A/N: Thanks so much for all the wonderful reviews and favs. This story just crossed 100 reviews for the first time which is soooo exciting I'm giddy.
Now I need to ask for a little help on direction of the story. I've been gradually tending more towards absurdity and farce, and want to know when I step over the line. Please let me know what you think of this chapter, either by review or PM. This chapter is setup for a big road trip, and another maybe 7-20 chapters up to novella length.
Once again, my ego thanks you for all the favs and reviews. ;) Wade
Aloysius Bamber Cornelius Dudley Erasmus Fitzwilliam IV was dead. He was most assuredly dead. He was completely, irrevocably, implacably, unassailably, stone-cold dead… He was… wait!… Being dead could not possibly be this BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING!
Aloysius Bamber Cornelius Dudley Erasmus Fitzwilliam IV was BOOOORED TO DEATH. His countenance and serenity were critically injured, gravely impaired, grievously disabled, mortally wounded, life-threateningly damaged, battered, bruised and tormented. He had obviously been drug into the breakfast room at Rosings by a sloth… that was it… a Three-Toed Tree Sloth. Now he remembered. Why there was a sloth in the middle of Rosings was quite a mystery, but that was definitely what happened. He remembered it clearly. Upon descending the stairs this morning without his idiot cousin Darcy, this sloth had used its deadly voice powers to maul him within an inch of his life and drag him into the sloth's breakfast room. Yes, he was definitely in a sloth's breakfast room, listening to the sloth drone on, sitting in the cold hard uncomfortable sloth's chair, eating the sloth's cold, miserable porridge, with an overly ostentatious but nearly unusable spoon.
Wait! Fitzwilliam jerked awake, as he had dozed off; and shivered in mortification. The sloth was still here in the breakfast room, and still droning on about the absent Darcy, seemingly without the need to rest, blink, breathe or any other normal sign of biological activity. It was nearly superhuman and quite impressive if you thought about it.
Aloysius Fitzwilliam had learned the fine art of appearing to pay attention while virtually asleep In His Majesty's Service. He had of course, also and most critically learned Not To Stint on the Proper Case Italics Letters.
Naturally, being the son of an Earl, there was no actual danger of him ever participating in anything strenuous such as marching, fighting, planning, map reading, leading, shooting, swordplay, knife fighting, archery, cleaning swords, cleaning boots, cleaning much of anything, cooking, mending or any of the other unpleasant activities sometimes associated with wearing a red coat. He was however continuously subjected to even worse unpleasantness; including listening to staff meetings, listening to generals, listening to generals daughters (even worse), listening to generals sons (worst of all), listening to enlisted men – scratch that last one, he was a colonel after all. There were few people in England, one would suppose, who had more true talent for boredom than Colonel Aloysius Fitzwilliam, or better natural abilities. He could tolerate the most boring man in the king's Army, nay! He could tolerate the Prince Regent himself with complete equanimity.
However, despite his years of extensive training, he found that he was not quite capable of listening to his aunt drone on any longer. He and his cousin Darcy had worked out a routine over the years, with scientific precision, in the finest detail, worthy of the greatest minds of the kingdom. They came to their aunts once each year, and calculated within the minute the absolute minimum amount of time that they could appear without having to listen to both their aunt and his father drone on about them not fulfilling their duties. In the end, the arithmetic was relatively simple. It was well worth spending an extra day at Rosings doing absolutely nothing of any value other than riding and drinking brandy; than spending an hour listening to either their aunt or his father. It was simple arithmetic after all, and a man who could plan a campaign or manage an estate could certainly do simple arithmetic. Well actually, now that you think about it, he was the son of an earl so he didn't plan campaigns either, and as the younger son there was little if any chance he would ever manage an estate either. When you got right down to it, other than wearing a red coat, looking very dashing, and spending money, he didn't really do much of anything. That's what Darcy was for.
All of this careful planning quite fell apart, when his comrade in arms, Fitzwilliam Darcy, unaccountably and irrationally decided to extend their stay at Rosings. Not once, but twice! Astounding! Unaccountable! Inexplicable! Fitzwilliam was completely lost in the intricacies of the mathematics involved in how much time had been wasted by these delays, and really could hardly be bothered to try to understand why Darcy was still here. Perhaps he had a tender for the person's wife? You never knew about Darcy… Or maybe he was after that tiny little blonde thing that was the parsons' wife's sister. Yes, that was it! Darcy was in love with Maria Lucas! It all made perfect sense. He met her while he was off in that god-awful place Bingley leased, lost his head completely and was chasing her all over Hertfordshire, and half of Kent.
All this had suddenly made sense to him about a quarter hour past. Satisfied that he understood the world in all of its particulars, Fitzwilliam had made the mistake of allowing a few of the words his aunt was saying to enter his consciousness, and was immediately put to sleep, as if by a siren's song.
Ordinarily, this would have been fine, hardly even noticeable or remarkable; but he in his distraction over Darcy and his little vixen from Hertfordshire had forgotten to place his head in a position where he would fall backwards into the headrest when he fell asleep. Instead, he was startled awake with his head falling precipitously towards his porridge. His military reflexes allowed him to wake up just before his head hit the critical bowl, but unaccountably, he squeaked like a mouse, which made the sloth growl menacingly. It was so frightening, he screwed his eyes shut tight, and tried to hold himself completely still, hoping the sloth might quit talking, but accidentally let loose a small (and truth be told, not very manly) scream. This made the sloth very angry, and it started howling! Wait… sloths didn't howl, maybe this was a hyena! Yes, that was it, a hyena. Hyenas were always after something that was already dead, so finding Fitzwilliam indisposed, it drug it off to crunch his bones, and make it listen to them talk about his cousins and her talent for things she had never learned.
Fortunately, before he was required to think his way through his unnatural obsession with odd forest animals, or his shameless plagiarization of Chapter 2, he was startled by the sound of a horse approaching at full gallop. It sounded like Darcy was being chased by the hounds of hell, or the French Army, or possibly Mariah Lucas – or maybe – the Parson! No wait, that was patently ridiculous. A duck could outrun the parson, and Darcy would never stoop to galloping his horse for that, as it would be most undignified, so there was only one possible explanation. Maria Lucas it is! The colonel wondered if he would need his sword, but felt shame over the thought. He couldn't possibly need that against such a slip of a girl… a knife or club should be entirely sufficient.
He looked over at his cousin Anne, and noticed that she had woken up to. Most people thought Anne was quite sickly, but that was far from the truth. Anne was actually a writer, and published some of the most popular novels in England under an assumed name. Whenever she was in company with her mother, she simply slumped down in her chair, left her eyes just barely open enough to witness the absurdities happening in the room, and dreamed of words for her next novel. Of course, since she spent half the night writing all the things she had thought of during the day, she frequently fell asleep in the middle of the day, which further cemented the reputation of her sickliness, which caused even more absurd behavior by her mother, her companion and their guests, which in turn gave more grist for the mill, which made her stay up even later writing, which made her appear even more sickly. Vicious circle, right? Anne had even mastered the art of falling asleep with her eyes open, which greatly diminished the sloth's power over her. She actually could have left Rosings long ago, but where would she go for absurdity then? Granted, Pemberley would be absurd enough when Darcy was there but he hardly ever was, and even Darcy at his most ridiculous, was a mere stripling compared to her mother. She thought about going to town to observe the Ton, but even she, in her near-supernatural abilities to observe ridiculousness without going mad felt that might be beyond her.
Everyone in the room was startled out of what supply of wits they possessed (the quantities varied considerably, and truth be told, were well outside the bounds of a normal bell curve), when the door suddenly slammed open, and Darcy ran in full tilt and shouted, "On your Feet! Pack your things Anne! We're going to Scotland! You too Aloysius!"
This speech was so startling, so revolutionary, so radical, so groundbreaking that it caused the sloth to pause for breath. Fitzwilliam's military reflexes took over, and he jumped up from the table, grabbed Anne by her elbow and pulled her out of the room before the sloth could renew her attack. This was the Darcy he knew. This was the Darcy he had waited for. This was the paragon among men. Darcy was in fact stark raving mad, but he had at least gotten him away from the sloth, so Aloysius decided to accept his fate. Apparently, his fate was to be in Scotland. He wondered if Maria had a sister for him?
Darcy burst towards the door, shouting for his valet, a bath, a carriage, a fresh cravat, a rapid departure, a blacker horse, clean clothes and a jar of dill pickles. However, he had not counted on the mercurial nature of the sloth. Faster than lightning, she changed into a crocodile, the fastest animal in the world, and flashed across the room like lightning to sink her claws into the soft flesh of Darcy's arm.
"Darcy, what is the meaning of this. What in the world would possess you to go to Scotland? Have you gone mad?" said the Sloth/Hyena/Croc.
Darcy, without missing a beat replied, "To get married, of course! Why else would you go to Scotland?", and then he leaned down toward the croc, and whispered almost inaudibly, "the men wear skirts there… with bare legs and nothing underneath I'm told." This had the intended effect and the croc loosened its near fatal grip on his arm for the slightest heartbeat, and Darcy made his escape towards the stairs.
The Sloth/Hyena/Croc started dancing around like a monkey, saying, "Getting Married! Getting Married! Getting Married! Getting Married! Darcy, finally! At Last! You are going to do your duty!", at which point she ran from the room full of happy thoughts for the future, yelling for her own carriage and her own jar of dill pickles.