I beg you to forgive me my many crimes!
Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam
“Very pretty!” Jane enthused. “Who are they from?”
“No one of any consequence,” Caroline replied, mouth set in a hard line. She ripped the card in half and dropped the pieces on the nearest table. She turned to the footman in attendance. “Please give these to the kitchen staff.” She then left the room without anther word.
The footman was too well-trained to show any surprise; he took the flowers and left the room.
Jane said nothing, but the moment Caroline left the room, she picked up the two pieces of the card and read it. Colonel Fitzwilliam? What in the world had the man done to Caroline?
***
“You know full well that I cannot give a voucher to the daughter of a tradesman!” Lady Sefton was indignant.
“Come, Maria, you must recall that you gave a voucher to the daughter of that wool merchant you sponsored last Season!”
“That was not at all the same, Eleanor,” Maria Sefton retorted, nose in the air.
The Countess changed her tactics. “You are quite right, Maria. But I am rather desperate.”
“And why is that?”
The Countess lowered her voice. “I think my son, Richard, is developing a tendré for the lady.”
“And so? He can only court her at Almack’s?” Lady Sefton scoffed.
“No; he has shown his affection for her by insulting her grievously on two occasions; first at a ball, at which point she left him standing on the dance floor, and then at a private dinner, when she then turned away from him and spent the rest of the evening conversing with a merchant.”
Lady Sefton stared at the Countess for a long minute and then began to laugh. “Is it true that when Fitzwilliam Darcy first met his wife, he insulted her at a ball?”
“That is true, I regret to say! I suspect Richard is cut from the same cloth, and is desperately hoping tonotbe attracted to the young lady. She demanded flowers for a week to compensate for his first infraction, and he has no idea what would begin to compensate for the second.”
“So you think that if he presents her with a voucher to Almack’s, she might look kindly upon him,” Lady Sefton summarised. “And you are willing to let your son marry this tradesman’s daughter?”
“Maria, I have prayed for many years that Richard would find someone to marry and leave the Army; if this Miss Bingley is the answer to that prayer, than I would welcome her with open arms.”
“Has she money?”
“Twenty thousand pounds.”
Lady Sefton did the math in her head. “Eight hundred pounds per annum from the four percents…I suppose it is adequate.” She hesitated for a long minute before saying, “I cannot imagine what Lady Jersey will say. You will owe me a very large favour for agreeing to this, Eleanor.”
“And I will repay it at your pleasure, Maria.”
***
Later that day, the Countess found her son in the billiard room, practicing shots. He straightened up when his mother strode in. “Mother?”
“Richard, you must visit Miss Bingley tomorrow.”
The Colonel frowned. “I had no plans to see her.”
“But you do know that you owe her an apology, do you not?”
The Colonel allowed that he did. “And I recall that you had a plan of some sort,” he added.
“I have in my hand the means by which you will win her forgiveness.”
