As the carriage pulled into the stately drive at Rosings, Darcy sent a quick utterance skywards to give him the strength that he would need to survive this ordeal. The carriage swayed slightly as he woodenly stepped down onto the crunching gravel beneath him. He was picking at an imaginary smear on his greatcoat in his nervousness as he walked to the great oak entrance.

Soon enough he was being announced by a footman to Anne, who was having a break from her mother's demanding presence to take tea in the green parlour. He was loathe to interrupt her peaceful silence but was relieved when a soft smile graced her countenance. He noticed that she looked well, if a little tired, and upon greeting her he conveyed his concern that she was not sleeping enough.

"Do not worry about that, my dear cousin," she retorted, with an unfamiliar glint in her soft blue eyes. He was reminded of his lovely wife and smiled subconsciously. "For you are now here to rescue me from such a cruel fate." Darcy was astonished when she chuckled, and he promised himself that they would extend her an invitation to Pemberley in the near future. He thought idly that she would benefit from some time out of her mother's shadow, and in the presence of his charming wife.

"I am afraid that I am no knight, and it would appear that we are lacking the necessary rounded table for any other brave knave to take my place," he returned jokingly. "Forgive me," he stated in a more serious tone, "but how is your mother?"

"As well as one can expect, for one with such exaggerated sensibilities and with only a sickly daughter to attend her." Darcy picked up on her clipped tone and her barely concealed eye-roll, and realised that his suspicions had been correct.

"She is not dying." It was a frustrated statement. His brow furrowed.

"I fear she is only doing such a thing in her mind," Anne said apologetically. "Only she has been making such a fuss that one would think that death were knocking on the doors and all of the windows. I do not know what to do in order to contain her. She is making my life even more difficult than is usually her wont and I do not favour myself upon the gallows for her 'accidental' demise; either that or my eventual commitment to Bedlam."

"Well I am happy for your sake that it is not so grave as it appeared, though I would very much like to see her to assess the situation before deciding upon the best course of action." This was enunciated in a clipped tone as Fitzwilliam Darcy contemplated all that he had sacrificed to come to Kent, for a seemingly fictitious disease that plagued his most ridiculous relation.

"She is in her chambers, I shall dispatch Johnson to show you to her," she acquiesced, calling the appropriate man and moving to find a book to occupy her whilst her cousin took the gauntlet and went in search of her mother.


The air was stagnant and stifling in the gaudy chambers when he crossed the threshold into his aunt's rooms. Looking around, the deep pink furnishings became more and more ostentatious as one neared his aunt's vast bed. Looking upon her from the doorway, she did indeed seem very small surrounded by so many lurid pillows and throws. He breathed in a thick lungful of the stale air to brace himself before squaring his shoulders and crossing the floor.

"Thank goodness, you have come after all," she began in a voice that curiously grew less hoarse as she continued speaking, as if she were mended by his very presence. "Anne was so worried that you would not come, what with your wife being so inconveniently occupied, but I knew that you would not besmirch your good name any further, and that you would come to our aid."

He did not know quite how to respond to such a declaration, and elected to remain silent as his nails dug into his palms with the force of his angry clenching. It would not help Anne to throw an angry retort and rile her, and Elizabeth had specifically entreated him to remain civil. He struggled with the insinuation that it was Lizzy's fault that she was bringing another wonderful child into the world, but bit his tongue against the bile that was rising. He thought of his wife's calming smile and returned his attention to his aunt, who was still babbling in a manner not dissimilar to her beloved parson.

"- and I find myself most revived by my beloved nephew finally coming to his senses and to his aunt's side." He rolled his eyes imperceptibly and offered her some herbal remedy that the physician had left by her bedside. He was not ready to address her rudeness in shunning Mrs Darcy for so long, but he found that he could distract her and avoid the subject and be perfectly polite. He was determined to obey Elizabeth's requests.

"One can not take to many restoratives, dear nephew. Even though I am feeling much better, I think I shall take a brandy over that rotten ginger root syrup. It does taste frightfully bitter, you see. Yes I think a brandy would do wonders for my poor head." He felt like strangling her for separating him from his dear wife in the depth of winter with a babe on the way but, remembering that dear wife, he merely smiled tersely and fetched her the brandy she desired.

It became apparent in the next hour as she spoke and regained her usual vivaciousness that the disease that had befallen her was simply estrangement from her dear nephew. She was seeking his attention after just shy of an eighteen-month of separation and, although unwilling to apologise for her behaviour, seemed to recognise that shunning her wealthy nephew had not been in her best interests. Though he was enraged at her high-handedness and unnecessary dramatics, he decided that it was in the interests of his whole family, his wife and Anne especially, that he would have to forgive his aunt for her trespasses against Elizabeth. He told her as much, and that was all that was needed for her to remove herself from under the counterpane, ring the bell for a servant and shoo him so that she could make herself presentable for dinner.