Page 136 of Pride and Prejudice Resolutions

"Get out of my house, Colonel."

"With pleasure. Your cherubs are giving me a headache."

He left her standing in the centre of her golden prison, surrounded by silence and fury, and feeling the thrill of engaging a worthy opponent.

The war had begun.

Chapter Seven: The Potted Plant Revelation

Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam was reconsidering every life choice he had ever made.

This included, but was not limited to: joining the military, attending Lady Sefton's ball, and the catastrophic decision at age seven to believe his brother Robert when he claimed to be holding "absolutely nothing" behind his back. That incident had concluded with a lizard in Richard's breeches, three hours of screaming, and a lifetime ban from the Pemberley Conservatory.

The lizard, in retrospect, had been more pleasant company than the current assembly.

He stood beside a potted palm in the corner of Lady Sefton's ballroom, surrounded by a small mountain of abandoned almond tarts. The tarts sat on a silver platter, untouched save for a single bite mark where some brave soul had attempted consumption and immediately reconsidered their will to live. Lady Sefton, it transpired, had not personally sampled her refreshments. If she had, she would have discovered that her cook possessed a rare talent: the ability to make almonds taste precisely like mouse droppings.

Richard knew this because he had eaten one out of sheer desperation.

Never again.

The ballroom swirled with silks and superfine, a kaleidoscope of wealth and tedium. Debutantes in white muslin giggled behind fans. Matrons in turbans glared at anyone younger than forty. The orchestra sawed away at a country dance with the mechanical precision of men who had stopped caring about music sometime during the reign of Queen Anne.

Richard glared at a lion head carved into the nearest column. The lion glared back, smug and marble.

He was sulking. He was lurking. He was actively contemplating whether a tactical retreat through the terrace doors would be noted by his mother, who sat across the room, a general surveying her troops. The Countess of Matlock missed nothing. She would see. She would know. And she would make him pay for it with a lecture.

No escape, then.

He shifted his weight, his hip feeling strangely naked without the familiar weight of his sabre, which was currently being guarded by a footman in the hall. The dress uniform of his Regiment was designed to inspire awe and terror in equal measure: scarlet coat with gold braid across the chest, white breeches that required the legs of a Greek statue, and boots polished to a shine that could blind the French at fifty paces. The gorget at his throat gleamed. The epaulettes on his shoulders declared his rank with unsubtle authority.

He was, in short, prepared for war. Which was appropriate, because his life had become a battlefield. The trouble had started three days earlier, outside his father's study.

Richard had been stomping down the corridor of Matlock House with all the grace of a carthorse, his mind consumed by visions of a certain red-haired menace. He had been so thoroughly distracted by the memory of her green eyes flashing with fury that he failed to observe the Earl of Matlock standing in the doorway of his study.

If Richard had known his father was there, he would have employed more stealth. He was trained in reconnaissance. He could move through enemy territory without disturbing a blade of grass. But no. He had stomped like a bull in a pottery shop, and now he was paying for it.

The Earl had not spoken. He had simply looked his second son directly in the eye and made a sound.

Tick-tock.

It started quietly. A soft, rhythmic clicking of tongue against teeth.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

Richard froze mid-stomp.

His father's face remained impassive. He continued saying it.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

Richard attempted retreat. He pivoted on his heel, prepared to march back the way he had come with as much dignity as a man could muster whilst fleeing from onomatopoeia.

The ticking followed him.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

Louder now. Echoing down the corridor like the countdown to an execution.