Page 197 of Pride and Prejudice Resolutions

"There," she said, handing the glass to a stunned footman. "Contained. Kindly escort him to the pond. Gently."

The table fell silent.

Robert gazed at his wife with naked adoration. "I knew there was a reason I married you."

"You married me because I tolerate you," Jane replied calmly, resuming her seat.

Richard collapsed back into his chair, gravy-stained and murderous. Caroline dabbed at her neckline with a handkerchief, rebuilding her composure one precise press at a time. The cake sagged slightly to starboard, victim of amphibian hubris.

"Retribution," Richard said, levelling a finger at his brother, "will be swift. Merciless. And creatively timed."

"I look forward to it." Robert raised his glass. "To the happy couple!"

"To the happy couple!" the guests echoed, because what else was one to do when a frog had just attempted to conquer a wedding cake?

From the principal pavilion, Lady Catherine lowered her lorgnette. The corner of her mouth twitched, once, very slightly.

Eleanor nearly dropped her fan at the sight.

"Boys," Lady Catherine pronounced, the single word containing the sum total of her opinion on masculine maturity since the dawn of time.

Across the lawn, a new figure approached the main table. The man had blond curls, an easy stride, and familiar blue eyes. Lady Catherine's breath caught for half a heartbeat before reason reasserted itself.

Not Anthony. Anthony was dead these fifteen years. This was merely genetics being unnecessarily cruel.

Colonel Edmund Lindon reached the table, clapped Richard on the shoulder, and was immediately pulled into a back-slapping embrace.

"Lindon! You made it!"

"Wouldn't miss it. Mrs Fitzwilliam," he bowed to Caroline, "my deepest sympathies. And my congratulations. In that precise order."

Caroline's mouth curved. "Colonel Lindon. How comforting to know my husband's friends hold him in such high esteem."

"The highest. No one else I would stop your carriage for."

Lady Catherine watched the exchange, fingers tightening on her cane.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Another cane struck the flagstones, sharper, slower, more deliberate than her own.

She turned.

Augusta Prestwick, Dowager Countess of Wexford, advanced across the lawn in violet silk that should have been funereal but somehow managed to look victorious. Eighty if she was a day, and entirely unconcerned by the fact.

Their eyes met.

Forty years folded themselves into one crystalline, venomous instant.

"Lady Catherine." Augusta's voice carried the length of the lawn, warm, musical, lethal. "Charming. Truly charming. You always did have such a gift for… presentation."

The pause before "presentation" was a stiletto.

Lady Catherine rose. Her spine could have ruled empires.

"Lady Wexford." Each syllable was frost. "What an unexpected honour. I had not realised you still ventured out to such events. At your age, one might expect a quieter occupation."

"Oh, quiet is so terribly dull. Besides, Edmund insisted." She gestured towards her grandson. "He speaks so highly of dear Richard. I simply had to see the bride who finally brought him to heel. A Bingley, I understand? How enterprising."