Chapter Text
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. Universally unacknowledged but widely known is that a single man in possession of a dreadful debt must be in want of a rich one.
These truths are held so firmly in the minds of all families that any rich man—regardless of his feelings or views on the matter—are considered as the rightful property of one of the eligible families’ daughters. Any rich young lady—who must have no opinions in any circumstance—is the object of prey for any man wishing to better his circumstances.
It was with these truths firmly held within Mrs. Pauline Rozanov’s mind that she broached a subject with her husband one day. “My dear Mr. Rozanov, have you heard that Netherfield Park has finally been let?”
“I had not,” Mr. Grigori Rozanov said from behind his book as five of their six children sat about the drawing room engaged in various pursuits but all listening intently to the conversation.
“So it is,” she said. “Mrs. Long has just been here to visit, and she told me all about it.”
Mr. Rozanov made no answer, and ever impatient, his wife asked, “Mr. Rozanov, do you not wish to know who has taken it?”
“You may as well tell me,” he muttered, turning a page. This, thankfully, proved invitation enough.
“Why, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is being taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England. He came down in a chaise and four to see it and told Mr. Morris that he was so delighted with it that he must take it immediately. His servants are to be in the house by the end of next week! Can you imagine?”
A grunt was all the answer she received, but she was undeterred. “His name is Pike, and he is likely to be single, to be sure. A single man of large fortune; what luck!”
“Luck?” Mr. Rozanov asked. “For whom?”
“Our girls, of course! You know I am thinking of him marrying one of them. It has been so long since we have had a new neighbor. Perhaps he will fall in love with one of them, should he meet them. And you know he is not like to meet them unless you visit him.”
“I know my duty,” Mr. Rozanov said, his tone flat and his knuckles turning white against the cover of his book. It was at this point that Mrs. Rozanov realized she had pressed her husband nearly too far, and instead turned her attention to the wider room.
“Boys, have you met a Mr. Pike before?”
“No, madam,” Ilya, Mr. Rozanov’s second eldest child, said. “Clifton, do you recall a Pike at Cambridge?”
Ilya and Clifton had studied at Cambridge together, Ilya to study the law, and Clifton to get a classical education. Ilya had only attended until Mrs. Rozanov’s brother-in-law, Mr. Phillips, had a clerkship open at his attorney practice in Meryton. Clifton, being born to Mrs. Rozanov’s first husband, the late Mr. Marleau, had attended for longer, as his father had desired.
Cliff drew his attention away from the game of cards he was playing with their three sisters to look up. “I cannot say I recollect any Pikes. Perhaps he went to Oxford, what with his fortune.”
“Or he may be a few years your senior—perhaps Andrei knows him, and we can ask him when he next calls,” the eldest of their sisters, Jacqueline, suggested as she laid down her hand with a small smile of victory. The two youngest girls, Katherine and Lydia, groaned and threw their own cards down in defeat.
“Do you think Mr. Pike will arrive in time for the public assembly, Mama?” Kitty asked. “I should very much like to dance with someone other than Uncle Phillips’ new clerk.”
“Mr. Drover?” Lydia said with a sneer. “He is a terrible dance partner.”
Ilya resisted rolling his eyes at Jacqueline and Cliff and changed the subject slightly. “If Mr. Pike’s servants will be at Netherfield next week, I suspect he will be in residence by the end of the month. The next assembly is not before then.”
“Perhaps your new bonnets will be complete before then,” Jackie hinted to the younger girls, “and you can wear them where he will see you. For then he will surely ask you to dance.”
“Oh, of course, of course!” Mrs. Rozanov exclaimed. “Girls, girls, you must retrieve your sewing baskets immediately!”
At that, Mr. Rozanov stood abruptly, shut his book with a snap and exited the drawing room with a glower on his brow. He muttered, “There is no peace to be had anywhere in this house.”
Luckily, Kitty and Lydia took no notice of their father; they disappeared in a flutter of petticoats to get their hat trimmings from the morning room.
“I do not know what we shall do if your father does not visit Mr. Pike,” Mrs. Rozanov murmured to herself, twisting her handkerchief between her fingers. “For the girls and I will not be able to call upon him until he does.”
“You are over-scrupulous, surely, madam,” Ilya teased his stepmother now that the danger presented by his father had passed. “I dare say Mr. Pike would be delighted with all of you. Perhaps Papa will send a few lines with you assuring him that he may have any of the girls he chooses—though we might warn him that the twins are quite inseparable.”
“You know I can do no such thing! Oh, you take delight in vexing me, Ilya.”
“I confess I do, madam. You make it so easy,” he said with a smile, eliciting a laugh from Jackie and Cliff.
“Mama, you know that if Mr. Rozanov did not call on Mr. Pike, Ilya and Clifton would do so for us,” Jacqueline said with a small smile. “There is no need to fret.”
“If there were to be a twenty such young men, I would visit them all,” Ilya declared. “Anything for the family, for certain.”
“It will be no use if your father will not meet with any of them. How is he to give permission for Kitty and Lydie to marry if he has not met them?”
“Mrs. Rozanov,” Ilya said, his tone going softer. Pauline was two decades his senior, and still he felt protective of her as if she were his sister and not his father’s wife. “Papa will meet them. As he said, he knows his duty, even if he does not appear to care for it.”
Upon his arrival in his mother’s home country of England a little over fifteen years ago, Mr. Rozanov had married Mrs. Pauline Marleau for her fortune. She had brought Clifton and Jacqueline into Ilya’s life. Clifton had been ten years old at the time, Jacqueline seven, and Ilya—just eleven himself—had found that he rather liked being an older sibling much more than he’d ever enjoyed being a younger one. Mr. Rozanov had secured him two more siblings in the form of the twins, then proceeded to treat his new wife with indifference at best and violence at worst.
From the outside, however, he made sure he always appeared the consummate gentleman. It was a matter of pride, he said, and pride was something he had impressed into Andrei and Ilya for all of their lives.
“Oh, I hope you are right, Ilya, dear,” Mrs. Rozanov murmured, worrying at a frayed edge of her handkerchief as the twins returned to the drawing room, debating the finer points of millinery.
“I always am,” he promised his stepmother, then winked at Jacqueline before returning his attention to the book he’d been reading before he had been interrupted.