Free The Matters at Mansfield: (Or, the Crawford Affair) (Mr. & Mrs. Darcy Mysteries) by Carrie Bebris

did not know Mr. Sennex well, but that he had a reputation at the club for a quick temper. He also said that given the behavior of Mr. Sennex’s horse and the look of the injury, he suspected the mare’s scar to be the result of having been struck with the horn hook of a hunting crop, rather than the accident Mr. Sennex had claimed. ‘A man who could injure so valuable an animal . . .’ He left the sentence unfinished, but I understood him. Striking a wife—also a man’s legal property—is not so very great a leap.
    “Mr. Crawford urged me to avoid an engagement with Mr. Sennex. I told him that my mother seemed determined, but that I would speak with her. He extracted a promise from me to meet him in Riveton’s rose garden at dawn to tell him the result.”
    “Later, when I attempted to convey to my mother my uneasiness about Mr. Sennex, she would not hear. An obedient wife had nothing to fear, she said, and implied that a betrothal agreement was indeed imminent. My cooperation was not only expected, it was demanded.
    “I spent the night recalling the bursts of anger I had witnessed in Mr. Sennex and imagining the force that had caused the horse’s scar applied to me. Early the next morning, en route to my assignation with Mr. Crawford, I encountered Mrs. Darcy and thought for certain that she suspected the rendezvous. By the time I reached the rose garden and Mr. Crawford, agitation so overcame me that it is only by some miracle that he made any sense at all of my utterances.
    “Mr. Crawford revealed his partiality for me and declared that he could not stand by whilst I sacrificed myself to Mr. Sennex. He offered himself as a husband and asked whether my mother would consider him an acceptable substitute. When I doubted her accord—he possesses no title, and negotiations with the viscount were so far along—he proposed a desperate solution: an elopement. I could not conceive of such disobedience, but he urged me to consider it for my own welfare. I was to give him my answer at the ball. We would underplay our acquaintance to avoid suspicion, but he would contrive a few minutes’ conversation in which I could indicate my decision by some sign. He would come prepared; if I accepted, we would depart from there, with the distraction of the festivities to mask our disappearance.
    “I tried to speak to my mother a final time before the ball, but she cut me off in her haste to meet yet again with Lord Sennex. As I watched her carriage depart for Hawthorn Manor, I knew that I had to act that night, for I would not have the courage to disobey her in person when she put a finalized betrothal agreement in front of me to sign. Now it is done, and I can only imagine the extent of her displeasure. Will she ever receive us at Rosings, do you think?”
    “She wants to see you posthaste. Colonel Fitzwilliam and I are to return you and Mr. Crawford to Riveton as quickly as the miles can be traveled.”
    Anne sighed and glanced round the shabby room that had been her bridechamber. Her entire posture bespoke resignation. “We can depart whenever you wish. Delaying the reunion will not make it easier.”

Eight
“I have not been in the habit of brooking disappointment.”
— Lady Catherine de Bourgh , Pride and Prejudice

    I t is a pity Miss de Bourgh cannot join us this afternoon.” Lord Sennex lifted his teacup but did not sip, instead returning it to the saucer as if he could not quite remember what he had been about to do with it. Elizabeth itched to brush away the stray cake crumbs that had collected in the folds of his neckcloth. ’Twas unfortunate enough that advanced age deprived the viscount of his full faculties. Must it also compromise his dignity?
    “Forgive me, your ladyship,” he continued, “but where did you say your daughter is?”
    Lady Catherine had not said. Indeed, Lady Catherine had not said much over the past several days to Lord Sennex or his son about Anne’s sudden absence, even though the