Lady Catherine shushed her, glancing over to ensure Lady Metcalf and her son had not heard Elizabeth’s unguarded remarks. “Lower your voice, my darling, or I shall send you back to your governess. But, tell me – should you like to change your name?”
A surge of hope welled in Lady Catherine’s chest, for she had lately begun to think it would be a fine idea for Jane and Elizabeth to take the de Bourgh name.
Jane shrank back a little. “Would it make our mother sad in Heaven?”
Elizabeth ignored her sister and gave Lady Catherine a teasing smile. “Can we have the Darcy name now that Lady Anne is not using it? If I must change my name, I really think it must be Darcy, for that is the most wonderful name I have ever heard.”
Lady Catherine watched Elizabeth again glance over at Lady Anne with a look of awe. It had been a fine thing for all of them, for Lady Anne and Georgiana to stay so long at Rosings. Her sister adored the girls as much as she did, and they returned her affection just as she deserved. But Elizabeth had always been singularly fascinated with the widow, convinced that she was a tragic and fascinating heroine without fault, and projecting a great many fantastical speculations upon her history, for the girls were too young to know the truth of it.
“De Bourgh is very grand, too,” Lady Catherine said.
Jane and Anne agreed at once, but Elizabeth tapped her chin thoughtfully. “It suits all of you, because you are serious and proper. But I am not, you said so just this morning! I like sunshine and flowers and laughing, and that is why the only other name that could ever suit me is Darcy.”
***
Summer, 1805
The Crown Inn, Lambton, Derbyshire
William Worthing sat with a rowdy group of friends at a wooden table near the bar that encompassed most of the ground floor of the inn where he and his companions were staying. Since finishing university, he and his friends had made a debauched progress northward, with the Lake District being their final destination.
Along the way, they had seen historic sights, ancient ruins, and grand estates, for they were all of them scholars who appreciated such things. They had also made love to ladies along their journey, for they were still young men of two-and-twenty – though William was not quite one-and twenty, having been a year accelerated in his studies after being sent to Eton at a younger age than the other boys. But they were at last free from the pressures of their studies, and ready to make merry. His friends had flirted most determinedly with every pretty lady they met with along their journey; William had… tried.
He liked his friends very well at Cambridge; they played chess, discussed politics and philosophy, and shared in the tribulations of their scholarly pursuits. Free from all restraint and worked into a frenzy of exultant celebration, William found he could not mimic their antics. He wished to, but knew not how. He could neither match their tone in japery, nor imitate theirease in wooing every young woman with a pretty face they had seen for the last fortnight.
William took a long draught of ale and tried to join in the bawdy song his friend had begun to sing, but he observed a soldier sitting across the room from them, watching with a wry expression. The officer shook his head and gave a rueful chuckle, but then made a nod of acknowledgment when he noticed William observing him.
And then he quit his seat near the bar and approached them. William’s friends ceased their rowdy chorus to salute the officer, and Sir Rolland Moore offered to buy him a pint as thanks for his service to King and Crown.
“Thank you kindly,” the young officer said. “I will join you for a toast to His Majesty’s army, but I am obliged to inform you I have lately resigned my commission to move on to greener pastures – nearly two thousand acres of them.FormerCaptain Richard Fitzwilliam, at your service.”
Captain Fitzwilliam gave them a sweeping bow before waving over a buxom barmaid.
“Well!” Rolland cried. “Perhaps you ought to be buying the ale, then, your highness!”
Captain Fitzwilliam did just that, calling for brandy for all. “You lads seem in celebratory spirits yourselves.”
“We have just finished at Cambridge, and mean to debauch ourselves from the Lakes to the White Cliffs this summer before our mothers drag us off to be wed in London like lambs to the slaughter. Forgive me – Neville Crumhorn, pleased to meet you.”
“Gaylord Fiddlebridge,” Rolland said, extending his hand to their new friend.
“Will-” William received a sharp nudge of the elbow from Rolland; they had lost a bet during the final fencing match oftheir term, and nearly all of them had therefore been obliged to adopt false names along their journey. Rolland Moore and Tom Clarke – Neville Crumhorn – had thought it a great lark.
“Will Darcy,” William lied, frowning at his lack of imagination. They had toured Pemberley that afternoon, and the name of the family who had once lived there was all that came to mind as he fumbled for an alias.
Captain Fitzwilliam raised his brows. “Darcy? Are you any connection to my kin, the Darcys of Pemberley? This is the estate I spoke of – I have resigned my commission in order to be of assistance to my father, whose health has become a hindrance to his managing my young cousin’s estate.”
They had heard the tragic tale of the Darcys from the housekeeper Mrs. Reynolds, who extolled the virtues of the dead and gone family with wistful whimsy. The last Mr. Darcy had died five years ago; he was a tall, fair-featured man whose massive portrait was still shrouded in black in the gallery. His heir had been lost as a child – he had not died, but simply vanished. The widow – the loveliest, kindest, most ideal mistress ever, in the housekeeper’s estimation – had been left with only an infant daughter, and remarried in the south of England. William had been keenly struck by the sadness that still hung over the house, though it was a splendid manor with some of the most magnificent grounds he had ever seen.
His friend John Parr – who had presented himself as Perceval Ramsbottom – came to William’s rescue. “His family is from Surrey – they are the D’Arcys – came over from France in eighty-nine.”
“Oh, I see. But you have not a trace of an accent, Darcy.”
William shrugged. “I was taken in by an old bachelor in Surrey, Sir Thomas Grey.” This much was true; he had been an infant at the time, a foundling.
His friends engaged Captain Fitzwilliam on a number of lively topics, from the local scenery, in the tourist sense, to the localscenery,in a rather lecherous sense. He was an affable companion with much to say, and he expressed himself with such wit and intelligence that William was sorry when the captain was finally obliged to take his leave.
“I say, if you are journeying back this way after you have seen the lakes, my mother the Countess of Matlock means to give a ball; she is to play hostess for me at Pemberley while I meet the neighbors. Perhaps a little practice with the matchmaking mammas before your season in London, eh? Five more eligible gentlemen would not go amiss; it might be enough to get my mother to forget aboutme– there is always some horrid cousin one is pushed at.”
