Pride and Prejudice 00 General Regency AU

NOTE: to prior chapter, I must confess my understanding on handfasting marriages is limited too, but I knew for sure Hayden and Charlotte were not letting go of it sooooooo... they got it. LOL

Best Laid Plans Go Awry

Previously:

It matters not where your husband is from, or that you were married by handfasting, please, just come home. We want to see you, at least for a visit. We understand Lord Bryce having obligations elsewhere.

Family Reunion

Ch. 20

The wind blew fiercely against the carriage, had been all morning. Aileen wore a dark veil over her face and the curtains were drawn as to keep any light from hitting her face. Hayden kept his arm around Charlotte who was now asleep against the side of his chest. His mind, like most men, could shut off without thinking of a single subject. However, without knowing exactly where Mr. Landon Bryce was - the Baron was lifting his own curtain just far enough as to allow his eye to catch any movement from his side of the carriage.

"We told no one which friend you were going to." Aran had pulled him aside after the women were in the carriage. "How did your brother know where to find you? I do not think it is your friend who has the mole in his home."

"You think the mole is in my own home?"

"The more I think about it, yes, but going back is just as much trouble as going ahead." Aran bawled up his fist muttering he wished they had more guards and that, the more he thought about it more he was certain who the mole was.

"We will have them." Hayden said as to the guards and, when told who Aran thought the mole was-and why- the newest Baron had bells start to ring in his ear. "I will send someone to haul him into a cell for questioning."

it was because of that conversation that caused not only the coachman, Hayden and Aran to have their guns on hand, but four guards with guns ready to aim and fire at a moment's notice riding along with them. They were all men extremely loyal to Hayden's friend, and who long sworn allegiance to Lord Bryce's eldest when he had saved them in private skirmish the government had pretended not to know about.

The route they had taken was mostly flat and open. Aran, and the men, wanted very little cover in which for Landon to hide. Fortunately, for them, when there had been no choice but to deal with windy roads and hills, Hayden's brother, or low-life friends, had not been in sight. Nor were they when the group had arrived in Meryton.

Charlotte stirred due the noise of dogs barking, and one very loud cat meowing. "How long have I been sleeping?" She looked up at Hayden, snuggling even closer- if that was possible.

"A couple of hours. We are almost to your parents."

"I am nervous."

Hayden felt, literally, a sense of his wife curling up into ball. It was if he could have picked her up and carried her under his arm as easily as he would a plaid when wondering the hills. It made him repeat his vow that, if the Lucas were not people of their word, he would... take Lady Bryce back to Scotland and her birth parents would not ever see their daughter again. It was with that thought his arm, instinctively, drew his wife as close to himself as possible.

Aileen had sensed the same thing from Charlotte. However, she focused on talking about her sister's life growing up. And of her friends and activities that had filled her days.

"We read a lot, learned music, worked in the garden. learned to run a household, things like that."

"Where did your love of Scotland come from? You have been married to Hayden for less than a year and we have not talked much about that."

"Why all the questions now, sister?" Hayden looked at her funny.

"Better to talk about things like this than to worry about the what if's." Her eyes rose at him.

"Our sister is right." Charlotte relaxed. "At first, I simply started reading up on Scotland because I thought I was going to be a governess to children living near the English border. But then ..." She looked up at Hayden. "It was like I was starving, and I could not get enough. And then when Lady Smith got invited to that party in Dumfrie I was so excited ...at first..." Lady Bryce's nose scrunched up without her thinking about it.

"That disappointing?" Lord Bryce and his sister asked at once.

"Yes, until you walked in there was nothing that felt genuinely Scottish in that entire room." Instantly her face went bright red.

Hayden's face broke out in a wide grin. "I had no idea I had that strong of an impact on you. You did not appear affected at all, nor have you said a word this whole time about that party. Why did you not react?"

"Serious, Hayden? Almost every woman was staring at you as if you were a prized piece of freshly cut meat. I saw no need become part of that type of crowd; even if I did have to keep shoving aside the urge to brush your hair."

Noise grew outside their carriage, and it was not the wind- that had died down. It was voices Lady Bryce had not heard since fleeing her father's home; it was her own siblings. Her hand remained on Hayden's at the same time her eyes went to carriage door.

Hayden took on the role of not only her husband but protector as well. He knew not the Lucas'. No, there was no reason to doubt their response. They had held no words of condemnation, no sense of ill-will had been felt while reading their letters, but that could have all been an act as far as Charlotte's husband knew so, he patted her hand and told the women to stay put. He then stepped out of the carriage not in the manner of Hayden Bryce, but as Lord Hayden Duncan Bryce.

Maria looked through a window on the upper level of the Lucas's home. A couple of her brothers were with her. They saw a carriage with a baron's marking stop in front of their parent's home, saw a tall, muscular gentleman step out with his dark-red hair confined. His skin shouted he was not young, but oddly, there was an aura of the stranger being just as healthy as if he were the same age who had just been told they no longer needed to be vested. However, no ladies appeared by his side.

The gentleman walked with firm, bold and unwavering steps through their gate, up the stone walkway up ascended the steps to the door. His knock was not light; it shouted, 'I am used to being heard'. It was not long before the butler was answering the door.

"How may I help you?"

"I am Lord Bryce; I have come to talk to Sir William and Lady Lucas."

The butler thought the man might as well have been standing up and speaking in parliament for the tone he was using, and how stiff he was standing. Nonetheless, he said nothing, but showed the gentleman in and went to get the Lucas'.

Hayden may have been wearing a mask but inside he was grinning as children peeked around corners, only to be told by their mother to go back to their studies as she, and Sir William, came into the room. They looked around and were clearly disappointed not to see their daughter. Lord Bryce wasted no time in speaking.

"My wife, and sister, are in our carriage. It is not that Lady Bryce does not wish to see you, she does; however," Hayden softened his tone, and lowered his volume for the sake of any young ears that might have escaped their studies. "As much as you may regret your heated words, they caused a lot of emotional damage to *Mo chridhe. I told her to wait in the carriage. I wanted to see for myself the parents who disowned her were no longer in existence."

"Oh, Lord Bryce." Lady Lucas's spoke with a true ache in her voice. "I have lived a lifetime of regrets since my daughter fled our home. Those words I spoke to Charlotte the day she turned down Mr. Collins I did not mean, I regretted them within the hour, but then I knew not where she had gone. I thought for sure she would come home." Her words made Hayden turn to Sir Lucas.

"Truly, I too felt remorse for what came out of my mouth. I confessed to my wife what I had spoken when our Charlotte did not come home that night. My laugh has not been the same since my eldest left." It was the sincerity of their words, and tone of their voices, that found Lady Lucas standing in her parlor hugging her eldest, with Sir William and his children taking their turn. A few of the younger children even came to where Miss Aileen Bryce was sitting and sat by her as she -now that the lady got out more- drew children to her as bees are drawn to nectar.

*"Mo chridhe" means "my heart" in Scots Gaelic. It is often used as a term of endearment, similar to saying my dear, or my darling. (found that off the internet).