The Colonel's Spinster - Audrey Harrison

Prologue

Netherfield, Hertfordshire, 1813

With his ready smile on his face, Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam entered the bedchamber of his cousin. Darcy frowned at him, at which Fitzwilliam’s smile broadened.

“The nerves getting to you?” he asked, as Darcy’s valet fussed around his cousin.

“Why am I so nervous? I want this wedding to take place, but my stomach is behaving like I’m some sort of callow youth on his first adventure,” Darcy said, with a nod dismissing his valet. He looked resplendent in a blue frock coat and cream breeches; his boots had been polished until they shone in the sunlight.

“It is good to be nervous,” Fitzwilliam reassured his relation. “But I’m convinced they are unnecessary doubts.”

Darcy finished fiddling with his neckcloth. He normally spent an age perfecting the gentle folds, but today he was even more inclined than usual for it to look impeccable. “I know you speak the truth. But it does not help that I’d rather not be the centre of attention for the morning.”

“I have some bad news to break to you, Darcy. No one is interested in you. They all want to see your bride in her wedding dress. All the women will be wondering if there will be lace or if she will wear flowers in her hair or a bonnet, or even a feather! You, my friend, are so low down in everyone’s interest, you are virtually not needed to attend,” Fitzwilliam said.

Darcy laughed. Those who did not know him well, would wonder at the uncommon occurrence, but to the few people who were dear to him, it was a regular, natural sound. “Good! Thank you, Fitzwilliam. I needed to be brought to the reality of the day. I too often allow myself to overthink a simple situation.”

“You? My dear cousin, I don’t know what you could possibly mean!”

Darcy shook his head at his cousin but then became serious. “Fitzwilliam, can I ask you a question in which I need your reply to be very honest?”

“Sounds ominous.”

“It is something I should have raised before now. I know I’m a blockhead for needing to ask, but the niggle will not go away. You and Elizabeth — at Rosings, you were…”

Fitzwilliam looked at his cousin with sympathy. He was a man with ten thousand pounds a year, a capable landlord of one of the largest estates in Derbyshire, and yet he could be so unsure of himself. It endeared him further with the cousin who, in many ways, was more like a brother.

“Darcy, I promise you this. I was never in love with Elizabeth, nor she, me. I admit, I think her handsome, funny, and one of the best people I will soon have the pleasure to call cousin, but there are no other feelings towards her. And never have been,” Fitzwilliam said honestly.

“I can see why she would be drawn to you,” Darcy said, still looking uncomfortable.

Moving over to put his hands on his cousin’s shoulders, Fitzwilliam shook him gently. “She turned your first proposal down because she did not truly know you at that time. Plus the fact that the blackguard, Wickham, had been whispering poison into her ear and the general locality of her town.”

It had been a hard time for Darcy, blundering in and causing what had appeared to be a permanent breach with the woman he’d asked to marry him. He had only confessed the whole situation afterwards to his cousin, after he’d actually secured Elizabeth’s affection.

“I could understand if there had been an attraction…”

“No! There was mild flirtation. You know my character and hers. Neither of us can resist being playful, but she is yours Darcy. I am certain she always was. Your good opinion mattered too much to her to be disinterested. Look how she was with the buffoon, Collins — civil but cool. She was never that with you. From the start, there was something between you. Call it a spark if you like. But you were drawn to each other and teased and tormented one another from the beginning. That evening in Rosings in which she played the pianoforte was a prime example. She was far more playful towards you than at any other time with anyone else. We had been speaking. When you arrived, she started to tease you. Trust me on this. You have always been the only man for her.”

Darcy sighed. “Thank you. Again. It’s just the emotions of today. I am doubting everything that is poor in my character and all that I have known. I feel