Page 196 of Pride and Prejudice Resolutions

"She has sense," Lady Catherine replied crisply. Thetap-tap-tapof her cane against the floorboards set a metronome to her satisfaction. "She understands that in Kent, my preferences carry slightly more weight than the local climate. Besides, the girl has taste. She knows Rosings in May is a spectacle that money cannot purchase."

Her gaze drifted toward the topiary garden. There sat Anne, actually sitting forward, beside the youngest Bennet girl.

Two months earlier, the sight would have required smelling salts. Lydia Bennet remained, by any objective measure, a walking incident in primrose silk. She was currently employing a cherry tart as a conductor's baton, her laughter bouncing acrossthe lawn with enough volume to startle several elderly aunts into dropping their teaspoons.

And yet, something had shifted.

Lady Catherine watched with narrowed eyes as Lydia caught herself mid-gesture, straightened her shoulders with the instinctive correction of a girl who had endured three solid weeks of "gliding" lessons, and continued her story at only marginally less ear-splitting volume.

Anne, miracle of miracles, was laughing. Not the thin, polite sound she usually managed, but a genuine, startled giggle that brought actual colour to her cheeks.

Lady Catherine felt the familiar sensation of a plan succeeding exactly as intended.

"Anne is improved," she murmured, mostly to herself. "The Bennet girl, vulgar, loud, and alarmingly resilient, has done what ten years of physicians could not. I have decided. I shall take them both to town next Season. Miss Lydia will be polished until even the most fastidious duke finds her endurable. Anne will benefit from the reflected glow of a successful debut. It is merely a question of application."

Eleanor's fan paused mid-arc. "A bold campaign, sister. Though I suspect thetonwill require a great deal of… direction before they accept a Bennet under your sponsorship."

"Theton," Lady Catherine said, lifting her chin, "will accept whatever I inform them is acceptable."

She returned her attention to the main table, where Mr Richard Fitzwilliam of Thornwood, formerly Colonel, now master of a modest but respectable estate, sat beside his bride. Caroline Fitzwilliam looked magnificent in cream silk and an expression of quiet, hard-won triumph.

A footman approached carefully, as though the object in he was carrying was the Ark of the Covenant.

"A gift for the groom, sir," he announced. "From Lord Keathley and Mr Darcy. With their compliments."

Richard eyed the domed silver dish with immediate suspicion, every instinct warning him against it.

"If this is another taxidermied crow, Robert, I swear on my wife's hatboxes—"

"Would I do such a thing?" Lord Keathley called across the table, all wounded innocence. "At your wedding? In Lady Catherine's garden? I am cut to the quick, brother."

Darcy, seated beside him, took a slow sip of champagne and maintained a silence so eloquent it deserved its own coat of arms.

Richard lifted the lid.

A frog launched itself with unrestrained enthusiasm, as if it were a man finally escaping debtor's prison.

It landed,splat, squarely on Caroline's décolletage.

The bride did not scream. Caroline Fitzwilliam had spent a lifetime training herself out of such undignified reflexes. Instead, she went perfectly still, glanced down at the amphibian now comfortably settled against her collarbone, and said, in a voice dry enough to powder wigs:

"Richard. Remove it."

"Er, yes, my love—"

"Remove. It. Now."

The frog, sensing imminent peril, leapt again. This time it landed on the wedding cake, a five-tiered monument of buttercream arrogance, and began an ambitious ascent of the topmost tier.

Lord Keathley was weeping with laughter, clutching the tablecloth as though it were the last rope off a sinking ship. Darcy had buried his face in his hands, whether in mortification or suppressed mirth was impossible to determine.

"I will murder it," Richard declared, lunging. "And then I will murder you both. Slowly. With flair."

"You have to catch it first!" Robert gasped between wheezes.

The frog made a break for freedom, hopping merrily along the damask. Richard gave chase. A gravy boat toppled. Brown liquid spread across the pristine white of the tablecloth.

Lady Keathley, Jane, rose with a serenity that came from having once calmed four Bennet sisters and their mother during a rain-soaked assembly. She produced a napkin, captured the frog mid-leap, and deposited it neatly into an empty champagne flute.