An Autumn Accord: A Pride and Prejudice Novella Variation (Seasons of Serendipity Book 4) (2 page)

“
Steady, steady as we go,” the Colonel said softly. He resumed his whistling and continued to feign indifference wondering if whoever was hiding in the shrubbery was careless enough to take on one of His Majesty’s Finest.

Ten feet from the crossroads, a man stood from the shrubs with a pistol aimed straight at Richard.

“
Give me your purse and your horse and –” the man bent slightly towards the bushes below him for assistance in making his demands.

With anger boiling in his blood, the Colonel spurred Hercules into action, drew his sword, and expertly sliced at the hand holding the pistol as his horse barreled past. The man screamed out in pain as Richard’s sword had severely maimed, but not taken the hand completely.

“
The sword! He has a sword!”

Richard turned Hercules around with expert horsemanship and with his sword raised galloped back towards the shrubs ready to charge again. The bleeding man had more wits about him this time and dove back into the shrubs.

Galloping past the shrubs, the Colonel pulled back on his reins and signaled again for Hercules to turn. Standing over the thick bushes, Hercules snorted and stomped his hooves in a match of his master’s frustration.

“
Arise you cowards or I will trample the bush, so help me. Come out and I shall not kill you.”

Two men wearing shoddy clothing and dirty faces hastened from the bushes with one holding his arms up and the other cradling his arm against his chest. The injured knave whimpered with tears streaming.

“
Two? Two! Where are the others?” The Colonel demanded an answer, whipping his head around to check his flanks. Surely there were more criminals to hold such a well-used meeting of the four directions of a compass.

“
What others, sir? Just be me and Jim,” the surrendering highwayman explained, hoping not to anger the soldier and receive his own injury.

“
Do I look thick to you? This is a major crossroads. There must be more of you, carriages roll through here.”

The injured one spoke up with a tremor to his voice. “They’s took the back roads, sir. There be a carriage behind you and we’s two was left here for any single riders about.”

At mention of a carriage, the Colonel panicked. It might be his father’s carriage and while Richard was a military man able to defend himself, his father was hardly a decent shot with a good musket aiming at injured prey. Leaving the two weasels arguing on the side of the road, Richard spurred his horse to action with a fast gallop back the way he had come. Cursing for riding so far ahead of the carriage, Richard’s mind played horrors of the battleground as he imagined his father and his men dying on the side of the road.

Richard came upon the carriage to find it was stopped and there were scuffles broken out on the backside between the ruffians and his father’s men. The air was filled with pistol smoke, but it appeared all present were out of ammunition. The Colonel pulled his own pistol from the side of his saddle and with expert marksmanship rode Hercules within striking distance of the struggle between the driver and his attacker, aimed, and shot true into the shoulder on the highwayman prevailing against poor Gibbons. 

The Fitzwilliam servants cheered at the sight of young Master Richard riding in his regimentals to help turn the tide. Two highwaymen yanked and fought to open the carriage door where Richard assumed his father was residing. Turning Hercules around, he charged the beast once more with his sword held high and slashed one of the men clear in the chest. The other let go of the door and scampered back as Richard pulled his sword free and swung it high over his head. Hercules performed his familiar stomping and snorting making the highwayman on the ground crawl backward, trying to avoid the horse’s hooves.

“
Father! Father! Are you unharmed?”

The carriage door jiggled, but the other highwayman Richard mortally wounded was still slumped against the door, gasping his last breaths. Richard shouted orders at Gibbons and the last remaining armed guard apprehended the fourth robber at the front of the carriage. The Earl of Matlock shoved his carriage door open, heaving the body of the slain highwayman to the side, poking his head out.

“
I am unharmed, son. What made you return?”

Richard steered clear of the highwayman prostrate on the ground, begging for his life. The law would not spare him. “Two irksome members of this gang attacked me a few miles up the road at the cross. When I asked where the rest of their motley friends were, for surely two men would not stand much luck in attacking a carriage, they mentioned a carriage as their prize.” Richard wiped his blade on the dead man’s coat and once satisfied, returned it to his sheath. He reached into his coat for another musket ball and powder to reload his pistol.

Once the two surviving highwayman were secured to the back of the carriage, the Colonel addressed Gibbons’ wounded right arm. With bandages tied tightly around his bicep to staunch the bleeding, the old driver protested he was perfectly able to continue driving the ten miles to the next inn.

Richard checked over Hercules for any signs of injury, and seeing none, returned the horse to the post-position. “Nonsense, you are injured in service for my father. You will ride inside the carriage with him and I will drive the carriage to the inn.”

“
But Master Richard –”

Richard held up his hands and hushed the man he’d known his entire life. So fueled with anger, riding in the fresh air was still preferable to lounging in the finely upholstered carriage with his father. Leaving the body of the dead highwayman behind, the Matlock carriage slowly continued down the road with its substitute driver ready to defend at the slightest provocation.

♠♠♠

Chapter 2

Jane Bennet opened the nursery door of Starvet House humming a soft lullaby as the nursemaid, Sarah, sat on a stool with her own babe nursing from her bosom. Jane tiptoed into the room to peer in the basket and spy her wide-eyed nephew gazing up at her with a smile on his face.

“
Has he nursed?” Jane asked.

“
Aye, Miss Jane. I always feed Master Robin before suckling my own. If I let little Henry eat first, there may be none left for the babe,” Sarah chuckled, beaming down at her son who was many months older than the newest addition to the Bennet family.

Scooping her nephew into her arms, Jane naturally swayed back and forth, rocking the babe against her chest. His little fist pushed out from his swaddling and Jane knew his purpose. She happily obliged by offering her smallest finger for him to hold. The young man wasted no time in moving his aunt’s finger to his mouth to suckle in comfort.

“
I believe Master Robin and I shall take our daily walk now.”

The nursemaid nodded, not that she held any authority to tell Miss Jane otherwise. She was pleased to see at least one member of the family treating the boy with affection. It was all a poor, motherless, bastard child could hope for.

Jane carried Robert Bennet down the hall and to a spare room on the far end of the third story. She suspected at one time it was likely a suite for the nanny employed to care for any children of the home.

A rocking chair rested in front of the windows with the most beautiful view of the Scottish moors. Taking a seat, Jane watched the day’s sun diligently burn off the morning fog spread across the land. She sang softly to young Robin and as the babe’s eyes fluttered closed, she gently kissed the top of his forehead.

“
Your mama would have loved you at first sight and never given you up,” she whispered to the sleeping babe she rescued the night of his horrific birth. The same night had taken the life of the youngest Bennet sister, Lydia. “And neither shall I.”

“
We discussed your attachment… “

The voice of her sister startled Jane slightly in the rocking chair, but she maintained her composure so as not to jostle the baby awake.

“Ssh
, he sleeps.”

Elizabeth Darcy joined her sister, standing over the chair to gaze down at her nephew’s innocent sleeping form. Seeing him suck on Jane’s finger reminded Elizabeth of Lydia’s same habit until she was taken away to be nursed and not returned home until weaned of a mother’s milk and toddling around. Even in her early childhood years, young Lydia would always handle her fears and trepidations by sucking her thumb. Elizabeth marveled that such a habit would follow naturally to her nephew without him ever knowing his mother.

“
You know the Watsons will be here at the end of the month to take Robin away. We must hold fast to the plan, hard as it may be.”

“
The plan did not include Lydia dying in childbirth,” Jane said as her voice caught.

Elizabeth Darcy rubbed her temples. Since the day after Robert’s birth, she had been caught in a tempest of wills between her husband Darcy and her sister Jane. Surveying the room, Elizabeth carefully lifted the dust-covered sheet covering what appeared to be another chair. She was rewarded with an ancient wooden specimen, embellished with intricate hand carvings. Dragging the chair to the window, she felt the wooden legs wobble and protest over the movement and hesitated to trust the furniture to hold her. Ultimately, she took a seat. A firm discussion was long overdue.

“
You are so altered from when last I saw you.” Jane opened her mouth to protest, but Elizabeth held up her hand. “I noticed it before Lydia . . .” Elizabeth swallowed at uttering her sister’s name. “Upon your arrival, truthfully. I am not leaving this . . . this” Elizabeth glanced around to find an adequate word to describe their dwelling, but finding none, continued “this room until you tell me plainly the events since my wedding.” For good measure, Elizabeth crossed her arms and sat back in the chair, ignoring the additional wobble she felt beneath her from shifting her weight.

Jane gazed out at the fog barely holding onto the fields and trees, nearly decimated now by the sun’s powerful rays. She took a deep breath. If she told Lizzie everything, Jane was certain her sister would understand and support her position to take care of the family business in the manner she had always planned. At the moment, there was nothing she would not risk for the handsome infant boy in her arms.

“
It began when I called off my understanding with Mr. Bingley,” Jane paused, wondering how best to describe the fright of the afternoon, which now months later, sounded only comical, even to her ears.

“
Go on, I understand you were supported in your decision by the Earl and the Countess, no?”

Jane’s head snapped at her sister’s tone of indifference. “It was not so easy as it sounds. I endured jibes and taunts from his sister and the insult of exclusion from many events afterward. Lady Matlock was kind in hiding what she could, but I saw it all. And when I told Charles I no longer wished to be courted, he abused me. If Lady Matlock had not come in then, I am not so sure . . .”

“
You were attacked by Charles Bingley? Physically?” Elizabeth could not believe the affable man she knew could be responsible for such behavior.

“
He grabbed my arms and kissed me, without my consent. I struck him in the nose with my fist.”

Her mouth agape, Elizabeth’s first reaction was one of concern. She didn’t laugh, she didn’t tease, and Jane soon felt comfortable to reveal the sordid truth. What truly happened at the ball when the punch was spilled on Mary, the near constant unsavory attention of a viscount and about fighting for her life from the attempted rape by that same viscount at the Fitzwilliam country estate.

The younger of the two sisters sat dumbstruck at hearing the harm and danger her sister had survived and hid in the interest of protecting her family name.

When little Robert began to stir in Jane’s arms, both sisters were freely sobbing. Poor little Robin awoke to such distress he added his own wails to the situation for good measure.

“
Here, let me take him. You should rest. It could not have been easy to share all that burdened you for so long. I wish . . . I wish you had told me sooner.” Elizabeth stretched out her arms, in vain.

“
No, truly, I shall take him to the nursery. He needs fresh clothes. I am relieved to no longer carry so much alone, but I could not have added this weight to you before. Not then.” Jane rubbed her nose to little Robert’s, distracting the baby for a moment and getting him to turn his attentions to his aunt’s smile and coos.

Elizabeth reflected for a moment if Jane was perhaps correct. Would she have been able to endure the news of the horrors of society when her sister first arrived while in the throes of handling Lydia? Thinking ill of her departed sister pierced her heart with fresh guilt and remorse. The very act of breathing took all her concentration. Gulping for air, she steadied her emotions and smoothed the black skirts she had been unable to wear when they lost their father a year ago. At least while residing privately in Scotland, both she and Jane were adamant to mourn their Lydia.

“
Lizzie?” Jane interrupted her sister’s thoughts as she and the baby were already by the door. With a slight cock of her head, she signaled her sister to open the door. Elizabeth scurried to be of assistance and walked her sister to the nursery. The two parted after their customary search of the other’s eyes and smiling at one another, not as gaily as they had many times before, but with the new maturity of the women they were becoming.

Stopping in her suite of rooms to refresh her face, the sadness that had washed over Mrs. Darcy during her talk with her sister was quickly replaced with a new emotion, one of extreme anger. The Bennet family had suffered much in the name of society’s demands and Elizabeth was going to help put an end to it, once and for all. She left her apartments in a huff before her personal maid could offer assistance.