Chapter 3

It was with some recognition on my part of my weakness for the accumulation of wealth that I must hasten to impart that the demise of my mentoring Father-in Law was a matter of some grief to me and not in the least a reason for the foolishness of celebration for becoming a wealthy man.

My spouse was currently carrying our third contribution to the family line and gender was a non-issue because we had already done our duty in producing a suitable heir for the future of the family name.

Surprisingly, my Father-in Law’s family did not have claim to accepted title on the basis of genetic connection or award from some highly placed royal arbiter of designated rank and inclusion in books of lineage for public consumption.

It was in my distant past that my wife discovered my tenuous connection via my relationship to Darcy’s side of the family to ownership of title to a Lord and Lady Estate in the North Country that would reduce mockery of our claim to said title with documentation stamped with the seal of the royal court. I remembered my mother proudly declaring her belief that we should have been addressed as such for many years heretofore and I agreed it would be beneficial to the business side of our livelihood to adhere to the protocol of such simplistic labelling.

Dear Cousin Darcy laughed so loudly at my pronouncement that he came close to falling off the settee we were both sitting on that was close enough to the fire to make one’s britches feel the welcome warmth from the constantly fed hearth. One of the things I liked most about Pemberley was the diligence of the servants and staff that seemed dedicated to the quality of service and ambiance for the owners and all visitors and guests that entered the doors.

I had done my best to instill that sense of loyalty and duty in my own employees but I fear it fell far short of Darcy’s ability to inspire such splendid results from his underlings. I would like to blame that on a series of plausible excuses but I knew instinctively that it was truly my own personality that reduced that possibility of success.

I decided after some lengthy introspection to undertake the expansion of my deceased Father-in-Law’s estate to signal that our family was not only acquiring our rightful ownership of generational title, but we were a force to be reckoned with in terms of sharing our prosperity with the local populace.

Apparently, our hiring of dozens of tradesmen and craftsmen to construct our domicile addition and the expansion of our internal staff of caretakers was impressive enough to cause several invitations to be extended to my wife and I to attend certain functions that had heretofore been denied us due to lack of status in the social strata as limited as it was such a remote location. I must admit I drew heavily from my famous Cousin’s expertise in such matters and to see such instantaneous results was most encouraging.

I personally oversaw the transfer of one of the Pemberley staff to my personal residence staff as I had become somewhat enamored of her face and figure whilst watching her set the bed for my evening’s slumbers. I had inquired of Cousin Darcy as to her origin and he told me that she was actually a French orphan that he liberated from the recent troubles before she suffered the ignominy of losing her head to the sharp blade of death that seemed so horrible to those of us that much preferred the customary ritual hanging in public that seemed to work like a charm with the criminal element in our society. Even the small children were able to laugh and play under the shadow of a good hanging whilst the image of all that blood at the French style executions was sufficient to put one off their normal desire for a wholesome meal in the early morning.

Her name was Nicolette and her naturally curly black hair cascaded down her slender back almost to the mysterious curve of her posterior that bespoke an invitation for any male with appreciation for such matters to take up the gauntlet so to speak and have a go at her rear door entry with the raucous enthusiasm of a basely born personage.

I included me in that calling and my thoughts were prone to wandering to speculation about the shape, the softness, the texture of her hindquarter skin and the deep, dark secrets of her feminine mystique safely tucked away under multitudes of annoying fabric and only seen but not touched by my itching fingers. As a survivalist, I kept constant lookout for the location of my spouse because I had learned from my tenured marriage that she was able to put two and two together in such matters and would probably demand the girl be sent to the stables for mucking duties and well away from proximity to her weak-willed husband with a history of seizing carnal opportunity from such luscious little tidbits of female temptation.

I think that Darcy suspected my intentions in the matter and he was complicit in it because he had already fought of his own similar tendencies whenever Nicolette was bent over tending to her duties and the shape of her delightful behind was so close that he could just reach out and grab it with impunity because he was the master she only an obedient servant with enough common sense to include his satisfaction in her agenda of duties for household care.