Darcy & Elizabeth Read Online Free Page B

here. I am here.”
    That reminder gave more consolation than any other she might have imagined. Directly, her tears ceased. She did not, however, give up her place against his chest and from thence she told the entire history of her father’s death and those sorrowful days that followed. Common thought was to discourage the bereaved from lamenting a death in detail, but Darcy decided then to be of a different mind. Clearly, Elizabeth had pent up her wretchedness for some time. He thought it best to allow her to have her say and did not endeavour to quiet her again. He petted her and soothed her until at last, spent of emotion, she slept. He was happy to be home and to have the employment of chief consoler. He was happy too that office was aided by the two small nestlings whose constant care demanded she not surrender to melancholy. Although he believed the timing of their newborns a godsend, he knew better than to make any insipid platitudes upon the transference of life.
    That truism was quite evident.
    Thrust into this melange of despair and beatitude was news of quite another sort. For word had arrived too of the supposed battlefield casualty of George Wickham, the scoundrel husband of Elizabeth’s sister Lydia. This information, however, occasioned a feigned bereavement that was very nearly as oppressive as had it been real. All this equivocatory posing sent the Darcys’ barely tethered sensibilities reeling to such a degree that they were eventually rendered again upright.
    A reinstatement of his equilibrium was essential for Darcy to embark upon a reckoning of a peculiar type. This duty was less conspicuous than any other, even covert, but of no less importance. It was a surreptitious trip to Kent that he embarked upon one day not long after his return. In that Darcy was a man who held matters of family in the highest of regard, his intention to levy an unequivocal threat upon his cursed aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh was a weighty one indeed. Although his mother’s sister, Lady Catherine had been responsible for distress to his wife, an injury Darcy put higher than any other.
    Although this too was long in coming, it would not have come to pass in so timely a fashion had his aunt not threatened Elizabeth with eviction from Pemberley had he not returned. He seldom found himself suffering a misjudgement, but he believed keeping his own counsel on what provisions he had made for Elizabeth had been a mistake. Clearly, if he had not gone so far as to make Elizabeth aware of that which pertained to her well-being, it was unreasonable to expect his aunt to be. It was a lesson he learnt well. In face of the deaths their family had weathered of late, he observed how very quickly the pale horse of death could overtake anyone, regardless of the eminence of one’s circumstance. It was imperative to bring his aunt to heel. He had to remind her that it was not she who stood at their family’s helm.
    â€œThe long habit of living does not lend us indisposed for dying,” he reminded himself on that singular trip to Rosings Park.
    Darcy had been apprised beforehand of his trip that a retaliation of sorts had been issued at the time of offence. It was but a small one, granted, but one that was exacted at great injury to such a proud woman. Had Elizabeth not confided to him about the particulars of her confrontation with Lady Catherine, his actually doing her bodily harm might still have been a temptation. But as it happened, Elizabeth, although alone and with child, was not without her own defences. Indeed, in protection of herself and her unborn, Mrs. Darcy discharged a cautionary pistol shot in Lady Catherine’s direction. Although the primary victim was only the ostrich plume in her ladyship’s bonnet, the intent of the shot was met. Either through the agency of an intimate look down the muzzle of Elizabeth’s pistol or its deafening reverberation, her ladyship had added to the insult of