A Wife for Mr. Darcy

Pemberley or at the Fitzwilliam estate in Kent or, better yet, at the seaside in Weymouth where the Darcys maintained a villa.
    “Richard, you are a sight for sore eyes,” he said, patting his cousin on his back. “What brings you to London?”
    “You seriously do not know?” he asked, laughing. “You sent me this extraordinary note,” and he held it out so that his cousin could see that he had brought it with him, “in which you wanted to know post haste if there was a ‘hullabaloo’ when our grandparents had married. Allow me to read it:
Richard, My thanks for your continued service in keeping the Corsican corporal from our shores. It would be an inconvenience to be invaded by the French .
Having lived with our grandparents for many years, do you remember if they ever mentioned a hullabaloo when they married? Old Norman stock v. upstart Anglo-Irish? Any of that? Your immediate response will be appreciated .
Yours, Will
    “Not exactly teeming with details, is it? I must know the purpose of this letter.”
    “You could have written to me, Richard. Considering your military obligations, I did not expect your response to be hand delivered.”
    “I was looking for a break in the monotony, and I was owed considerable leave. I am so tired of sitting in a camp in Kent sticking my tongue out at the Frenchies on the opposite shore. I thought it would be exciting to be an artillery officer shooting off very big guns, but we keep our powder dry and wait. If there wasn’t such a scarcity of heiresses, I would seriously consider selling my commission. But enough about me. Why do you need to know this information?”
    “Answer the question, and I promise I will tell all.”
    “Agreed,” and Richard began. “I could not remember hearing anything about a hullabaloo, so I stopped at Mama’s on the way here. She had the whole story on the tip of her tongue. Our grandfather, Robert, who was not an earl at this time, married Charlotte Denby, who gave birth to Aunt Catherine, but died a few years later. Following his first wife’s death, Robert went to London in search of a second wife, which is where he was introduced to eighteen-year-old Marie Devereaux. When her parents got wind that a romance was brewing, they sent Marie to live with relations in Rouen, but Robert followed her there, and they married in secret. But it did not stay a secret for long because she got pregnant with my father.
    “Apparently, when the marriage was revealed, there was no hullabaloo. It was closer to an explosion. Marie was cut off from the family entirely—no money, no visits. Unlike the Darcys, the Devereauxes had remained Catholic and were appalled that their daughter had married someone who was neither Norman nor Catholic. They actually had their sights set on her marrying the Earl of Arundel, the heir to the Duke of Norfolk, the highest peer in the realm, and a Catholic to boot.
    “The Fitzwilliams sent emissaries to negotiate a peace. Over the decades, remaining Catholic had done nothing for the Devereaux finances, and their Norman laurels were all that was left to them. So the earl offered them a gift of five thousand pounds; it was refused. But when he increased it to eight thousands pounds, all was forgiven. According to my mother, Marie and Robert married for love and stayed in love. Neither had any regrets.”
    “So Marie was prepared to risk everything to be with someone from an Anglo-Irish family that lacked the ancient ties to the monarchy that set these Norman families apart.”
    “It was risky for our grandfather as well,” Richard answered. “Although Marie joined the Church of England after her parents had died, at the time of her marriage, she was a Roman Catholic. Two generations earlier, George I, the first of the Hanoverians, had ascended the throne in order to keep it from the Catholic Stuarts. It was a touchy time, and so I say bravo to both of them. But why did you need this information?”
    Darcy went and poured a glass of wine for both of them and shared with his cousin the burden he had been carrying around for so many weeks.
    “I have fallen in love. Head over heels. Walking on air. Can’t think of anything else type of love.”
    “I gather we are not speaking of Miss Montford?”
    “No. The lady is the sister of Miss Jane Bennet who will marry Charles Bingley in December. She is the daughter of a gentleman farmer.”
    “Ah, I see. The purpose of your letter was to find out if you would be