet would never forgive me!”
Lady Catherine shook her head and smiled indulgently. “Mr. Cardew has nothing a son might expect to inherit, so it canbe of little matter. He is kind enough to your girls, and he shall be an adequate father to any subsequent children – you are not four-and-twenty, Fanny!”
Fanny flashed her a brave smile, but still she fidgeted. “I wish my brother and sister might have attended – and my poor Mamma.”
Lady Catherine grimaced. Fanny’s mother had the insurmountable excuse of being six months deceased, but Mr. Gardiner and the new Mrs. Phillips were absent by their own choice. Of course, Lady Catherine could not entirely repine that she would not be forced to socialize with a merchant and a barrister’s bride, but she was sorry that her friend’s relations did not think much of the bridegroom. They had met him only once, when they accompanied Fanny back to Rosings after burying their mother; but of course, Mr. Cardew had not yet begun to court Fanny, so they had hardly taken a true likeness of the fellow. Worse yet, they had failed to comprehend Lady Catherine's superior judgement in selecting the companion of her friend’s future life.
There was a knock on the door, and Lady Catherine bid the maid enter. “Apologies for the intrusion, your Ladyship….”
Lady Catherine frowned at the fidgeting servant. “Well?”
“Lord! He has changed his mind, I know he has,” Fanny cried, twisting a handkerchief in her hands.
“Oh, no, ma’am,” the maid cried, making a reassuring gesture before turning to Lady Catherine with unaccountable hesitancy. “Your sister has just arrived; she is in the rose parlor, weeping.”
Lady Catherine stiffened in a moment of panic. Her brother, lately made the new Earl of Matlock, had always been sickly. “You mean my sister by marriage?”
“No, your ladyship, not the countess. It is Lady Anne Darcy, your sister.”
Lady Catherine exchanged a worried look with her friend, who squeezed her hand and offered an encouraging nod. “Of course you must go to her. We have another hour yet before we are due at the church. I will look in on our girls, and I shall come to find you when it is time. Perhaps your sister will wish to attend? She is such a charming, fashionable woman!”
Lady Catherine gave Fanny one final, swift examination, declared her to be perfectly charming and fashionable herself, and then swept from the room. She hastened down to the parlor, still afraid of hearing ill tidings of her poor brother. She threw open the doors and hurried to her sister’s side, a handkerchief at the ready for her sobbing sister.
“Anne, whatever is the matter? Tell me quickly, is Henry in any danger?”
Anne instantly sat up straighter and wiped her tears with the lacey handkerchief. “Oh, no! I ought not to have frightened you so! No, he is very well. They are all celebration at Matlock House; wretched creature that I am, I cannot bear it!”
Lady Catherine moved closer to her sister and drew her into a tight embrace as Anne resumed her tears. “Is the countess….?”
“She is expecting again,” Anne moaned, clinging to Lady Catherine as her body wracked with sobs.
“Oh, Annie,” Lady Catherine sighed. Her poor sister’s circumstances had taught her to be content with only one child, but of course their brother must secure the family lineage.
Anne finally spent her tears and withdrew from their embrace, hanging her head as she straightened her shoulders. “I am heartily angry with myself for being so overcome; I ought to be sharing his and Susan’s joy at the news. But I could not evenremain with them in London; I had to get away, and I did not wish to return home just yet.”
“Why ever not?” Lady Catherine furrowed her brows in confusion; wereshethe mistress of Pemberley, she would never leave the place!
