Twixt Two Equal Armies (81 page)

At some point, however, the elders grow weary and the youngsters grow itchy. Then there is nothing else to do but to cast an admiring glance out the window and profess a great desire to take some enjoyment in the fresh air despite rain, hail or icy winds and then quickly accompany one’s beloved outside where there, curiously enough, is plenty of opportunity for combining propriety with pleasure.

“Do you realise,” Holly said, leaning on his arm as they walked around the house in perfect contentment and ignorance of the ice cold wind on their faces, “that this is the very garden where Lady Catherine tried unsuccessfully to warn Elizabeth away from Mr Darcy? She told me she called it a ‘prettyish kind of wilderness’.” Holly looked around, “And it is very pretty in the summer . . . ”

“That may be,” his lordship murmured as he leaned forward, past the brim of her bonnet to kiss her cold cheek with his warm lips, “but I think I like your garden at Rosefarm better — a perfect mixture of regimentation and exuberance that I absolutely insist you bring to my home and my life as well.”

After brushing his lips over hers, he continued leading her around the barren grounds. “So, that is where the women in your family are afflicted with their obstinate streak? In the garden? I should have guessed. I suppose in learning to challenge the iciest winds and fiercest drizzle there, you would thus have no problem standing up to a mere Lady Catherine. But poor woman, I’ll warrant she had not reckoned on facing such a stubborn adversary.”

“I do not have an obstinate streak!”

“Of course you do,” he laughed, “and quite a charming one.”

He felt her stiffen ever so slightly.

“As much as my bad qualities are under your protection, sir, and though I have a great many faults that I will own up to, I will not have you adding to that list unnecessarily. I
do
have strong opinions, but I am
not
obstinate.”

Leaning in very close he whispered in her ear, making her shiver, “Then, prove it.”

“How?”

A sly smile spread across his face, “Accompany me to that bench over in that corner, sit down beside me and let me kiss you.”

Holly rolled her eyes. “That bench over there? Away from the windows and out of sight? After all the significant frowns and ‘watch yourself’ looks I had to endure from Maman before she would let me out the door just now? And really, how is that supposed to prove your case at all? You surely can’t expect me to — ”

“Of course I didn’t!” he cried triumphantly. “As I already said, you’re obstinate!”

As he expected, her brows nearly met in the middle and she turned flashing eyes to him, muttering, “I’ll show you obstinate.” She turned and pulled him directly to the bench, grumbling all the while, plunked herself down in the middle of the seat and turned a saucy smile upon him, “There . . . who’s obstinate now?”

He sat down next to her, close, so very close, and removed his gloves and hat and reached across to place them on the seat on the other side of her.

“I am impressed, madam. But, if I recall, the bench was only the first part of the challenge.” He leaned in and ran his finger softly underneath her chin, “Now we must ascertain whether you are too stubborn to let me kiss you — on this bench in the corner, away from the windows, and out of sight.”

He leaned in and touched his forehead to hers and smiled. He felt her quick intake of breath, he watched her eyes grow deep and dark and felt her hand slide around to his back, and then,
she
was kissing
him,
and in such a way that he very quickly lost all awareness of where he was — all he knew was her . . . his Holly . . . the tickle of her breath on his skin, the taste of her mouth, the soft insistence of her fingers on the back of his neck as she drew him closer, the curve of her waist and the roundness of her —

With difficulty he pulled back, but she looked at him with a broad smile.

“Who is being stubborn now?” she teased, not realising the extent of control he had had to master. “I think, now that I have given in, I could stay out here and let you kiss me all morning.”

Baugham cleared his throat, drew in a deep, shuddering breath and turned to face forward.

“Well, love,” he smiled wanly, “
could
and
should
are not exactly the same thing, now are they? Talk to me instead.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, “Tell me what you plan to do while I am away, once you return to Rosefarm.”

“Talk to you?” Holly asked, puzzled. “After all your scheming to get me over here and out of sight, you want me to
talk
to you?”

“Yes, actually,” he smiled softly and relaxed a little. “After all, when we are married I intend to be highly unfashionable and spend a great deal of time together. It would be nice if we could learn to hold a civil conversation just the two of us. I don’t think a little practice would do us any harm, do you?”

M
RS
T
OURNIER STOOD IN FRONT
of the window of her brother’s study — the study that had been their father’s before him and that had barely changed since the day she had left her childhood home so many years ago. Their father had smoked a pipe and there was still the faint smell of tobacco lingering in the fabric and walls even though her brother was not a smoker himself. The study was a curious place. It was either the place for exchanging harsh words or even dealing out punishment for misdemeanours or a place for silent companionship through reading. Yesterday, and on two occasions not so long ago before that, it had been the place for releasing a dearest child into the care and guardianship of a man professing violent, but honourable, affection for her.

Violent and honourable . . .
Mrs Tournier watched her daughter walk past the window with her betrothed. She sighed and turned away from the prospect only to find that her brother was watching her.

“I know how you feel,” he said. “And I have gone through it twice.”

“Then you have had some practice, with still more opportunities to become even better at it. I am not so sure I did so very well at all and now I have no one left to redeem myself over.”

“I can only improve, because I will not care as much,” her brother said.

They exchanged feeble smiles and Mrs Tournier sat herself down.

“What a harsh thing to confess, Brother,” she said lightly.

“The truth nonetheless. And who says that old age should only leave wisdom and resignation? I am quite selfishly angry and miserable at the same time, and I do not intend to deny it. It is a comfort of sorts.”

“I’m sure it will be. Once I get that far.”

Mr Bennet folded away his newspaper. “Are you worried about her, Arabella? Do you think she has done something foolish?”

“No. Rash, certainly, but not altogether unexpected or even avoidable. I have faith in the reason and affection of them both. I dare say they will be well suited, but I am convinced they will have to both work hard and learn humility if they are to get what they want out of this marriage. And I think each of them wants so very much from it.”

“Marriage doesn’t always oblige you that way.”

“Some degree of disappointment in one’s spouse is inevitable.”

There was a long silence between the siblings.

“There is one thing that I keep turning around and around in my head,” Mrs Tournier finally said. “Do we chose who we love because of the people who did not love us? Those we wanted love and affection from, but who were unable to give it? And, if that is the case, how much can we expect rationality to save us? Is not false judgement based on misconceived rationality far worse than a mistake made by the heart?”

“That’s three things, my dear,” Mr Bennet smiled.

“Give me one omnipotent answer to all of them then.”

But Mr Bennet shook his head. “No Arabella,” he said, “I cannot give you that. I am the last person on earth who could. But I do think — yes, I will admit as much — that had you not gone away to London all those years ago, I might not have had to say goodbye to exactly the daughters I now have.”

Mrs Tournier turned around and stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I missed you. I missed your wit and your courage and your relentless older sister dismissals of my arguments.”

Mrs Tournier reached out her hand and her brother took it. “I miss Father,” she said. “Every day. When Jean-Baptiste died all I could think of, for months, was that he was no better than Father.”

“And yet,” her brother smiled, “here we are. The source for another generation’s faltering steps to finding themselves through others. What do our flaws and mistakes matter, Arabella, as long as we can say we truly loved them and they know it?”

“Not much. Perhaps not so much after all.”

Longbourn
Hertfordshire

My dearest Elizabeth,

Yes, I am back to calling you Elizabeth just as you must always call me Holly regardless of what either of us may change into. I sit here at Longbourn still, at your own desk in your own room — well, your old room — a room so filled with you that I truly think any minute you will come bursting through the door and tell me to come and look at something downstairs immediately. And if you should come bursting through the door, Mrs Darcy, I should still not be afraid of you but tell you, just as I always do, that ordering me about will get you nowhere and that I have a very important letter to write that I will not put off on any account.

Maman and I will start our journey North tomorrow and before I start packing and saying my goodbyes, I must send you this note, hoping that your honeymoon at Pemberley is everything you dreamed it would be and that you might actually have time to read it.

You may ask yourself why I insist on claiming your attention only to profess my boldness and the pleasure of using your quills and paper. Well, I can promise you a little more than that. Oh, Eliza, I can scarcely say the words — how can I write them down for you! Best to just bravely charge ahead, I think, and extravagantly devote much space to one single simple line.

Lord Baugham asked me to marry him and I said yes and I am so happy I could burst!

There, are you shocked? Are you amazed? Would you care for me to elaborate? I shall tell you then that it is quite true, although the letters stare back at me too and I cannot but marvel at how strange they appear. But it is true. I love him very much — well, perhaps you suspected that already — but he loves me too, Elizabeth. I am certain of it. And the truth is, as strange and unbelievable as it seems, my acceptance has made him as happy as his offer has made me. It certainly is a strange thing to have someone admit to such attachment that he will not even let me go back home alone, but plots and insists on Maman and me travelling in his carriage all the way to Nottinghamshire under his protection before he takes to his estate in Cheshire to settle his business and we catch the post further North. Would you believe how happy I am to succumb to his highhanded ways? He has promised that once finished he will return to Scotland and we will be married right away!

My dearest Eliza, thank you so much for sending me out into the cold December morning to meet my fate! And thank you for keeping the hope alive for me that I might be loved to such a degree that my knees go weak, my heart flutters and bubbly laughter mingling with tears of happiness arises at the most inopportune moments! And thank Mr Darcy for the arrangements to bring me and Maman all the way here from Rosefarm! I so long to talk to you and have you laugh at my childish happiness at such a turn of events. And maybe we shall do so very soon. I sincerely wish it.

But for now you must content yourself with being happy with your Mr Darcy, the beauty of Pemberley and the knowledge that your cousin wishes you every happiness to match her own. I will go to Clanough, wait for my prince, read the letters he promised to send me every day and occupy myself with work until he can come back and claim me. Not that it is necessary. I live and breathe in my love for him and have done so for such a long time it seems already that nothing can be left wanting.

Your faithful cousin always,
Holly

Chapter 36

The Strain of Confinement Wears on the Nerves of one Traveller and on the Restraint of Another

When Lord Baugham handed the hired mount over to the ostler at the Nottingham inn, he stretched his sore limbs and revelled in the sensation of discomfort due to exercise rather than circumstance. He was a poor traveller under the best of circumstances; his restless disposition did not take well to being confined within even a very fine carriage for hours and days on end, and by the middle of the second day of travel with his future bride and mother-in-law, he could take no more. It was not that the company was unpleasant, or even that he could not overcome his usual distaste for confinement. In this particular instance, his dilemma was quite the opposite in that the company was entirely too pleasant, too distracting, too tempting, and with Mrs Tournier keeping her attention in her book for the greater part of the day, and succumbing to the drowsiness of the road in the evenings, he had entirely too much time to ponder just how pleasant, distracting and tempting the woman was who sat across from him.