Page 5 of In the Eyes of Lord Lingley

“You had escaped this fate, Darcy,” Lingley muttered. “And you chose to return?”

“Do not remind me!” he scoffed under his breath. “I swore to respect her family. I do not know if I can do it. Can you imagine if my uncle, the Earl, was here to listen to this? Will I have to present her with pride in town? Perhaps my Aunt Catherine might sponsor her presentation to the Queen! Between the two of them, she could not help but be diverted.”

Lingley patted his back in commiseration. “Surely Mrs. Darcy would not ask it of you? Your reputation would be in tatters. No one would believe that you chose to tie yourself to such lowborn, mercenary fortune hunters willingly. You would all be laughed out of London, and your children’s children would be unable to recover.”

Darcy snorted out a laugh, as Lingley had meant for him to, and winced, nodding toward the retreating back of Mary, who had been lurking unseen nearby. Lingley winced as well, but shrugged at his friend. Nothing could be done about it now, except hoping that she would keep the conversation to herself. Elizabeth and Jane appeared a moment later, flushed with embarrassment and frustration.

“Truly, Jane. You must leave or she will never settle. Seeing you is only making it worse. Darcy and I shall stay and ensure that she is well. You have already farewelled everyone, and the carriage is at the door. Make your escape, sister!”

“If you are sure,” Jane bit her lip in indecision.

“Yes,” Elizabeth assured her, pushing both of the Bingleys toward the door. “Enjoy your wedding trip, dearest, and we shall see you for Christmastide at Pemberley.”

Jane and Bingley allowed themselves to be convinced and rushed to their carriage with light hearts, their guilt assuaged. Once the carriage had pulled away, Elizabeth turned to the men and informed her husband that they were leaving as well, as soon as their carriage arrived. The relief on Darcy’s face was comical, though his wife was too kind to comment on it.

Darcy fell upon his sword. “Are you certain that you are not needed, my love? We can stay longer if it will help.”

Elizabeth laughed disbelievingly. “Dear man! My mother does not wish for me. I am only good for berating when she is in the mood. She wishes to be waited on by her favorites. As Lydia is in Newcastle with her snake of a husband, only Jane would do, and you know that she and Charles are too kind to just abandon her to Papa’s questionable comforts and my younger sister’s disinterest. I, however, shall not lose a wink of sleep to desert them all. They must adjust to this new way of things eventually, and it is better for them to begin as they mean to go on.”

“I love you!” Darcy blurted, making Lingley laugh loudly as he waved the two lovebirds away from the door.

They hurried into their carriage and quickly shut the door before the driver was given the signal to move along. Perhaps there was hope for Mrs. Darcy after all, he thought as Lingley turned to search out the Colonel, who he had left enjoying a bottle of port with several young Meryton men. They were still gathered around the table in a small parlor, listening with avid interest to his likely highly embellished stories of his time on the continent with avid interest. Mrs. Bennet’s moans and wails could still be heard from the sitting room next door, and Lingley shrugged his shoulders in discomfort. Truly, that woman was the most shrill, uncouth, self-absorbed harridan that he had ever had the misfortune to encounter. He felt for her daughters— her lackadaisical husband, not so much. The man had disappeared within a quarter of an hour of arriving from the church, and neither social nor familial obligations drew him thither. It was an unacceptable lack of duty. It was obvious that the man cared not at all for anyone or anything which was not for his own comfort and entertainment.

“Does Mr. Bennet have no respect for his family’s honor?” Lingley asked as he dropped into his seat and refilled his glass from the decanter on the table.

“Ha!” one of the young men, a Mr. Lucas, barked a laugh. “He enjoys nothing so much as the ridiculousness of his wife and younger daughters, and even his neighbors do not often escape his biting wit.”

“He sits about in his library with his Greek and his port and feels himself superior to the rest of us.” Mr. Goulding, jr. snorted, which caused a hiccup, revealing his current level of sobriety. “He is the laughingstock in Meryton. According to my parents, Mrs. Bennet, who was born Miss Gardiner, daughter of a solicitor in Meryton, happened to have enough beauty and liveliness to enrapture the studious hermit at Longbourne. She had little intellect and even less education when they married, and Mr. Bennet did not offer any once he discovered his mistake.”

“Her manners are atrocious!” another agreed.

“And she encourages Kitty and Lydia to act just like her,” snickered Mr. Lucas. “It was no wonder that Lydia ran off with a soldier without a single thought for the consequences. You should have seen the chit prancing about town like a peacock, thinking that the ladies would all be jealous of her marriage. I told my sister Maria that if she even thought to look at a red coat again, I would lock her in the attic!”

“Kitty is not much better, even now,” Goulding muttered darkly. “She wishes for attention from every man she meets and is hoping to top her younger sister’s handsome lieutenant.”

Smacks of jealousy and offense, Lingley thought, listening thoughtfully to the men. He shared a look with Fitzwilliam, and the man asked, “Perhaps she wishes a colonel? And Miss Bennet can marry a general!” He winked at Lingley.

The gentlemen burst into loud guffaws of mocking laughter. No one, they assured them, would willingly marry that antidote! She was as ridiculous as the others in her own sanctimonious way.

Lingley’s nostrils flared in outrage as his fists clenched, his entire being revolting against their insults. “Considering their new connections, their chances of marrying well have grown. Many men would be tempted by the connection to Pemberley alone.”

“Darcy is such a cold, unfeeling fellow, I doubt it,” Mr. Lucas snorted without thinking. The look he received from Fitzwilliam had him choking on his breath, and he had a coughing fit. The Colonel pummeled his back so aggressively he nearly dashed his face into the table, making him wince away from where the man sat.

“Besides, Miss Mary at least is not young any longer, nearly twenty,” Goulding attempted to salvage the conversation. “Her mother has been declaring her a spinster since she was half that age!”

“It sounds as if Mrs. Bennet has been planning on her future and permanent companionship for years,” Lingley observed, his bored voice belying his absolute rage. For the life of him, he did not know why he cared so deeply.

“Mary was quite an unfortunate looking child,” the young man explained. “Huge eyes and teeth, like a rodent.”

The description sparked a long ago memory. Lingley had been nearly ten years old himself when his parents had spent one summer at Netherfield, the small estate which his grandmother had brought to her marriage as part of her dowry. From his vague memories, they had been displeased with the house, and his mother had had it completely redone, much to his father’s pretended outrage. There had been many arguments over her spending, which had driven the young viscount from the house and into the surrounding woods, where he had met a tiny wood sprite called May. They had spent several months enjoying their friendship, and Lingley, whose Scottish nurse had raised him on stories of fairies and imps, had convinced himself that the girl, who had claimed to live nearby, was certainly Fae. She had spoken like a much older child despite her diminutive size, and to his unformed brain, that was the only logical explanation.

“Did she have a pet name as a young child?” he asked suddenly, interrupting the man’s increasingly malicious blather.

“No, she… wait. Miss Kitty had a difficult time with her ‘r’s for a time, and I believe she called her May for several years. They did not keep on with it once she grew beyond the impediment. You have heard Mrs. Bennet— Mary-Hannah! Mary-Hannah!”

“Hmmm,” he smiled widely and began to laugh. What a joke! His parents had been livid that he would make up such stories at his age and worried that he might mention them to his peers, his father had even taken a switch to him in an effort to convince him to recant the tales. Would they not be surprised when he told them that he had met ‘May’ once more. He could not help another laugh, drawing confused looks from the men.

“Never mind,” he chuckled, “a passing thought. Not worth mentioning.”