Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice Sequel Bundle: 3 Reader Favorites (19 page)

Tom Reed had never been in love. Until he first set eyes upon Elizabeth, Reed’s definition of “in love” was to rut a woman and not have to pay her. Amorous flame, as Reed knew it, lasted only as long as his erection. Moreover, not shelling out a copper to mount a woman did not take into consideration the nicety of consent. Those Covent Garden jack-whores were far too treacherous to cadge (and the French pox was a constant threat), but he could usually find a piece of work like Abigail Christie, jaded (or drunk) enough not to put up much of a fight. Admittedly, Reed did not mind a good, amorous tussle. (His only scruple was to make certain that if he was to take sick with the foul disease, he did not pay good money to become infected.)

Reed raised his nose and took an uncannily feral whiff as if to sniff out the scent of quimsy. Thereupon, head low, he strove on against the underbrush. His quarry was not difficult to locate. Although they were laughing and talking in low tones, they lay in a small glade in perfect view if someone chose to pry.

If given the choice of peeping or participating, Reed would have chosen the latter. As this ruling was not in his hands, he snooped.

The particular delectation of this pursuit had only come to him as recently as his employment on the Darcy coach. More precisely, it overcame him on his ensuing journey to Netherfield in the soon-to-be nuptial coach. There were a fair number of unplucked damsels about that Longbourn house, but none so succulent of plump dairies as was the dark-haired Miss Bennet.

Reed spent the entire return trip to London daydreaming of that alabaster damsel’s pretty, harrumping like a lord that he would not be the one to dock her.

Like many a man of mean understanding, Reed had always held the opinion that most rich men were not much more than eunuchs or else they foined their servants, with nothing left for their wives. As for the rich men’s wives, why would anyone want to diddle such harping shrews? The new Mrs. Darcy, however, was an entirely different matter. He would happily have his way with her if Mr. Darcy chose not.

This was not an entirely outrageous notion. For tall and handsome as they often were, it was not unknown for footmen to gratify an occasional gentlewoman. Reed had heard such stories, and now knew himself a footman. But his considerable conceit had not allowed him to consider that he could not, even by the most generous opinion, be called handsome. Never one to give up a notion on the merit of absurdity, he harboured the exceedingly improbable hope that Mrs. Darcy might some day favour him with her attentions.

At least he harboured it until he had heard from the other servants in the London house of what bechanced at some length in the Darcy bedchamber. Well, perhaps that comely minx would tire of Mr. Darcy and him of her. Patience has its rewards. Reed would wait.

Await he did, silently, upon the grounds of Pemberley.

Fortune had veiled the wildlife from the poacher within the slight canopy of leaves still clinging to the trees. The slow dance of foliage, brought from their limbs by the light breeze, that shrouded Reed then, also obscured his view.

Reed strained to see that which was concealed to him. The obfuscated scene he could make out did not quench his thirst for scrutiny. However, the twigs beneath his feet were already dry enough to crackle. Reed knew his quarry was already aware of intrusion and he was afraid to venture closer. He simply sat in silence, implying to his imagination what his eyes could not reveal and found lascivious pleasure enough in what he heard.

N
otwithstanding her methodical commitment to collecting dirty mugs in the far corner of the tavern, the unexpected ingress of two gentlemen stole Abigail’s attention.

By virtue of the nature of its business, the place was dim. The only light was a blinding glare from the doorway behind them. Hence, other than ascertaining that neither was a
habitué
of their low establishment, immediate identification of the duo was not forthcoming. She continued to eye the pair long enough to eliminate constable and debt-collector from the possibilities. Her interest was piqued, however, by the deference shown them by Turnpenny and his companions.

Once they escaped the harsh back-light of the doorway, she could see the man who led the way was middle-aged, plump, and a bit rumpled. The other stood slightly aloof, unsuccessfully masking a look of extreme repugnance at the fetor emanating
from his malodorous surroundings. The disdainful gentleman was younger than the first, tall, immaculately tailored, and of exceedingly handsome figure.

Indeed, maturity had strengthened his jaw and broadened his chest, but he had altered but little. Had she not recognised his countenance, Abigail would not have mistaken the hauteur.

She had known it was possible that Darcy would come personally to settle his bill. Yet, to see him actually standing so before her in the shabby tavern took her aback. She, however, was the only ruffled party.

Not unexpectedly, he looked neither right nor left. He kept his imperious gaze upon the business at hand. Had he glanced in her direction, instinct would have bid her turn away. If there was any chance that he remembered her at all, she wanted it to be as a pretty sylph of a girl, not the daggle-tailed slattern she had become.

Abigail had traded upon the prestige of her long past employment at Pemberley to obtain a situation with the Fox and Hogget (albeit she had abused a portion of that goodwill by boasting about her past connexion with that estate). As talk was prolific at any tavern, case and canard were tossed about indiscriminately. Hence, Abigail found ample audience for her oft-repeated rendering of her tenure in that grand house. Although she omitted her dalliance with Wickham (for he was regarded as a truckling toff), her intrigue with Master Darcy had prospered with numerous retellings from tryst to
affaire d’amour.

Interest was keen, for until Abigail volunteered her recollections, there had been a veritable dearth of information about young Mr. Darcy’s amours. His comportment, as far as anyone could fathom, was entirely circumspect. He was known as a kindly landlord, but no one thought him a hail-fellow-well-met sort of likeness of his father. Although there was a consensus that a man of his obvious vigour must have succumbed upon occasion, not a single soul could cite an instance of indiscretion.

As nothing sends female hearts aflutter and tongues a-wagging quite so readily as a handsome yet distant countenance, that bailiwick was a hotbed of speculation about young Mr. Darcy by the time he finally became engaged. Talk blazed furiously, expanding into an absolute maelstrom by the time he arrived in Derbyshire with his new wife. She was known to be quite pretty, in a fresh-faced wholesome kind of way, not at all the sophisticate that would have been expected to become the Mistress of Pemberley. In light of her family’s questionable connexions and Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s displeasure at the match, the cauldron of local gossip had very nearly burbled over by epiphany. For what else are country-folk to do in the idleness of winter but smoke pork, stoke a pipe, and chew upon the doings of the rich?

Betwixt the initiation of Mr. Darcy’s engagement and the culmination of his wedding, Abigail arrived at Kympton sans husband, sans two of her children, and very pregnant. As was her plan, she had fled back to her home county from London abandoning the bantlings begat of an extended left-handed alliance with a seaman named Archibald Arbuthnot.

No mother discards her offspring without remorse. Nevertheless, that regret was somewhat mitigated due to the nature of the older girl.

Poor Sally Frances had been a bit of a beleaguerment, having the misfortune to bear a striking resemblance to her father (red face and large ears) and an inexplicably obstinate nature. Indeed, when expatriated from her mother’s milk upon the appearance of another babe, the lass had stubbornly refused to speak. From age two years to four and a half, she was silent. Abigail was flummoxed at this bit of intractability. It was obvious to everyone but Sally Frances that although her mother had two teats, she had but one lap. Abigail held steadfastly to the position that a child had to learn sometime that there was a time to stand one’s ground and a time to accept defeat.

Owing to her mother’s unrelenting disapproval, Sally sucked her thumb and clung to her half-brother, John, who dandled her about whenever he thought his mother did not see him.

“Belay that! Yer turnin’ that gerl into a pampered little cosset, boy. Leave ’er be!”

Abigail’s compunction over having forsaken her daughters was not overly employed in that she had wiped their faces and left them upon the stoop of Archie’s mother’s house. Mrs. Arbuthnot had a tedious but steady mending business. She would not forsake her grandchildren. John, however, was Abigail’s alone and would have been consigned to the workhouse. That would be a waste, for at thirteen, he was a strong and able boy. Was he to labour, Abigail did not want it to be for naught.

The entire contretemps of decampment came about by virtue of a nautical calamity that did not occur. For although Cape Horn was an unforgiving promontory, the ship that boasted Seaman Third Class Arbuthnot had rounded it without incident. Abigail learned the Galatea was due back upon the upcoming Friday. She and John shed London Wednesday morn.

Although Archie was a bit dim, Abigail did not doubt that even he would determine that a year at sea and a wife half-term with child did not add up to marital devotion. Retribution by strop would be swift. Such was his history.

John was nimble enough to stay out of Archie’s reach before his liberated pants worked their way down about his knees, thus restricting his manoeuvrability. However, Abigail knew herself to be not so quick. The only possible positive of the situation was that Archie and her bed-mate of late, Tom Reed, might draw the iron to each other and both end up dead. That outcome, however, was indefensibly optimistic. Hence, she took what she believed was her only recourse—to flee.

Indeed, it was with a bitter laugh that she realised she was returning to Kympton in the precise condition in which she had left.

Unfortunately, few of her relations were about to appreciate the irony. She had hoped to find her sister, for she had married a farmer and had her own house. However, it had been five years since poor Fanny was taken by childbirth fever. (Truth be told, it was a minor comfort that none of her true family was about to see she had lost her struggle with a tendency to lowness.)

Still yet in the county was Abigail’s impoverished ex-brother-in-law, but his present wife and their eight collective children did not look favourably upon taking in two penniless relatives. Abigail could not fault them, but still cursed her dearth of luck. Alas, fortune worked to her disadvantage at every turn.

Had she not once been a fetching little hoyden? Yet she had the dismal luck to find a situation in one of the few illustrious houses where servicing the male members of
the household was not considered a part of one’s duties. Indeed, she learnt that, although intrigues abounded, getting one’s mutton at Pemberley was a furtive business. This scrupulous adherence to morality had been set by old Mr. Darcy and was enforced with relish by that cursed Mrs. Reynolds—that woman could ferret out a dust-ball beneath a bed without once looking.