The Perfect Bride for Mr. Darcy Read Online Free Page A

outlines left by paintings sold at auction were an embarrassment.
    Darcy was sympathetic to Colonel Fitzwilliam’s situation and had provided him with an allowance. In exchange for Darcy’s generosity, the colonel agreed to just about anything his cousin asked as long as it did not interfere with his duties as an officer in His Majesty’s Army. So to Rosings he would go.
    If the colonel was confused before the journey, he was completely perplexed once he arrived in Kent. Before they had even paid their respects to their Aunt Catherine, Darcy insisted they stop at Hunsford Lodge, the parsonage of the Reverend Mr. and Mrs. Collins. On their last visit, Darcy, who had little appetite for sermonizing, had found his aunt’s new vicar to be more tedious than the previous parson. But here he was paying a visit to the very man he had accused of inducing a coma-like state in his congregants. Furthermore, during the visit, Darcy had said almost nothing, leaving the colonel to bear the full weight of conversing with the Collinses. But things became much clearer when the lovely Miss Elizabeth Bennet joined the party.
    On the journey to Kent, Darcy had spoken to Fitzwilliam of a charming, intelligent, and beautiful young woman, the daughter of a gentleman farmer, whom he had met while visiting with Charles Bingley at Netherfield Park. Although all of his compliments were buried in lengthy generalities involving life in the country and society in a market town, the conversation always returned to this unnamed young lady. But Fitzwilliam had no doubt that Miss Elizabeth Bennet was the gem Darcy had discovered in Hertfordshire.
    Fitzwilliam found the whole scene to be amusing. As the scion of one of England’s ancient Norman families, Darcy was well aware of his pedigree. He understood that any lady he chose as his wife would have to be from another Norman family or a daughter of the aristocracy, but even among those who met his criteria, no one had caught his fancy. If the woman was beautiful, she was not intelligent. If she was accomplished and well versed in current affairs, she was not attractive. The daughter of a baronet was rich and attractive, and possessed a truly pleasant personality, as well as a diamond-encrusted neck, but to Darcy she was “dimwitted.” This is what made the scene before him so delicious. Darcy was smitten with the daughter of a no-name gentleman farmer from a country town. Of course, knowing his cousin as well as he did, nothing could come of it, but there was something very appealing in learning that Darcy had a vulnerable side that the colonel had never seen before. This visit might actually turn out to be a nice diversion.
    ***
    Now in her late fifties, Lady Catherine de Bourgh found it difficult to stay awake after dinner. Fearing she might miss some juicy tidbit about what was going on in London or in the nearby village, she sat dozing, night after night, with her unsupported head bobbing between her ample bosom and the back of the chair. It was only after she had stopped snorting and had advanced to full-blown snoring that her lady’s maid, the saintly Mrs. Pentup, was able to convince Her Ladyship that no one would object if she retired for the evening.
    As soon as she was sure that her mother was truly gone, Anne de Bourgh let out a sigh of relief and removed the quilt from her lap. Mrs. Jenkinson, Anne’s nurse, came over to her charge, patted her hand, and removed to an adjacent sitting room where she would be available but not intrusive.
    Colonel Fitzwilliam, who had been waiting for his aunt to leave the room, started pacing the floor. After ten days of continued interaction with Lady Catherine and listening to her soliloquies on everything from tending a garden, which she never did, to commenting on great art, which she had never seen, to the great cities of Europe, which she had never visited, he was exhausted. And with Darcy in his room refusing to come down, it was impossible to play