At Rosings, a missive arrived later that day whilst Lady Catherine ate dinner with her parson and his new wife, Charlotte Collins nee Lucas. The timid woman was the perfect match for her toady parson. The fact she had once been friends with the Bennet chit who had taken Anne from her side was not to be forgotten.
The butler was loath to interrupt the dinner proceedings but his instructions were clear. News from Pemberley was to be given the moment it arrived. He moved to the dining room and quietly cleared his throat nodding to the letter in his hand.
Lady Catherine abruptly left her seat and snatched the paper from the embarrassed butler. Mr. and Mrs. Collins sat as though nothing was amiss.
Charlotte glanced at her husband, grateful for the protection of Lady Catherine’s dining room. News of her friend Elizabeth’s refusal to marry the man and the gossip of all that had happened since sat solidly at the back of her mind.
She held little doubt the rumors were true, but still she was only hoping for a comfortable life when she put aside the scandal and accepted him. Feelings of affection for a husband were not the concern of a daughter approaching spinsterhood as her mother had oft reminded her.
Her arms and back now bore the marks of a painful existence. Mr. Collins’s idea of affection was vastly different from what Charlotte had ever been led to believe or imagine. Surely his proclivities were foreign to many gentlemen?
She jumped in her seat as Lady Catherine pushed past the butler and quit the dining room. She did not appear angry but rather taken by some odd excitement.
Mr. Collins began ordering the remaining footmen about, happy to assert himself with his patroness out of earshot. “Come, then, have we another roast duck waiting in the kitchen?”
Charlotte smiled meekly as the footman’s face reddened and he hurried from the room. She dared not speak a word of warning nor advice to her husband. Though, if Lady Catherine became angered after the fact, she alone would bear the brunt of her husband’s displeasure. He would blame her for not cautioning him against gluttony.
Lady Catherine paced in her parlor, the parson and his wife forgotten entirely. Anne was coming! She had not believed her plan might work. But the Viscount was accompanying her! There must be a way to dissuade him in his pursuit. She thought for but a moment before her mind settled upon the friend of her nephew. He had a sister in need of a match, a grasping, desperate woman with the scruples of an alley cat, or so she had been told.
She sat and hastily wrote a letter to be delivered to Hurst House in London. Viscount Amestrey would be but a footnote in Anne’s life before she was done.
Pleased with herself, she called for her maid to ready Anne’s rooms for her return and went in search of her butler. The letter must be posted first thing come morning for her plan to unfurl perfectly. The Bingley woman must be a guest at Rosings before Anne arrived with her intended.
Smiling at her own cunning, Lady Catherine retired to her rooms and busied the upstairs maids with the arranging of her sickroom. It would be a terrible bore and bother to playact for Anne but her aim was a worthy one.
In the dining room, Mr. Collins ate greedily and eyed Charlotte. The disaster with his cousin Elizabeth now seemed a stroke of great fortune although he’d had to meet with Mr. Bennet and break the entailment on Longbourn. Mr. Darcy and his cousin, the colonel, had made certain he followed their edict and afterwards he had passed by his cousin’s home to have one last look before returning to Hunsford.
He’d met Charlotte Lucas upon the road near Longbourn and recalled making her acquaintance the night of the ball at Netherfield. She would not meet his gaze at first, but he assured her all was well with Elizabeth and he had graciously broken the entailment in an effort at amends with her family over their failed engagement.
Within a few days, the parson had ingratiated himself to the Lucas family and offered for Charlotte. Believing him to be a reasonable man with a sense of fairness, she accepted not knowing the truth of Elizabeth’s plight at Rosings.
As he watched her across the table, he thought of how his cousin Elizabeth would never have acquiesced to his demands as Charlotte did without fail. She had attempted to correct him once to her own dismay and deep regret.
He remembered the terror in her eyes as he grabbed her by the arm and pushed her down to the sofa. He’d found the quiver of her bottom lip a delight and had taken every opportunity since to goad her into such a confrontation again.
She would not repeat her mistake and so he’d resorted to finding fault with her dress or her management of their small, yet comfortable cottage or any number of insignificant matters. To see the fear in her eyes, to have her uncertain of her every move, pleased him more each day.
Yes, losing Elizabeth Bennet to Mr. Darcy had been for the best, even Lady Catherine agreed. And though she found Charlotte to be a suitable match for him, she treated the parson’s wife in much the same manner as he. Charlotte Lucas Collins became the scapegoat for the women who had escaped Rosings.