Felicity in Marriage Read online

  “Ah, the last of the beautiful Miss Darcys.”

  Lord Ashby snorted derisively. “The only thing more dubious than her beauty is her wit. I don’t know what my sister was thinking, as if I needed to be introduced to another silly little flirt.”

  Ellie had heard enough, she turned on her heel and quickly navigated her way back through the crowd.

  “Why are you fleeing from Lord Ashby?” Lizzy asked as soon as her daughters had returned to her side.

  “He made a rather unfortunate comment in our hearing,” said Frances diplomatically.

  Ellie, however, was beyond diplomacy. “Unfortunate, fie! He was horribly discourteous. Nothing in this world could ever induce me to stand up with him now.”

  “Come, let us visit the refreshment table, perhaps some lemonade will calm you.”

  “I am perfectly calm,” Ellie replied to her sister, then to no one in particular said, “Oh Lord, he’s coming this way.”

  “Fitzwilliam.” Lizzy grabbed her husband’s hand to still him, for he had lurched forward as if to greet the approaching viscount with a punch on the nose.

  Ellie, meanwhile, dragged her sister to the refreshment table. It was there Viscount Ashby caught up with them. Ellie would later recount how proud of herself she had been for not throwing her lemonade on him.

  “You heard me,” he said immediately. He appeared as though he were trying to look shamefaced and not quite managing it.

  When Ellie made no reply—and Frances looked everywhere else but at the two people standing beside her—he went on, “I must apologize for the harshness of my words, it was not my intention to insult you.”

  Ellie laughed humorlessly and said, “I suppose I should be honored you believe I possess the intelligence to know when I am being insulted. Go bestow your glorious presence on someone who will feel properly grateful for it. As a silly little flirt, I am perfectly capable of finding a more willing partner.”

  The viscount lingered.

  “You are dismissed, Lord Ashby,” Ellie said forcefully enough to attract the attention of several people near them.

  Now truly shamefaced, the viscount mumbled another apology and left.

  “You dealt with him rather neatly,” Frances observed, slightly impressed. She had always been too kind to deliver a proper set down.

  Ellie, still stunned by her own boldness, distractedly replied, “Yes . . . well, I only hope I will not be in his company often, for I intend never to speak to him again.”

  ***

  Two days later Ellie found herself seated next to the haughty viscount at Lady Haverford’s dinner party. As a matter of precedence, Lord Ashby ought to have been seated next to Lady Elizabeth Chattering. However, the clever hostess knew it would make for greater amusement for her guests—excepting Ellie and Lord Ashby, of course—if the pair were seated together, for all the ton now knew he had insulted her and she had rejoined most bitingly.

  Indeed, none of the guests were paying much attention to their own conversations, instead busying themselves with sneaking surreptitious glances towards Miss Darcy and Lord Ashby. Lizzy shot her husband an exasperated glance. There was nothing surreptitious about the glare Darcy was throwing Lord Ashby’s way. Darcy noted his wife’s displeasure and turned his attention to his dinner companions for a few minutes before once again fixing a loathing stare upon the young man.

  Ellie thus far had kept her promise of never speaking to Viscount Ashby again. She had gone so far as to refuse to take his arm to be lead into dinner until her mother had given her a sharp look and she had reluctantly allowed him the honor, though she had held herself away from him as if he were afflicted with leprosy. She then proceeded to ignore him through all four courses and dessert, even though he made multiple attempts to engage her in conversation.

  Lord Ashby was not a man used to being ignored and he became only more insistent with each rebuff, but Ellie was not moved. Her pointed silence was not quite the dramatic display gossips had been waiting for, but was something to discuss in drawing rooms for days to come. By the end of the week no one was quite certain whether Miss Elinor Darcy was foolish or brave or shrewish, but all could agree her predicament was most entertaining.

  ***

  Ellie realized she had become a bit of a spectacle and— as much as she felt she was in the right—she was not comfortable with being the object of so much speculation. Therefore she altered her display of scorn into something a little less conspicuous than outright snubbing. She finally deigned to speak to Lord Ashby when they chanced to meet at the theater. Her words were stilted and cold, but her deportment was very proper; no one could possibly find fault with her behavior. After the conversation Lord Ashby had felt all was settled between them.

  It was not until their next meeting he realized the war was not over, Miss Darcy had simply begun a different sort of campaign. It would seem she had resolved to refute whatever he said with such clever wording as to sound as though she was being very amiable, all the while she was actually cutting him to the quick. He could no longer doubt her wit. His only doubt was if his pride could survive the season.

  Perhaps at that point it might have been wise for Lord Ashby to have extracted himself from the whole affair by avoiding the lady, but he could no more easily back down from a fight than Ellie could let go of a vendetta. Thus the rest of the season went on in a whirl of balls, dinner parties, and musicales at each of which Ellie and Lord Ashby found themselves at each other’s throats—most politely. A disinterested observer might even make the mistake of believing the pair to be courting they were so frequently in each other’s company and always so deeply engrossed in conversation.

  Darcy, on the other hand, had completely let go of all his resentment towards Lord Ashby. The viscount had, after all, proven himself most useful. Gentlemen were unwilling to pursue a young lady who was so wholly focused on another man, even if her attentiveness was not caused by admiration. Thus Ellie had not a single suitor, and Darcy felt she would remain safely single at least for this season.

  ***

  As summer set in and the season began to wind down, the event which the family had all excitedly awaited occurred. Lizzy read the letter Anne had sent by express to Darcy.

  “She says he is beautiful—perfectly healthy. They’ve named him Fitzwilliam.”

  “Fitzwilliam?”

  “Yes, Fitzwilliam Felton. Sounds distinguished, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose. Yet it is a rather odd name, Fitzwilliam, I wonder how they came up with it,” Darcy replied with a playful smile.

  “Yes, I’d wondered that too.”

  Unable to go on with the farce, Darcy gave way to the boastful observation he was straining not to make, “Anne named her firstborn after me even though I was such a beast to her Mr. Felton.”

  “Perhaps it was Mr. Felton in an attempt to gain your favor.”

  “He would never come up with so clever a strategy as that.”

  “You must learn to like him, Fitzwilliam. The only thing Mr. Felton did wrong was have an estate in Cumberland.”

  When it was his daughter in question there was no nonsense about good roads and being too close to one’s family. Mr. Felton had taken his eldest child hundreds of miles away from him and for that, it would seem, Darcy would never forgive him.

  “When are we to visit them? I don’t think Ellie would mind cutting the season a little short,” Darcy said, hinting most obviously that he would like to leave immediately.

  “In a few weeks. We can collect Edward on the way. His term will be over by then.”

  “We can always send for Edward when his term ends.”

  “You will remember how nice it was to have Anne to ourselves those first few weeks after she was born.”

  But he would not be persuaded so easily. “They may need help,” he argued as if he would be the one to change his grandson’s soiled linens, though being responsible for such a task probably would not deter him in his excitement to visit.r />
  “They have hired a nurse.”

  Darcy looked mutinous.

  “Anne has invited us to the christening in five weeks’ time.”

  “She surely could not object to us arriving a little early,” Darcy replied mulishly.

  “You are in danger of becoming like my father, dropping in on your married daughters without warning at the most inconvenient of times.”

  “You are right of course.”

  “Of course,” said Lizzy, who was equally anxious to see her daughter and grandson. She, however, remembered well the first month after the birth of Anne. Even with the nurse and other servants to look after the babe, Lizzy had felt overwhelmed. She had blatantly refused the nonsense of confinement, instead spending as much time as she could in the nursery.

  Every time Anne cried she had been certain something was direly wrong and nothing anyone told her would convince her otherwise. With the other children she had been far less panic-stricken, having learned all the idiosyncrasies of infants from Anne. It was something she was sure every new mother went through and Anne would not welcome the added pressure of guests during this precarious time, even when those guests were her firstborn’s doting grandparents.

  Lizzy had another reason for delaying their journey. A reason Darcy would not be pleased about at all. Just a week after the happy news Lizzy’s suspicions were proved correct.

  As Lizzy sat in the morning room taking her tea and having a quiet moment before the hubbub of the social hours would begin, Darcy entered the room, eyes twinkling with amusement. “Something unbelievable has occurred,” he announced.

  “Oh?”

  “Lord Ashby came to see me.”

  “Did he?”

  “He wanted permission to make an offer to Ellie.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I could come up with no objection. I’ve never heard any harm of him, and beyond his conceit—which I am certain age will cure—I have noted no failings of character. It is not as if she will have him anyway.”

  “You think not?”

  “Of course, she hates him!”

  “You think so?”

  All the previous amusement drained from Darcy’s features. His wife’s teasing tone had clued him in to what his usually sharp mind had been missing for months. Lizzy could only assume his concern for Anne and their new grandson had distracted him from the courtship going on right under his nose.

  Lord Ashby returned that same day just as the ladies of the house were sitting down to take calls. After the proper pleasantries were exchanged, he requested a private audience with Miss Darcy which was granted.

  Lizzy found her husband hovering outside the drawing room door as she entered the hall to give the couple privacy. He took no notice of her, his attention fixed on what little of the scene he could view through the slightly ajar door.

  “Eavesdropping? Really, Fitzwilliam. I was wrong, it is not my father you are in danger of becoming but my mother.”

  After a futile struggle in which she tried to drag him away and he resisted, Lizzy finally whispered, “Oh very well,” then settled in to listen with him.

  Meanwhile in the drawing room, Lord Ashby was making his proposal.

  “I am not too proud to admit when I have lost, Miss Darcy.”

  Ellie who was far too nervous to meet Lord Ashby’s eyes picked at the embroidery of a decorative cushion. “Finally admitting defeat, are you?”

  “I have lost my heart to you completely and I find the only way I can live is if you consent to spend all your days with me.”

  Ellie, having worked up her nerve, looked him in the eye. With a sardonic smile she said, “A very pretty speech, Lord Ashby.”

  “I thought so.”

  “You are as arrogant as ever.”

  “Excess pride is a fault I have been working on of late. I am certain I will become humble indeed if my tutor will do me the honor of becoming my wife.”

  Ellie sighed dramatically, as if she had been assigned a very arduous task. The viscount tensed for refusal. But then, knowing she had caused enough suspense, she said, “Yes.”

  “Yes?” repeated her pleasantly surprised suitor.

  “Yes! How can you say yes?” Darcy cried as he burst into the room.

  “Papa!”

  Lizzy, who had tumbled in the room after her husband, grabbed his arm fiercely and gave him her most piercing glare.

  Darcy heaved a great sigh and bit back every objection he desperately wished to make. He glanced to his youngest daughter with misty eyes then turned to Lord Ashby and said, “My congratulations.”