The Darcy Connection (29 page)

Mr. Bruton's eyes swept over him. “You forget yourself. A private parlour, if you please. My cousin is come from London upon family business.”

The innkeeper, muttering to himself, told a waiter to take Mr. Bruton to the small back parlour. “Which I shall be letting out, sir, directly, so—”

“Thank you,” said Mr. Bruton.

“Now,” he said, shutting the door of the small, stuffy room, which smelt strongly of ale, “what the devil are you doing here?”

Eliza saw how it was. There was no affection in his eyes, no kindness, he had no pleasure in seeing her. What had she done, flying here from London? She had imagined a different welcome, not this wall of chilly hostility. To gain time to compose herself, she sat down on a worn settle and smoothed her skirts. Then she looked directly at Mr. Bruton and spoke in a surprisingly steady voice. “Anthony is not dead. He suffered nothing more than a trivial wound, and will make a complete recovery.”

Was that relief in his face? He was standing in the far corner of the room, as far as possible from her, she suspected, and he was in shadow.

“I am glad to hear it, I did not intend to kill him,” he said flatly.

A long silence. She would not speak another word, she would force him to say more than that. Finally, he spoke again. “Have you come all the way from London to tell me this?”

“It means that you no longer have to leave the country.”

“I am leaving the country in any case. My father wishes me to spend some years in Paris, in our bank there. As soon as this damned wind turns, I shall be off.”

What could she say? How could she get through to him? She took a deep breath. “Mr. Bruton, you are suffering from a misapprehension, regarding the relationship between Mr. Diggory and myself.”

His eyes were even colder now. “I am not in the least interested in you or Mr. Diggory. Now that he is on the way to recovery, I shall not give him another thought. Nor you, Miss Eliza.”

“No, you shall listen to me. I was secretly engaged to Mr. Diggory, in Yorkshire.”

“So I was informed. I wish you every happiness for your future, and hope that a marriage that began in such a scandalous way will nonetheless bring you both whatever you desire from it.”

“You sound like Mr. Pyke,” flashed Eliza, thoroughly angry now. “Come down off your high horse, for goodness' sake. I was engaged.
Was,
Mr. Bruton, not am. As soon as Anthony arrived in London, I told him my sentiments had undergone such a change—in short, I no longer wanted to marry him, and I released him from the engagement, which we should never have entered into.”

“In other words, you jilted him.”

Eliza winced, but there was anger now in his voice and face, and that gave her hope, anything was better than cold indifference.

“Yes, and he was angry with me, and didn't want to believe that I was telling him the simple truth.”

“What was the simple truth? That London had gone to your head, and you thought you could do better for yourself than the son of a Yorkshire baronet?”

“Of course, how could I think of Anthony when Mr. Pyke was offering for me?” she snapped back. “You are a fool, Mr. Bruton. I fell out of love with one man because I had fallen in love with another. An old story, and a common one.”

He shrugged. “In due course, you will fall out of love and in love again.”

“No. I made a mistake, that is all. I didn't understand what it means to love a man until I met you. And now, if you will excuse me, I have to find an inn for tonight, it is too late for me to go to London, and every room here is taken.”

Her voice was so husky with emotion that she was barely audible, and when she finished, she was beyond words. It was as though her world had shrunk, leaving her nothing but this box of a room and a future which held certainly unhappiness and probably ruin. She lifted her hand and rubbed it over her eyes. There were no tears in her eyes, she was trying to wipe away an immense weariness.

Mr. Bruton took two steps towards her, banging at once into the end of the settle. With a curse he pushed it aside, and two seconds later, she was in his arms. Their eyes met for a long, still moment, then lips.

Rapt, lost in their passionate embrace, everything forgiven and forgotten, neither of them heard the door open. Then an all too familiar voice drawled, “Well, what have we here? The innkeeper told me you were in here with a lightskirt, and upon my word, I know the wench. None other than the sister-to-be of the noble marquis.”

They fell apart, and Eliza blinked to see George Warren, triumph written all over him, standing in the doorway.

“Although this will put a stop to all your family's hopes and prospects. My uncle will not ally himself with a woman whose sister has been so comprehensively ruined. The rash deed of one must inevitably bring down the other. No maid, the innkeeper tells me, Miss Eliza. You came here alone in a hired chaise, you have no room booked—of course you have no need of one, since you can share Bruton's room. Oh, how ironic the situation is, how perfect my revenge! Usually, I find the morality of our world tiresome and irrational, but now, believe me, I most heartily endorse its ruthless code.”

Ruined! The word rang in Eliza's ears. It was only a word, but what a world of dismay and disgrace it conjured up. And Warren meant what he said. This was no idle threat, and there was nothing that either she or Mr. Bruton could do to prevent his spreading this story all over London, a story so scandalous that it would pass from mouth to mouth, appear in the broadsheets, reach the outposts of the kingdom, even as far as Yorkshire.

How the populace, from Lady Thing in her gilded chamber to the potboy at the lowliest tavern, would lick their lips over the tale! A bishop's daughter, a single young woman, caught in flagrante with the scion of a notable banking family—for Eliza was not so naïve as to suppose that Mr. Warren would be content to leave the story at a kiss and the lack of a maid. A bishop's daughter, moreover, whose sister was betrothed to one of the highest in the land!

Mr. Bruton didn't stand and reflect. Instead, he launched himself at Warren, but that gentleman was too wily for that, and Mr. Bruton came smack up against a rapidly closed door. He flung it open and bounded out, scattering the two chambermaids and a waiter who were clustered at the door, all ears.

With a shout of fury, he went after Warren, who was beating a rapid retreat, but found his way blocked by a tall, dark, distinguished-looking man.

A shriek from behind him, and then Eliza's astonished, appalled voice: “Oh, good heavens, it is Mr. Darcy!”

Lady Sarah was in the drawing room, sitting upright on a sofa, while her husband prowled uncomfortably up and down. Bartholomew paused at the door, then took a breath and went in, crossing the large room to give his mother a kiss on the cheek. Then he said good morning to his father.

“Sit down,” said Lady Sarah.

Bartholomew had not cared for the peremptory summons from his mother, which had been delivered to him by his wooden-faced valet. “I wouldn't dally if I were you, sir,” he'd added.

Everyone in the house feared Lady Sarah when she was in one of her forceful moods, and Bartholomew had braced himself for a difficult interview; however, to his surprise, he saw that his mother had an unusually serene expression on her face.

“We have had a visitor today,” she said.

“What, this time on a Sunday morning? Who was this uncivil person?”

“Mr. Darcy.”

Bartholomew cleared his throat. “Ah. I don't think I need to ask which Mr. Darcy.”

“You do not,” said Mr. Bruton. “Your mother is speaking of Mr. Darcy of Pemberley.”

“Ah,” Bartholomew said again, uncertain what Mr. Darcy might have told his parents.

“Mr. Darcy came on something of a delicate mission,” said Lady Sarah. “He is often stigmatised as proud, but once you become better acquainted with him, you find he is a warm, kind man. I have known him for a great many years, and I confess that I had a tendre for him in the days of my youth.”

“What?” said Mr. Bruton.

“That was before I met you, my love. He was very handsome—he still is, I may say—and with a great air about him. However, he never looked in my direction; indeed, he never looked in anyone's direction after he met Elizabeth. Caroline Warren, Caroline Bingley as she was then, had set her heart on marrying him, although I think she cared more for his estate than for him as a person.”

“Lady Warren?” said Bartholomew.

“Yes, Lady Warren. I mention it, because it explains something of what that wicked George Warren has been up to; he carries his stepmother's grudge further than she ever did, and hates all the Darcys.”

They were coming to the nub of the matter, with mention of George Warren. “Mama,” Bartholomew began.

“Let me finish. Mr. Darcy is cousin to Miss Eliza Collins, who came up to town with him and Elizabeth. They had been staying at Rosings. I had not known that the Darcys were back from abroad, but it seems they arrived late at Dover and posted straight on to Kent.”

“Mama—”

“Don't interrupt your mother,” said Mr. Bruton.

“Mr. Darcy came to talk to us about your marriage.”

Bartholomew was growing warier by the moment. “You know that any marriage between me and Jane Grainger—”

“Is now out of the question,” interrupted his father. “It is an astonishing fact that if one is out of London for even so short a period as twenty-four hours, some scandal will have broken while one is away. No sooner had the furore over your intemperate and foolish duel with Mr. Diggory died down than the news flew about town that Miss Grainger had eloped with her music master.”

“Eloped with—I will be damned. No wonder she applied herself so diligently to her study of the pianoforte!”

“Bartholomew!”

“I beg pardon, Mama.”

“Mr. Darcy came to talk to us about a marriage between you and his young cousin, that same Miss Eliza of whom we spoke a while ago. It is a match he approves of, and he believes that, in the circumstances, you have no choice but to make her your wife.”

Circumstances? Just how much did they know about what had happened in Dover? His father's next words enlightened him.

“By whisking Miss Eliza off to Rosings, they seem to have spiked Warren's guns for the moment. Yet word will get out, rumours will spread, and so, for the sake of her good name and also, incidentally, for the sake of our good name, by which I mean the bank's, I propose that the notice of your engagement will appear in the
Gazette
as soon as may be.”

Mr. Bruton finished this speech with a harrumph, and rattled the lid of the large silver coffeepot, which was on the table beside Lady Sarah. “This is quite cold,” he said irritably.

“Then ring for some more,” she said. “Bartholomew, Miss Eliza Collins is not the wife we would have chosen for you. However, the Darcy connection is not to be sneezed at, and of course she will be Montblaine's sister-in-law.”

“I would remind you that Mr. Darcy is a valued client of the bank,” said Mr. Bruton. “As were his father and his grandfather before him. I should not wish to offend such a man.”

“Not the wife you would have chosen for me?” said Bartholomew impudently. “No, you'd have had me hitched to a wife who'd run off with her piano instructor as soon as my back was turned.”

“You had better write to her father, to the bishop, today,” said Mr. Bruton. “She is not of age, so you need his permission to marry her. And I think the less he knows about your and her journey to Dover, the better!”

“Write?” said Bartholomew. “I'll leave such distant courtesy to the marquis. I shall post up to Yorkshire this very day to ask the bishop for his consent!” And, he added under his breath as he left the drawing room, I shall take Eliza with me.

The ladies were at home. Mr. Bartholomew Bruton followed the footman up Lady Grandpoint's stairs and waited while he announced him.

His bow to Lady Grandpoint was mechanical, as was his handshake with Charlotte. His eyes were riveted on Eliza, who had been sitting at the window and now came dancing across the room, holding out her hands.

“Eliza!” said Lady Grandpoint.

“Ma'am, with your permission, I intend to abduct Miss Eliza.”

“Abduct! What are you talking about?”

“I wish to escort her to Yorkshire, to her parents. I am on my way there to see the bishop.”

“See the bishop! I know how everything is fixed up, and very havey-cavey it all is, too. I do not know for how long we can keep this from the ears of the marquis.”

“He already knows it,” said Charlotte primly. “I can have no secrets from the man who is to be my husband. He is of the opinion that the sooner my sister is married the better.”

“Oh, I honour him for that,” cried Eliza.

“‘Before you can get up to any further mischief' is what he said.”

Eliza burst out laughing. “I do not know how I shall go on with such a brother,” she said. “Ma'am, if I take Annie with me, may I go?”

“I suppose that if I said no, you would climb out of the window down a rope of knotted sheets and go just the same,” said Lady Grandpoint waspishly. “Does Mr. Diggory go back to Yorkshire as well? To recuperate from his wounds?” This with a sharp look at Mr. Bruton.

“One wound only,” he said. “I understand he chooses to stay in town, as does his sister.”

“They say Lord Rosely is mad for Maria,” Charlotte observed dispassionately. “And I expect Anthony will end up marrying Miss Chetwynd.”

Eliza stared at her. “Miss Chetwynd? You can't be serious! Whatever put that idea into your head?”

“She was sitting with him when I called to ask how he did,” said Mr. Bruton. “Reading to him out of some novel or other.”

“She is not unlike Lady Diggory, now I come to think about it,” said Eliza. She could see Anthony and Miss Chetwynd twenty years hence, Anthony stouter and developing a tendency to gout, and Miss Chetwynd just as brisk and efficient and hard-nosed as Lady Diggory was. “Do you know, they may suit very well.”

Bartholomew took issue with her over that, as the coach rattled out of Aubrey Square. “It is beyond my understanding how any man could turn to Miss Chetwynd after he had been in love with you! Now tell me, dearest Eliza, how I shall get on with your father?”

Eliza looked at him. “He will be in awe of you. Because you are clever, and, yes, because you are rich. However, since he will shortly be father-in-law to a marquis, he will consider you an inferior son-in-law, so you need not be puffed up with pride!”

“Annie,” said Bartholomew. “You may look out of the window, for I am going to kiss your mistress!”

Eliza's senses swam, until he reluctantly freed his lips from hers. She rested her head against his shoulder, then smiled up at him. “So it's to be a Yorkshire wife for you, Mr. Bruton. Who would have thought you'd end up marrying a mere provincial!”