Chapter Text
It was the most mundane, boring, and hot Wednesday at Gardiner & Associates, the one that Tom could not decide whether he should take his day off or his shirt off first. He settled on the former—leaving the latter for later to preserve what little was left of his dignity in the office—and prepared to head into Edward Gardiner’s office to announce he was dying of boredom and going home, probably by drowning himself in the Thames.
Then, of course, the universe decided to twist the knife by bringing a call from one of his favorite people in the world: his close friend, the arrogant and filthy rich bastard, William Darcy.
“…something to do with a portrait of me and fucking—fucking swans and—”
“Swans?”
“Swans, yes. Two of them, apparently—a pair once stolen from the Queen herself. Also some other clauses that include the most bizarre—”
“Darcy, I don’t understand.”
“Me neither. So, I need you to go up there for an audit.”
“An audit.”
“Yes. Call it an audit, surveillance, fucking legal counsel—whatever, Hayward. I need you in Kent, like yesterday. I need you to understand what is going on at Rosings Park. Please drop whatever you have on hand and leave London today. Preferably in the next hour. Immediately—”
“Okay, Darcy. All right. Got it. I’ll take the next train. Update you later.”
“Thanks, bastard.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
Armed with that excuse, Tom went straight to Edward’s office to inform him that he had to leave London for the foreseeable future to attend to his most beloved nephew-in-law’s business—which apparently involved a bizarre will, a codicil drafted by a madman, and whatever else was going on down at Rosings Park.
“All right,” Edward replied cheerfully. “Go. Let me know if you need anything, and say hi to Mary from her favorite uncle.”
“I don’t know who Mary is.”
“You will soon.” He flicked his hand dismissively. “Goodbye, Tom.”
“Hi, welcome to Rosings Park. I am Mary Bennet, the Estate Manager,” a young woman greeted him with a bright smile the moment he entered the vast, manicured grounds. She was wearing a bright spring green dress with Birkenstocks on her bare feet, a red headband wound behind her windswept bangs. A pair of tortoiseshell glasses were perched on the bridge of her sunburnt nose, and behind them were the brightest green doe eyes Tom had ever seen in his life. She was holding a clipboard, a cup of coffee, and the leash of a massive Irish wolfhound in one hand.
“And this is Tilney,” she introduced the dog in a sweet voice.
“Hello, Ms. Bennet. I am Tom,” he replied, ignoring the sudden thud in his chest. He cleared his throat, fixing the bag straps over his shoulder. “Tom Hayward. I am here representing Pemberley Holdings for the reading of the late Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s will and codicil.”
“Of course,” Mary smiled. “Follow me, Mr. Hayward. Let’s go inside,” she added cheerfully, turning toward the house. “You can call me Mary, by the way. But not Mare. Also not Maz. Or Maise, or May. Or… could you hold this for a second, please?” She pressed the paper cup into his hand and flipped a couple of pages on her clipboard, her eyes scanning a grid. “Ah yes—not Marianne, Marie, Maria, or… hmm.” She flipped another page, murmuring, “peacocks…”
“Mary it is then,” Tom interrupted. “Just Mary, got it,” he nodded. “And please call me Tom. Or Thomas, if you’d like. Doesn't matter. I mean—you can call me anything, there’s no list of nicknames that—”
“Tom then,” Mary beamed as they climbed the front steps and entered a grand parlour featuring an aggressively overdone Baroque style and far too much gold. The ceiling was painted with a scene straight out of Genesis, and two sprawling staircases led up to the second floor. “How was your trip down? I’m sure you’re starving. William makes the most perfect sandwiches and peach iced tea. The peaches are from the estate orchard, of course. Did you know some of those trees are almost eighty years old? An impressive lifespan for a fruit-bearing tree, to be honest. What was I saying? Ah yes, William is incredibly excited that we’re having a new guest—I mean, someone other than our usuals—and he loves cooking, which makes sense since he’s the estate—”
“Welcome to Rosings Park!” a voice boomed. “Hayward, my friend! Been forever!”
William Ryder, Tom’s drop-out classmate from Oxford, was standing at the top of the stairs, arms wide, his face a picture of pure joy.
“Ryder,” Tom smiled, “very nice to see you.”
Ryder trotted down the stairs with a flourish, throwing an arm around him and landing a hard slap on his back. “So you’ve met Mary.”
“Yes, Will,” Mary replied. “We were just heading to the drawing room.”
Ryder turned to Tom, grinning. “Isn’t she brilliant? I don’t know what we’d be doing in this circus without her, to be fair. Probably dying in a ditch.” He threw her an affectionate look.
“He’s exaggerating,” Mary said, rolling her eyes as she pushed open a pair of heavy double doors to the side. “This way, Tom. William should be in there already.”
“William—” Tom started, utterly confused, as he followed her inside.
A man wearing a pristine chef’s hat, an apron, and the most awkward grin in existence was standing behind a staggering spread of afternoon tea: stacks of sandwiches, pastries, mini tarts, glass bottles of lemonade, and a massive chocolate cake piped with Welcome to Rosings Park Mr. Highwood. Next to him stood a woman wearing a matching apron, looking incredibly bored and very much ready to flee the room.
“William, you really didn’t cut back at all,” Mary murmured, eyeing the cake before glancing back at Tom, clearly hiding a smile. “Tom, this is our estate chef, William Collins, and his sous-chef and wife, Charlotte Collins,” she introduced smoothly.
Then, turning to the couple, she added very slowly, “This is Tom. Hay-ward.”
“Everyone will be here soon, Mary,” Collins answered cheerfully. “A full belly is the way to a healthy body! Welcome to Rosings Park, Mr. Hay Ward.”
“Why don’t we start, and everyone can help themselves when they arrive,” Mary sighed. She let the dog go, set her clipboard down, and gestured for Tom to grab a plate.
Tom just stood there, holding his briefcase over his shoulder, a heavy leather holdall in one hand and Mary’s paper coffee cup in the other, looking around.
“Oh, sorry,” Mary murmured, stepping in to take all from him. She set the cup down and placed the bags next to a chair. “I’ll have Jethro take them up to your room,” she added, tugging the bell pull near the fireplace.
Ten minutes, several sandwiches, and two glasses of peach iced tea later, Tom was feeling substantially more human and focused. He set his glass down and turned his eyes to Mary, who was already watching him with half a finger sandwich held between her fingers and a soft smile on her face.
“You were hungry,” she observed.
Tom felt his cheeks burn and quickly looked away.
Mary chuckled. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he murmured, still utterly unable to make eye contact.
Voices drifted in from beyond the double doors, and a small crowd filed into the room with Ryder leading the charge. Mary stood up, and Tom immediately followed her lead.
“Okay, everyone, allow me to introduce Tom Hayward. He’s here representing Pemberley Holdings,” Mary announced in an authoritative voice, turning to frame the group. “These are James Hurst and Louisa Hurst. They are the trustees representing the late Lady Catherine de Bourgh.”
Tom shook hands with a jovial man in his late thirties and an equally sulking woman beside him.
“And Caroline Bingley,” Mary introduced, gesturing to the woman standing uncomfortably close to Ryder. She extended a hand and offered Tom the barest touch of her fingertips.
“Jane and Charles Bingley,” Mary said flatly, gesturing to a couple who were looking at nothing but each other, looking very much as though they were ready to jump each other’s bones right then and there. “Jane is my eldest sister,” she added.
“Nice to meet you,” Tom mumbled as he shook their hands, feeling deeply as though he were interrupting something private.
“BAAAAAAA!”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake—who let Willie inside again?” Mary huffed, turning on her heel and marching toward the parlor.
Tom watched her in total confusion over Ryder’s shoulder.
“Jethro!” she yelled toward the staircase, holding a goat by its horns. The goat was nudging its head aggressively against Mary’s stomach like a dog begging for scratches. She obliged, stroking its back while gently steering the animal toward the entrance. She murmured a few unintelligible, soothing words to it until a man in a staff uniform sprinted over and took Willie’s lead, guiding the goat back outside.
The rest of the group seemed completely unbothered by the livestock intrusion. They scattered around the room, piling sandwiches onto their plates and talking loudly as they took their seats.
Tom stood pinned to where he was as Mary approached him with an apologetic look.
“What the fuck just happened?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “We have too many animals on this property. And Willie loves me, so he tends to follow me everywhere.”
Ryder, who was watching Mary affectionately from his seat, let out a loud laugh. “Willie definitely knows who to love around here—when he’s not acting like an actual willy!”
Mary ignored him entirely, simply tucking a loose lock of hair behind her ear. “Come on, Tom,” she said, gesturing toward the stairs. “Let me show you to your room. Dinner is at eight, and the reading is right after. You should get some rest until then.”
The nap was restorative; however, Tom still could not shake the feeling that he had accidentally taken the wrong train out of St. Pancras—one that had seamlessly transferred him into an alternate, mad universe where everyone was thoroughly out of their mind. Save, of course, for one energetic, lovely person who seemed to be holding the entire estate together by sheer force of will.
Right before dinner, Mary had introduced him to some of the other estate staff: Jethro the butler, who didn't speak a single word (“He chooses not to,” Mary had whispered); Mrs. Hill, the formidable housekeeper with red-rimmed eyes and a thermal mug that smelled suspiciously of cheap vodka; and finally John Sparrow, the groundskeeper, who shook Tom’s hand in haste while updating Mary on the current whereabouts of a missing resident named Fairfax.
“She was deep in the white hydrangeas by the pond,” Sparrow explained, wiping his brow. “Camouflaged completely.”
“Ah,” Mary mused, nodding knowingly.
Tom looked between the two of them, completely lost.
“Fairfax is an albino peacock,” Mary explained gently. “Likes to hide in bushes and flowerbeds nowadays. Very introverted.”
Tom just nodded in silent acceptance as Sparrow murmured something about a cow and hurried off.
Dinner was mostly—well, it was mostly people shouting over each other, with Collins shouting over everybody to announce the next course (which turned out to be an endless sequence of them) while continuously encouraging Tom to take yet another serving of excellent boiled potatoes. Yet again, Tom ate all of the delicious food, catching Mary smiling softly at him every now and then, and feeling thoroughly flushed by the time he cleared his third plate of roast lamb.
They moved to the drawing room afterward—though Jane and Charles were nowhere to be seen—to find another spread of desserts, complete with another vanilla cake that read Welcome to Rosings Park Tommy Hay Ward in bright pink icing this time.
After grabbing drinks and piling their plates with dessert, the others sat down to a very loud game of cards. Tom and Mary retreated to the armchairs by the fire, speaking in low voices while Mary shared the history of the estate and Tom explained his work at her uncle’s firm and his long friendship with Darcy.
“It’s surprising we’ve never met before,” Mary laughed softly. “We basically belong to the same social circle.”
Tom smiled, looking into the fire. “A twist of fate, I’d say.”
The doors flew open and a thoroughly disheveled Jane and Charles tumbled into the room, looking very much like they had just been running a marathon.
“God, I’d say get a room,” Caroline groaned from her seat at the card table, “but you two are clearly on a mission to hit every single room in this estate.”
“So,” Charles announced, completely ignoring his sister as Jane reached over to smooth down his crumpled collar with a lingering touch. “Hurst, the two witnesses—as Lady Catherine herself requested—are present. My lovely wife and I are ready for the reading of the will.”
Hurst glanced at Ryder, who offered a brief nod of approval.
“All right,” Hurst said, pushing himself up from his chair and retrieving a thick leather folder from a desk at the side of the room. “Mary, could you please call the house staff?”
Not five minutes later, every single person working on the estate—including the cleaning staff, the gardeners, and the drivers—packed into the drawing room. The resulting racket was so loud that Tom couldn't comprehend how anyone was hearing anyone else, though it quickly became clear that nobody was actually listening—they were all just shouting into the void.
“All right!” Mary called out, standing up. Her voice was remarkably clear and steady.
A ringing silence immediately fell over the room. Tom looked at her, impressed by the sheer authority she held over the crowd. Ryder offered him a knowing smirk and a wink from across the rug.
“We are here for the reading of the late Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s will,” she announced. “It will be read in two parts, as there is a codicil drafted earlier this year as an appendix. So please, keep your questions and comments—actually, keep your comments to yourselves entirely, and if you have questions, please hold them until the end of the reading.”
A low murmur rippled through the gathered crowd. Mary turned to Hurst, who had clearly consumed one too many Scotches and was currently sitting slightly buzzed in a deep armchair.
“Hurst,” she prompted, nodding toward him.
Hurst stared back at her as if she were an alien species.
“The will,” Mary added, tilting her chin toward the leather folder in his hands.
“Yes, Mary?” Ryder chimed in cheerfully from his seat.
“No, Will—” Mary stammered, catching herself. “Not you—”
“Did you need me, Mary?” Collins hopped up from his chair and scurried toward the front, trying to squeeze past the crowd.
Beside him, Charlotte gave a deep, soul-weary sigh and clinked her glass against Mrs. Hill’s. Both women downed their drinks in one silent, synchronized gulp.
“No, William, please go back to your seat,” Mary said, her voice unnervingly calm. “Hurst, now that we have all staff present, representatives, and the witnesses ready, we may proceed with the reading.”
With that, she turned and sat back down next to Tom with the unshakeable composure of a veteran kindergarten teacher who had seen it all and wouldn't flinch even if a toddler started eating glue mixed with hair right in front of her.
Hurst stood up, fixing his jacket as best he could while clutching the leather folder to his chest.
“Friends, family, and residents of the estate—welcome,” he began. “Acting as the legal executor and trustee of the late Lady Catherine’s will, I shall now read it to you.”
He opened the folder with a grand flourish, clearing his throat loudly. Louisa watched him from across the room with a look of fierce pride.
“I give, devise, and bequeath my entire estate to Fitzwilliam Darcy and William Ryder, in equal shares. The house staff of Rosings Park are guaranteed lifetime housing provided by the estate, in addition to a one-time severance payment equal to three times their annual salary. Signed, Lady Catherine de Bourgh.”
An impressed, happy murmur rippled through the gathered staff, accompanied by a couple of muffled shrieks of excitement.
Hurst gave a little bow as if finishing an opera aria, receiving a scattered, utterly confused burst of applause that died the moment it started.
Tom blinked. Mary let out a slow, quiet breath beside him.
“Let’s move on to the codicil, Hurst,” she reminded him gently.
Hurst snapped back to reality. “Ah, yes,” he said, setting the folder back down on the desk. He popped open the leather briefcase sitting beside it and hauled an absurdly massive stack of paper into his arms.
“The codicil!” he announced, wobbling back to the center of the rug. “Friends, family, and residents—we will not be reading the full codicil tonight, as doing so would take us well into the small hours of the morning. However,” he added, offering a smug, knowing smile, “I will summarize the key directives outlined in the index.”
He pressed a thick finger against the top page.
“The codicil primarily governs the management of the livestock, grounds, and physical belongings of the estate,” he declared, “and dictates how these are to be maintained until the final condition at the end of the document is met. Should this condition remain unfulfilled at the end of one calendar year, the entirety of the estate will be surrendered for charitable purposes.”
“What?!” Ryder demanded, snapping his head toward Tom as if expecting him to instantly litigate them out of this.
“It means,” Hurst explained patiently, “that the inheritance will remain frozen until the specified condition is met. Until such time, the directives in the codicil must be followed to the letter—which includes—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Caroline muttered, dragging a hand down her face.
“What is the condition?” Ryder asked, standing up so fast his chair scraped the floorboards.
Hurst flipped through the massive stack until he was near the very end of the document.
“The condition for the will to take effect,” he read, pitching his voice high and clearly relishing the fact that the entire room was holding its breath, “is that both primary beneficiaries be wed. Fitzwilliam Darcy to be wed to Elizabeth B. And William Ryder to be wed—”
He paused, looking up straight into Ryder’s stunned face.
“—to Mary B.”
“What?!” Caroline shrieked, just as a loud sound echoed in from the parlour.
“BAAAAAAA!”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Mary whispered softly beside Tom.