Page 92 of Pride and Prejudice Resolutions

"We shall place the announcement in theMorning Posttomorrow," she decided, brushing crumbs from her bodice. "A discreet notice. 'Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley is engaged to Miss Anne de Bourgh of Rosings Park.' Simple. Elegant. It will stop the rumours."

"What rumours?" Darcy asked calmly.

"Do not play coy with me! The rumours that you are wandering about the countryside making eyes at nobodies! I heard you were in Hertfordshire. A savage place. Full of mud and militia." She shuddered. "But that is over. You are a Darcy. You have a duty."

Anne sighed loudly from the sofa. "Mother, do we have to do the duty speech? It is so long."

"Silence, Anne! This concerns your future!" Lady Catherine turned back to Darcy. "The wedding will be at Easter. At Rosings, of course. Mr Collins will officiate. It will be a union of the two great estates. Your mother and I planned it while you were in your cradles. It was her dearest wish."

Darcy looked at his aunt, the woman who dared to use his dead mother's name as a bludgeon.

"You say it was a compact?" he asked.

"A sacred compact! Written in... well, in our hearts! We agreed. The shades of Pemberley and Rosings are to be united."

"And yet," he said, his voice level, "my mother never mentioned it to me. Not once. In her letters, in her journals, on her deathbed. She spoke of my happiness. She spoke of duty to the tenants. She never spoke of Anne."

"She assumed you knew!" Lady Catherine snapped. "It was understood!"

"It was not understood by me," Darcy said. "Nor, I suspect, by Anne."

He looked at his cousin. Anne blinked slowly. "I mostly just want to stay in my room and read," she said flatly. "Mother says I must marry you to secure the line. I think you are very loud when you walk, Fitzwilliam. It would be annoying."

"Thank you, Anne." Darcy sounded genuinely relieved.

"You see?" Lady Catherine waved a hand. "She is shy. She relies on you. Now, fetch me some paper. We must draft the announcement."

"No," Darcy said.

It was a small word. It hung in the air, vibrating.

Lady Catherine froze. Her hand, reaching for another tart, stopped mid-air. "I beg your pardon?"

"No," Darcy repeated and stood up. He felt a rush of adrenaline, a clarity that was sharper than the winter air. "There will be no announcement. There will be no wedding at Easter. There is no compact, Aunt. There never was."

"How dare you!" Lady Catherine surged to her feet, her face turning a mottled purple. "You defy me? You defy your mother's wishes?"

"I defyyourwishes," Darcy corrected. "My mother wished for me to marry for affection. She wished for me to be happy. And marrying Anne—who finds my walking annoying and whom I view as a sister—would make neither of us happy."

"Happiness!" Lady Catherine spat the word as if it were a profanity. "Happiness is for ploughmen! You are a gentleman! You have a lineage to protect! You cannot break an engagement of honour!"

"There is no engagement," Darcy's voice rose, filling the room. "Not formal, not informal. And since my mother is unavailable to testify, there is no dispute. I am a free man, Aunt. And as a free man, I have made my choice."

Lady Catherine stared at him, her mouth agape. "Choice? What choice?"

Darcy took another breath.

"I am courting a lady," he announced. "A lady of beauty, wit, and worth. And you should expect the happy news shortly. But it will not be with Anne."

The silence that followed was absolute. Even the clock on the mantel seemed to stop ticking out of respect for the sheer magnitude of the explosion that was about to occur.

Anne de Bourgh sat up. She looked at Darcy. And then, she mouthed:Thank you.

Lady Catherine, however, was not silent. She inhaled. It was a long, rattling intake of breath that presaged a hurricane.

"A lady?" she whispered. "Who is she?"

"Miss Elizabeth Bennet," Darcy said. "She is the daughter of a gentleman."