Look what I have for you, my dears another chapter! It's a little shorter than he last two, and there's a bit of telling rather than showing, but these are Elizabeth's thoughts on things that have happened to members of her family since her marriage to Henry. Chapter four should definitely start moving things forward.

I received a guest comment from someone who said she(?) had missed everything in volume one after Henry's poisoning, and one or two other comments from readers who said they missed chapters. I am sorry for that — sorry that anyone missed anything — but I do believe I gave plenty of warning as to when the first part would be removed from FFN to comply with Amazon's publishing rules. Remember, volume one of The Husbands of Elizabeth Bennet is available for purchase or to read free in KU, so if you happen to have a Kindle or Kindle app, there will be no trouble picking up where you left off — or reading that wonderful story from the beginning all over again! :)


Chapter Three


A letter from her sister-in-law, the Countess of Disley, gave Elizabeth a great deal to think about over the weekend.

Disley House

2 March 1822

My dear Elizabeth,

My thoughts are with you, Harry, Isabella, Thomas, and Margaret. Today would have been your tenth wedding anniversary, and I know that by the time you read this, it will be a year since Henry left us. I miss my brother terribly, but I am sure my feelings cannot compare to how you and your children feel.

I suspect you will think it too soon to be among society again, but I do hope you will come to London in the next week or two. You need not go out or even entertain callers if that is what you wish, but surely you must want to see your family. I want to see my nieces and nephews! You know Adelaide is in town with her brood, as are my sons with theirs. And Georgiana, of course, with her children, and Diana—you know, I even saw your sister Catherine just the other day; we had a nice chat at Madame le Blanc's. There is already such a merry group of little ones here in town, I shall be beside myself if you do not come and join the rest of us mothers. I have even written to Darcy to try and get him to bring Clara to town—my nephew has become rather a hermit since his wife died, much like you have.

Oh dear, do please forgive me! I know you've also not left Stashwick since returning there after Henry… And I understand, my dear, truly I do. But that is why you must come to London—the children must become reacquainted with their family, and so must you. You need to get out of that castle for a while—a change of scene would surely do all of you a great deal of good.

At least consider it, little sister.

All my love,

Frances

Elizabeth sighed as she folded the letter. Leaving the comforts of the castle had barely entered her head—she had acknowledged what society would expect, the questions that they would ask, but she did not think herself ready to face them. However, the idea of seeing her relations did have merit. There had been so many children born in the last ten years! Between herself and her four sisters, there were fourteen little boys and girls, and the unexpected blessing of a longed-for son born to her parents two years after her marriage made the number greater by one. She ruminated on how strange it had felt to learn her mother was with child again at three-and-forty—her brother John was two-and-twenty years younger than herself—and wondered if it was anything like what her stepdaughter had felt on learning that her father was to marry a young woman only four years her senior.

Then there were all the children on Henry's side of the family. Lady Disley's two sons had given her a combined total of nine grandchildren (the eldest of Lord Rowarth's was twelve years); Lady Scarborough—Adelaide—had given birth to four children; Diana Parker had three; and the second Lady Winterbourne, Georgiana Darcy, had borne three and was mother to her husband's elder daughter from his first marriage. If she counted Darcy's daughter among the brood, the number was one-and-twenty.

Good heavens, a total of six-and-thirty children born in only a dozen years, Elizabeth mused. We are a very prolific family all around.

They would not all of them be together, certainly. Mary and Robert were likely to remain in Stashwick, as the baronet was also the parish vicar and had many duties to see to. Well, Mary might be able to join her in London for a few weeks with her son and daughters…

Elizabeth scoffed at her own thoughts. As if she were planning to go! Heavens, she was just reaching a year without her husband, and it was as though everyone expected her to begin socializing again as if she were completely over him. Did no one in high society understand that grief kept no schedule?

Still, she had seen little of her sisters other than Mary in the last year, for Kitty—or Cate, as she now preferred to be called—and Stephen spent half the year in London, as she and Henry had done. Cate had become quite popular among the ladies of the ton—she, Adelaide, Stephen's sister Diana, and Lady Winterbourne were close friends—and Cate was in unspoken competition with the former Miss Bingley, now Lady Dornan, as to who threw the best parties.

Lydia always claimed hers were the best even if she had never hosted a party in London amidst the social elite. She was carrying on the "family tradition" on both sides, after all. No one who had ever sat to Mrs. Bennet's table walked away unsatisfied, and as the future mistress of Lucas Lodge, she simply had to do as well if not better than her in-laws' well-known parties.

Thinking of Lydia then had Elizabeth recalling the tragedies that had befallen her family other than Henry's fatal heart attack. No one had ever expected that the former Miss Lydia Bennet—that wild, unabashed flirt—would one day settle down and be in position to take the place of Lady Lucas as mistress of Lucas Lodge, but when that lady passed, she certainly would. A chance meeting at a ball in London during her debut Season had reunited Lydia with John Lucas, the second son of her childhood neighbors. John had gone into the navy and managed to earn himself both promotion and a respectable amount of prize money. He was soon to be a captain and in command of his own ship, and stories of his trials at sea had awakened a sense of adventurousness in Lydia. She was smitten with him instantly, even though in years before she had never given him a second look. This mattered little to John—he'd long had a tendre for Lydia and was overjoyed that she now returned his feelings. They were married just weeks before his ship carried a large contingent of England's army to the now-infamous Battle of Waterloo.

Two years before Henry died, the eldest Lucas son—called William after his father—had sadly drowned at the age of three-and-thirty, leaving behind a wife and three young daughters. William had been caught in a flash flood in the summer of 1819 while helping a tenant rescue some sheep from the fast-moving waters of a creek that had risen above its banks under the onslaught of a heavy downpour. The current had carried him away before anyone had time to react, as it was told in a letter to Elizabeth, and his fate was not learned until two days later when the water had finally receded, and his body had been found on the bank of the creek more than a mile from the tenant's farm. After his brother's death, John had paid off and left the navy to come to the aid of his father in recouping their small estate's losses, as well as to take up the mantle of being his father's heir. He and Lydia bought a house in Meryton for themselves and their twin girls, Lucy and Leah, so that they could be close to both their families.

Five years prior to that loss was the unexpected death of Mr. Bennet's former heir presumptive. Mr. Collins, the cousin who was to inherit the Bennet family estate of Longbourn had married the eldest Lucas daughter, Charlotte, after Elizabeth had summarily rejected him. He was but seven-and-twenty when he died at home after choking on his breakfast.

Charlotte would later confess to Elizabeth that the unexpected news of Mrs. Bennet having conceived a sixth time did not initially concern her husband. After all, said he to her one day, the lady was in her forties—and at that age, the chances were that she would not even carry to term. Mrs. Bennet surprised everyone who knew her by taking better care of herself than she had in years, and likely would have carried to term had Lydia not thrown a tantrum about her debut being delayed due to Elizabeth's quickening with her second pregnancy. Upset with her daughter's unladylike behavior, Mrs. Bennet had been taken to bed a month before her lying-in was expected. All the family's fervent prayers were answered—even Lydia's, who did feel rather guilty for distressing her mother into an early labor—when both mother and child survived.

It was the letter penned by Mr. Bennet informing his cousin that his wife had at last given him a son and heir after six-and-twenty years of marriage that led to Mr. Collins' demise. A servant had brought the pompous vicar the morning post while he and Charlotte, and their one-year-old daughter Catherine, were at table. Collins had opened the letter from his cousin with no apprehension and began to read it even as he stuffed his mouth full of food. Charlotte said she had observed a sudden expression of shock upon his features moments before he began to choke on the boiled potato he'd just taken off his fork. Neither she nor any of the servants who answered her cries of alarm could dislodge it, and it was not until after his body had been carried out of the dining room that she thought to pick up the letter he'd been reading to see what had upset him so. The servants had surely thought her to be sobbing when they found her with her hands over her face, her whole body shaking, but the new widow had revealed to Elizabeth that she had, in fact, been laughing.

Only my husband, Lizzy, would kill himself with a mouth full of food over having been supplanted, she had written in a letter informing her friend of Mr. Collins' passing.

Elizabeth had immediately invited her to come and stay for a time in Berkshire. Charlotte couldn't remain in the Hunsford parsonage, and Elizabeth knew she dreaded the idea of returning to her father's house. Mrs. Collins did eventually return to Meryton, where a year and a half after her husband had died, she married again to a man she truly loved. David Edison was a clerk of Elizabeth's uncle, Mr. Phillips, who had come into his employ shortly before Charlotte's homecoming but was already set to take over the elder man's law practice whenever he should retire or pass away. Mr. Edison soon after their marriage adopted little Catherine, and in the last seven years Charlotte had born him two healthy sons.

Jane and Charles, Elizabeth's elder sister and her husband, would also surely be in town soon, if they were not already. Like their younger sister, Jane thrived on being a socialite. No longer the shy, soft-spoken Jane of their youth, she enjoyed hosting large parties and being seen at balls and public places such as the theatre. She, too, competed with her sister-by-by marriage to throw the most talked about dinners of the Season, and Elizabeth was not remiss to the somewhat perverse pleasure both her sisters took in being able to host house parties at their estates. Caroline could not, as her husband no longer had an estate; at least, not one that he could live in. Sir Frederick Dornan may have been a knight, but he was also rather a spendthrift, and had been forced to lease his family property to pay his debts.

Elizabeth decided to discuss her feelings about going to London with Mary and Robert after church on Sunday. While nursemaids looked after the children, she and her brother and sister took a walk in the great shrubbery maze, and Elizabeth poured out her heart to them.

"I just don't understand it!" she cried. "Just because Henry has now been gone a year and I am no longer 'officially' in mourning does not mean that I have any inclination for balls and parties! Why can't the children and I just remain here, safely tucked away from all that stuff and nonsense that goes along with life in the city?"

"Because it would not be healthy for you, or for them," replied Robert, his words accompanied by a nod of agreement from Mary. "Perhaps it is somewhat indelicate to mention traveling or second marriages when you have literally just reached the end of the first year without Lord Stashwick, but all of you need the experience of socialization."

"We have that here," said Elizabeth stubbornly as she crossed her arms before her.

"To a degree, yes," offered Mary. "But Stashwick Parish is not the whole of society, Lizzy. And like it or not, your children will need to experience London and the society there if they are to have any hope of managing themselves within it when their time comes."

Elizabeth scoffed. "The children will not go anywhere but a park with their nurse and security, if it should happen to be warm enough."

"A park where they will meet other children whom they have never met before," Mary pointed out. "And before my brother's passing, were you not discussing the possibility of taking the twins to plays and concerts to begin their introduction to society?"

A resigned sigh escaped Elizabeth. "And back to the museums," she muttered. "Harry did enjoy looking at the exhibits at the history museum, and Bella the art museum, when we took them before their father…"

Her eyes began to sting but Elizabeth fought the urge to cry. Being honest with herself, she had grown weary of weeping at nearly every mention of her husband. Besides making her nose run, her cheeks red, and her eyes puffy, crying had become such a waste of energy. She couldn't be there for her children when she was overcome with her own grief. Harry could always tell when she'd been crying, and it broke her heart even more to see the pained expression in his face, knowing that he hurt not just because he had lost his father, but because his mother was in pain.

"And loath though I am to remind you," Mary went on, "as Marchioness of Stashwick, there are certain expectations and obligations you must fulfill. Would you abandon all your hard work to reform the mental hospitals? Your efforts to educate and employ women, the poor, and the destitute?"

Elizabeth threw back her head and groaned. "Enough, please!" she said. "I understand you, Mary, and much as I wish you were not, you are right. I cannot abandon my charitable work. And you are right also, brother Robert. It is not healthy to hide myself and the children from all of society. I just… I do not know if I am up to seeing anyone. I do not feel quite ready to socialize just yet."

"You don't have to," said Robert. "At least, not at first. Remember what Lady Disley said in her letter—see only the family if that is your wish. Give yourself a month to acclimate to being in the city again and then—if you are feeling up to it—accept a dinner invitation. Go to a ball at Almack's—"

Her brother and sister paused and looked at her with some concern when Elizabeth suddenly laughed. The sound surprised even her, but the image which had led to her mirth returned to her mind's eye and she laughed again.

"Lizzy?" said Mary. "Are you well?"

Elizabeth put a hand to her brow, then held both to her cheeks. "Oh Mary, I am quite well enough," she replied. "But when Robert mentioned Almack's just now, I was reminded that I made my debut there, and suddenly found myself imagining my grand re-entrance to society might be done the same way."

Understanding dawned in her sister's eyes, and Mary smiled. "Indeed, Lizzy—you would make quite the sensation if you debuted again in such a fashion."

With a sigh, Elizabeth lowered her hands. "It really does feel like it is too soon to be among society again—for anyone to even expect it of me—but I must own that the two of you are right. Much as I might wish it, I cannot hide myself and the children away forever. I must take these first steps back into the wide world, no matter how painful it will be to take them alone."

Mary and Robert were then wrapped in a double embrace. "Thank you both for putting up with my whinging."

"You have not been whinging, Lizzy," said Mary when she released them. "You were just … seeking our counsel."

"And we are most happy to have offered it, sister," added Robert.

"Will you go with me to London, Mary?" Elizabeth asked, reaching for her hand to grip it tightly. "I know there will be a great many relations there—Cate and Adelaide, surely, and possibly even Jane and Charles. But it is with you whom I feel most comfortable at the moment, having been sequestered here in the parish with you for so long."

"Of course, I will go with you," Mary replied with a smile. "I could not leave my most beloved sister to face the wide world alone, now could I?"