An Unequalled Affection

Part 23

"Well, Richard, it is not that you are not welcome..."

Lady Catherine de Bourgh left her sentence hanging, leaving Richard to supply his own ending, which he could and did. He swallowed a grimace, dipping his head slightly to accept her less-than-generous greeting.

"Of course, you are always welcome. We are always pleased to see you."

This was Anne's attempt and she succeeded a little better than her mother, for she did truly seem to be fond of her cousins and, Richard supposed, pleased that for a little while her mother's suffocating attention would be divided and not rest entirely on her frail shoulders.

"And I am always pleased to see you." Richard straightened, smiling at his aunt. "Both of you. I could not find myself this far south in the country and not pass through Rosings." He walked a slow circuit of the expansive parlour, pausing at the mantelpiece to examine an ornament. "You did receive word I would come?" He had written twice, sending the second shortly before leaving Hertfordshire when he received no answer to his first letter. This slight seemed to register with his aunt, if not with Anne, and her imperious facade faltered.

"Indeed! Did you not get our reply? Perhaps it arrived too late." She waved off the suggestion and Richard swallowed his private thought that no reply had been sent, and certainly would not now reach him.

"It hardly matters," Lady Catherine continued. "For you are here now and all is well. Kent is much improved by your being here." She allowed him a smile and Richard counted this all the welcome he could reliably expect from the aunt who favoured another of her nephews far and above the one who was presently calling on her. "How long will you stay?"

"As long as you will put up with me." Richard grinned cheerily, but, taking note of the arch look that passed between his aunt and cousin, he moderated both his expression and his tone. "That is, I should be grateful to spend a few days at least before taking my leave and moving on."

"Where are you to go next?" Anne asked. Her pale eyes gleamed with excitement and, Richard thought, the tiniest hint of jealousy. Miss Anne de Bourgh was never permitted to travel anywhere without her mother's express permission and immediate company, and as Lady Catherine was, disinclined to travel anywhere at all poor Anne was most often a prisoner in her own home. Richard shuddered, imagining how he would resent such an existence, had his brother ever cared to try and impose it.

Still, Rosings is not so dreadful a place to be tied to, he acknowledged, admiring the rich interior of the grand house he would call home for a week or more.

"I have not yet decided," he confessed, returning to Anne's question and coming to join the ladies in sitting around a low table heavy-laden with refreshments. He was hungry but manners prevented him from eating as he chose, and he selected only an apple. He bit noisily into it, the sound reverberating off the silent parlour walls and he regretted his choice, trying to chew quietly and swallowing awkwardly before he was ready.

"Your brother is not eager for your company?" Lady Catherine dropped two cubes of sugar into her tea and stirred, her spoon scraping noisily against the bottom of her cup.

"He has seen me already and sent me on my way." Richard strove for amiability but once again it felt forced. "I saw Darcy lately at Hertfordshire."

"Fitzwilliam?" Lady Catherine was alert at once, her eyes narrowing like a cat who has sighted its prey. "In Hertfordshire?"

"That is not too far from here, is it, Richard?" Anne glanced at her mother, remarking as if the idea had only just occurred to her. "Perhaps we might, ourselves, make the journey, Mama -"

"He might just as easily call here!" Lady Catherine dismissed Anne's suggestion before she had even finished making it. "I shall write and tell him so. You have his address there, do you, Richard? You can ensure a letter will reach him?"

"I can," Richard said, easily. Although I cannot guarantee you an answer.

"I had heard from Georgiana, of course," Anne remarked. "Although she was vague as to -"

"Georgiana?" Lady Catherine turned the sound of her niece's name into almost a warning bell, but if Anne noticed it she was too late to retreat. "When did you hear from Georgiana?"

"A week or so ago, Mama. I did tell you. Recall, I read the letter one afternoon while you worked on your embroidery."

"Oh. Oh yes. Indeed." Lady Catherine's cheeks pinked beneath the great layer of powder she wore and Richard fancied she did not recall half as clearly as she pretended to. No doubt working on embroidery was a polite euphemism for snoring in your chair and the thought made him stifle a laugh.

"And how is Fitzwilliam?" Lady Catherine asked, steering the conversation back to the only topic of which she never grew tired of speaking. "He does not come here as often as he might, and it is so long since we made the journey to Pemberley. I suppose he has left his sister there, languishing in his absence?"

"Georgiana is in Hertfordshire too just at present, they are staying with friends." Richard paused. "Mr Charles Bingley and his sister." He almost managed to speak their names as if they belonged to any other strangers in England and not the man he had come perilously close to shooting through the heart.

"Bingley." Lady Catherine was far less measured. "They are those merchant children, are they not?"

"Mama!"

Richard was amused rather than shocked, as Anne was, to hear Lady Catherine speak so haughtily of those her favoured nephew considered friends. It took effort, but somehow Richard managed to speak without laughing aloud at the thought of Caroline Bingley - and, more amusing still, her brother - being considered merchant children.

"Mr Bingley considers himself a gentleman, Aunt. He leases an estate at Hertfordshire." This, it seemed, was the prerequisite for being a gentleman in society's eyes, if not in Lady Catherine's. I wonder if she will still refer to me as a soldier even years after I retire.

"Hmm." Lady Catherine sniffed, tiring of the topic of Mr Bingley's social status. "Well, what news is there of the war, Richard? I suppose you have some tales of daring you wish to impress us with. You may do so, only please limit your descriptions of the danger you faced and recall my dear Anne is rather delicate."

Richard glanced at Anne quickly enough to see her pale eyes flash with annoyance and he fancied that his cousin was rather less delicate than her mother cared to believe. Still, they were both ladies, and as such he ensured any tales he shared were amusing, painting a rather jolly picture of the war that still haunted Richard on late nights when he could not sleep. It was a kindness to return to this, and bypass altogether any other memories of Hertfordshire, and Jane Bennet. That part of my life is over now, he reminded himself. And the sooner I get used to that, the better.