The Second Mrs Darcy. Elizabeth Aston

sorry, Arthur, but what have these routs and balls and Batterbys and Tollants to do with me?”

      “Nothing at all, but Lady Warren does. She is George Warren’s stepmother, as it happens. And a connection of your late husband’s, now I come to think of it.”

      Another connection? What an entwined world it was, with the upper ten thousand woven into a spider’s web of marriages and consanguinity. Here was she, with a large family of half brothers and sisters, cousins, now even more connections through Christopher’s family—and yet, in truth, she was still an orphan, with no close ties of feeling to any of them.

      Arthur’s eyes narrowed; he loved tracing family links. “Caroline Warren was a Bingley before she married, and her brother married the eldest Bennet daughter, a family of no importance, it was not a good match, she brought him hardly a penny, but what is more to the point, her next sister, Elizabeth, had the very good luck to snare Fitzwilliam Darcy and so she became the mistress of Pemberley; my word, she did well for herself there! Now of course, Captain Darcy was a cousin of that family, not a close cousin, but the connection is there.”

      Octavia spread a generous portion of strawberry jam on a piece of toast. The connection seemed more remote than most, and while Lady Warren might be the most amiable creature, she had not heard a good word spoken about her stepson.

      “And George Warren is, of course, unfortunately, Christopher Darcy’s heir. So I took it upon myself to mention to Lady Warren that you were returned to England. She expressed surprise, had no idea of it, but at once said that she would call upon you at the first opportunity and knew that George would also do himself the honour of waiting upon you.”

      * * *

      Lady Warren had lied to Arthur. Lady Warren knew perfectly well that Octavia was in England; she made it her business to know most of what was going on in London society, and in such a case, when the news was of direct interest to her or to her stepson, George, upon whom she doted, she made sure she had all the details. She had known to the day, almost to the hour when Octavia arrived in Lothian Street, and sent a note round to George’s lodgings, summoning him to her house.

      “You will call upon her, of course,” she said, sitting at her elegant writing desk, while George lounged in the most comfortable chair near to the fire.

      “The devil I will.”

      Caroline Warren knew him too well to pay any attention to this. “The widow of your cousin, from whom you have inherited a very pretty estate; of course you must call. It would look odd if you didn’t, in the circumstances.”

      “What business had Christopher Darcy to be marrying again, at his age? And to pick a woman with no fortune, and from what I remember of her, nothing much else to recommend her. Regular maypole, ain’t she? I never thought him to have a goatish disposition, he should have stayed a widower, or found himself a rich woman to marry if he had to put his neck into the hangman’s noose a second time. Although his first marriage don’t seem to have done him much good, for all she was considered a good catch; Lord knows what happened to the first Mrs. Darcy’s fortune.”

      “I thought he ploughed every penny he had into his house and land, prize money, her portion, everything.”

      “Well, I shall find out by and by, now I’m installed there and have all the accounts and papers to hand. A few extra thousand would have been worth having, but you say the second Mrs. D is landed safely on these shores, so she lives to enjoy her share of the inheritance. I dare say I’ll have her or that prosy brother of hers coming round begging me to give her an annuity or some such thing. I shan’t, of course, that family of hers can’t let her starve, and she’s no responsibility of mine if she can’t live on what her husband left her.”

      “Which was little enough. I suppose he expected her to bear him a son and heir, what a mercy he was carried off before that could happen. It is fortunate for you that India has such a very unhealthy climate, where insect bites and the like can finish you off; that doesn’t happen in Wiltshire that I ever heard.”

      “No, down there you die of boredom instead.” He raised a languid hand. “No need to remonstrate with me. It’s a devilish neat property, and will bring me a tidy little income, which I can do with.”

      “Have a word with Arthur Melbury before you pay your duty call on Mrs. Darcy, so that she has no expectations of any kind, knows that your visit is purely a matter of form.”

      “Lord, how tedious duty is. She’s only a half sister to the rest of that Melbury lot, ain’t she?”

      “Yes, Sir Clement married her mother in an aberrant moment; she was from a family in trade, not in any great way, neither. At least she had the grace to expire in childbirth, and the third Lady Melbury was unexceptionable, if dull.”

      George Warren was surprised by Octavia when he paid a visit to the house in Lothian Street. There was a glint in her eye, as though she were laughing at him, which he didn’t care for, and an air of confidence about her; what right had a poor widow to look as though she hadn’t a care in the world? And for all her half-mourning grey dress—not badly cut, either; George was a connoisseur of women’s clothes—she looked far from full of grief. But she had the decency to look more sombre when he spoke of Christopher; in flattering terms, although the truth was that he and Captain Darcy hadn’t got on well together, chalk and cheese.

      The matter of money, of his inheritance, of her slight income, was not raised. And the only reference she made to Dalcombe House, the house where she might have expected to spend many years of her married life, was when she said that if she were at any time in Wiltshire, she would like to see the house where Christopher had been born and grew up, and which he loved so much.

      He couldn’t refuse, and, he consoled himself, he wouldn’t have to put up with her company. He didn’t intend to spend more than a few weeks there each summer; he was not planning to rusticate.

      He rose thankfully as soon as the half hour was up. What a tiresome woman Mrs. Cartland was, eyeing him in that way; he knew that scheming look, the automatic assessment of every matron with a marriageable daughter. Well, he wasn’t in the market for a bride, and if he were, Penelope Cartland, who was looking at him with a wide-eyed dispassionate stare that he found disconcerting, would not be on his list. Her mama had better teach her a few manners, or she’d end up on the shelf. Men did not care to be looked at in quite that way; what with her and Octavia’s self-possession, he felt quite put out.

      And Mrs. Darcy had nothing in the way of a pretty foot, he remarked to himself, as he walked off down Lothian Street, twirling his cane. That came of being so damned tall; whatever had Christopher Darcy seen in her to want to marry her?

      Mrs. Cartland was not pleased with George Warren, and she expressed her dissatisfaction almost before the door had closed behind him. “He has a very insolent air to him, and after all, his father’s title is a new one; he is only the second baron. However, I should like to see a little more civility from you, miss, when we have a gentleman to call”—this to her daughter.

      “He is a horrid man, I do not like him at all,” said Penelope.

      “What is this word, horrid? Anyone would think you were living in the pages of those novels you read. And it is not for you to set up for liking or disliking anyone, let me tell you. You will be guided by your mama and papa as to whom you may like or dislike.”

      She turned to Octavia. “I think him very remiss not to— Well, I believe there is nothing to be got out of George Warren, he has the reputation of being very tight with his money.”

      Arthur called a few minutes after Warren’s departure, and was shown into the room where the ladies were sitting. He pursed his lips and looked grave. “I have to tell you now, Octavia, that Theodosia is right. I took up the matter of an annuity for you with Warren, for your income is so very small, and in the light of what you might have expected, disappointing. However, he would have none of it, said the estate was encumbered, that the house and land are in a bad way, and will need a great deal spent on it to bring it into order, so that nothing