“Miss Georgiana, Mr. Darcy departed hours ago, but he left you this note.”


Dear Georgie,

After thinking about our plans, I decided that it made no sense for you to go back to London, only to return to Netherfield in a few days. I will have Macy gather whatever she thinks is necessary and will send it to you by way of the Gardiners, and I will ask the Gardiners to use my carriage. Although I am sure they own a fine conveyance, I will rest easier if I know you are in our carriage. I will also send Mercer with you.

I know that last year you were alone at Pemberley after Mr. Ferguson’s wife died, and I remember your words. “Yes, I will be alone, that is, if you do not count Mr. Jackson, Mrs. Bradshaw, Mrs. Reynolds, the grooms, the maids, the footmen, etc.” Besides, I am quite confident that you are capable of executing your responsibilities as mistress of Pemberley.

Please instruct Belling that he is to see that Mr. Gardiner is properly outfitted and that he should send one of the grooms who is familiar with all of the best fishing spots. I suggest Avery or Cubbins. I doubt the Gardiners ride, and the only comment Elizabeth made about riding in my presence was that she manages not to fall off the horse. Therefore, I think it will be sufficient for you to have Belling take them into the District by wagon, but Mrs. Bradshaw will need to prepare a simple repast for them to take with them.

You should meet with Jackson, Mrs. Bradshaw, and Mrs. Reynolds as soon after your arrival as possible as they will need sufficient notice to provide for our guests. I will post a letter to Jackson as soon as I arrive in London, and he will inform the staff.

Regarding last night, I have one more thing to add. With rank comes privilege, but it also comes with responsibilities as well as a code of conduct.

Love, Will


P.S. Bingley is to bring the Crenshaws to Netherfield, but he has promised he will not do so until you are safely on the road to Pemberley.


Georgiana laughed at her brother’s comments. He was confident in her abilities to host a party for a grand total of three people, but felt the need to provide instructions anyway. As to Will’s business in London, since she could do nothing about the situation with Miss Montford, she would not think about it. Instead, she would enjoy the company of the woman he really loved.

Chapter 17

Darcy left Netherfield as the first rays of the sun came over the horizon, filling in the spaces in the greenery with bursts of light. Next to the note he had addressed to his sister, he had left another for Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst as he had not taken proper leave of them the night before. Although he did not like Caroline and was easily annoyed by Mrs. Hurst, they knew how to keep house for their brother, and there was something to be said in praise of management skills because, with the Crenshaws’ arrival, that was about to change.

Darcy did not understand why the ten-year-old twins, Gaius and Lucius, were not in boarding school. “There isn’t a housemaster in the whole of England who would tolerate such behavior for one minute, no less years,” he had told Bingley, who had nodded his head in agreement. Ever the pleasant fellow, Bingley had explained, “My hands are tied. I can offer Diana my advice, but I cannot force her to do anything.”

“Why not?” Darcy thought. “I am being forced by convention to do something I do not want to do,” and then he put his head in the corner of the carriage and went to sleep

When Darcy arrived at the London townhouse, he found his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, waiting for him. As close as he was to Bingley, it was his cousin whom he thought of as his brother. They were the same age, and as children, had spent long summers together at Pemberley or at the Fitzwilliam estate in Kent or, better yet, at the seaside in Weymouth where the Darcys maintained a villa.

“Richard, you are a sight for sore eyes,” he said, patting his cousin on his back. “What brings you to London?”

“You seriously do not know?” he asked, laughing. “You sent me this extraordinary note,” and he held it out so that his cousin could see that he had brought it with him, “in which you wanted to know post haste if there was a ‘hullabaloo’ when our grandparents had married. Allow me to read it:


Richard, My thanks for your continued service in keeping the Corsican corporal from our shores. It would be an inconvenience to be invaded by the French.

Having lived with our grandparents for many years, do you remember if they ever mentioned a hullabaloo when they married? Old Norman stock v. upstart Anglo-Irish? Any of that? Your immediate response will be appreciated.

Yours, Will


“Not exactly teeming with details, is it? I must know the purpose of this letter.”

“You could have written to me, Richard. Considering your military obligations, I did not expect your response to be hand delivered.”

“I was looking for a break in the monotony, and I was owed considerable leave. I am so tired of sitting in a camp in Kent sticking my tongue out at the Frenchies on the opposite shore. I thought it would be exciting to be an artillery officer shooting off very big guns, but we keep our powder dry and wait. If there wasn’t such a scarcity of heiresses, I would seriously consider selling my commission. But enough about me. Why do you need to know this information?”

“Answer the question, and I promise I will tell all.”

“Agreed,” and Richard began. “I could not remember hearing anything about a hullabaloo, so I stopped at Mama’s on the way here. She had the whole story on the tip of her tongue. Our grandfather, Robert, who was not an earl at this time, married Charlotte Denby, who gave birth to Aunt Catherine, but died a few years later. Following his first wife’s death, Robert went to London in search of a second wife, which is where he was introduced to eighteen-year-old Marie Devereaux. When her parents got wind that a romance was brewing, they sent Marie to live with relations in Rouen, but Robert followed her there, and they married in secret. But it did not stay a secret for long because she got pregnant with my father.

“Apparently, when the marriage was revealed, there was no hullabaloo. It was closer to an explosion. Marie was cut off from the family entirely—no money, no visits. Unlike the Darcys, the Devereauxes had remained Catholic and were appalled that their daughter had married someone who was neither Norman nor Catholic. They actually had their sights set on her marrying the Earl of Arundel, the heir to the Duke of Norfolk, the highest peer in the realm, and a Catholic to boot.

“The Fitzwilliams sent emissaries to negotiate a peace. Over the decades, remaining Catholic had done nothing for the Devereaux finances, and their Norman laurels were all that was left to them. So the earl offered them a gift of five thousand pounds; it was refused. But when he increased it to eight thousands pounds, all was forgiven. According to my mother, Marie and Robert married for love and stayed in love. Neither had any regrets.”

“So Marie was prepared to risk everything to be with someone from an Anglo-Irish family that lacked the ancient ties to the monarchy that set these Norman families apart.”

“It was risky for our grandfather as well,” Richard answered. “Although Marie joined the Church of England after her parents had died, at the time of her marriage, she was a Roman Catholic. Two generations earlier, George I, the first of the Hanoverians, had ascended the throne in order to keep it from the Catholic Stuarts. It was a touchy time, and so I say bravo to both of them. But why did you need this information?”

Darcy went and poured a glass of wine for both of them and shared with his cousin the burden he had been carrying around for so many weeks.

“I have fallen in love. Head over heels. Walking on air. Can’t think of anything else type of love.”

“I gather we are not speaking of Miss Montford?”

“No. The lady is the sister of Miss Jane Bennet who will marry Charles Bingley in December. She is the daughter of a gentleman farmer.”

“Ah, I see. The purpose of your letter was to find out if you would be betraying your Devereaux ancestors by marrying someone who is so far beneath your station in life.”

“Those are not the words I would have used, but, yes, that is the question. There are damn few of us left. Only a handful of families are more than half Norman, but I am also the grandson of an earl. How would such a marriage affect Georgiana’s prospects?”