Chapter 1
“William Thomas Darcy,” Elizabeth said firmly, “you will give Betsy back to Jane this instant or it will not go well for you.”
Leaning against the doorpost to the day nursery, Fitzwilliam Darcy smiled to himself as his eight-year-old son and heir scrambled to obey, proffering the doll called Betsy to his five-year-old sister with a hurried, “Here you are, Janey, I was only joking. I shouldn’t ever have truly thrown her in the midden. You know that, do you not?”
Jane Anne Darcy’s nod of agreement was belied by her watery eyes and the sniffle she could not suppress.
William awkwardly patted her back and mumbled an apology.
Entirely unperturbed by the minor tempest, two-year-old Charlotte Elizabeth rolled a ball along the floor and laughed, clapping her little hands as Elizabeth’s spaniel puppy, Kemble, bounded after it.
Darcy had expected, when they embarked upon the road of parenthood, that he would be the disciplinarian, only to learn when presented with the soft, squirming, precious bundle of his firstborn that he was far more inclined to indulgence than he could have foreseen.
It was Elizabeth who kept both him and the children on a straight and narrow path, for she was ever mindful of the effects of her parents’ disinterest in cultivating their daughters’ characters upon her younger sisters, who had not the benefit of the estimable Mrs Gardiner’s influence to the extent she and Mrs Bingley had once enjoyed.
Catherine Bennet had turned out well enough once removed from her younger sister’s influence, and she was now wed to a respectable gentleman called Walters in neighbouring Leicestershire, but Mary Bennet, now Mrs Dorne, would never be anything but a prosy bore.
Lydia Wickham was best not thought of at all, though he would grudgingly acknowledge that her hoydenish ways had not yet led her to mortify her sisters by treating her marriage vows as cavalierly as her husband openly did.
This brief domestic fracas settled, Elizabeth at last noticed him standing in the doorway. Although the tenth anniversary of their wedding would arrive in a handful of days, his heart still leapt when a smile bloomed across her beautiful face at the sight of him. “Are you off, then?”
“I am. I shall return well in time for dinner.” He and Mr Jamison, the steward, would be stopping at several tenants’ homes to verify that repairs to their houses or barns, commencing just after the harvest, had been satisfactorily completed before the worst of the Derbyshire winter set in.
“I trust you will take some sandwiches with you.”
He grinned. “Always.” He had learnt very early in their marriage that his habit of forgoing meals while absorbed in his work, only to become surly and snappish, led directly to the disappointment of a beloved wife who had been anticipating his company.
“I shall see you at dinner, at the latest. William, attend me, please,” he added, turning to his son.
The boy ran up to him and executed an unsteady bow. Darcy crouched and looked him in the eyes. “I was pleased to see how swiftly you obeyed your mother. That was well done. In future, I beg you to recall that a joke is only funny if everyone involved is laughing.”
His son nodded solemnly. “Yes, Papa.”
“Very good.” He smiled and ruffled the boy’s hair, delighting in the childish giggles this provoked.
William was such a mixture of himself and Elizabeth as to astonish Darcy daily.
He had his mother’s sparkling eyes and his father’s determined chin, as well as the thick wavy hair of the Darcy men but in his mother’s rich chestnut hue.
When he was engrossed in some task or pursuit, he could be as serious as Darcy had ever been, but he played with all of Elizabeth’s exuberance.
It was Jane upon whom the Darcy temperament and looks had most firmly settled, while Charlotte thus far seemed to take after her Gardiner and Fitzwilliam forebears, with her blonde locks and easy, amiable disposition.
He would not change a single thing about any of them, and already dreaded the distant days when he would be required to surrender his girls to other men.
Sending William back to his play and wishing his daughters a good day, he kissed Elizabeth on the cheek and reluctantly left domestic felicity behind in order to attend to the business that made it possible.
Later in the afternoon, Elizabeth was attending to correspondence in her study when she was interrupted by a tap at the door. Calling permission to enter, she wiped her pen and turned her head to find James, the head footman, bowing to her.
“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but Mr Laurence asks that you join him and Mrs Laurence in his office. There is…a situation.”
Standing swiftly, she asked, “Is anyone injured?”
“Not that sort of situation, thankfully,” he replied. “Mr Laurence merely wishes that there be no disturbance to the household until you have been apprised of events.”
Something that might cause gossip, then, she concluded.
With a nod she proceeded from the room, James trailing her as far as the passage to the kitchens and the offices of Mr Laurence and Mrs Laurence, who had become housekeeper upon the retirement of Mrs Reynolds four years previously, before he continued towards the front of the house.
The door to the butler’s office was ajar, and from behind it she could hear murmured talk, which ended abruptly as she pushed it open and entered.
Inside were the Laurences as well as David, the strapping eldest son of the innkeeper in Lambton, and a familiar-looking little boy seated in the chair that most often received male servants in need of a scolding.
It was not until the lad said in a small, uncertain voice, “Aunt Darcy?” that she knew him.
“George! My word, what are you doing here?” She hurried to her Wickham nephew, whom she had not seen in a year and a half, during which he had somehow transformed from a pudgy little cherub of five into a lanky boy of seven.
“Mama said I am to stay with you,” he replied artlessly, adding, “I am very hungry.”
Lydia, Elizabeth thought in despair. What have you done now?
Fixing a smile on her face, she asked Mrs Laurence to arrange for refreshments before returning her attention to her nephew.
“You will have your meal in just a few minutes. I am most eager to find out what you have been doing since last we met, but first I need to speak to the adults. Why do you not just sit there and rest from your travels?” she suggested.
He agreed, gaze already locked on the door through which the promised food would come, and Elizabeth turned to her butler with an enquiring expression just as Mrs Laurence returned from issuing her instructions.
Mr Laurence indicated the young man from Lambton, saying, “Young David here is best positioned to explain.”
David tugged his forelock and nervously related, “A hired carriage stopped at the inn about mid-day, ma’am, carrying a lady and a gent and the young sir.
They sat inside while their horses was changed, and t’weren’t till after they rode off that Ma saw they’d left the boy behind.
” He reached into the pocket of his coat and produced a letter, holding it out to her.
“This were on the table. Pa said I’d best bring it and the lad direct to Pemberley, and so I did. ”
On the outside of the sealed note, in Lydia’s flamboyant hand, were the words ‘Mrs Darcy, Pemberley’, and nothing more. “Pardon me, but I believe I had best know what is inside without delay.” Bracing herself, she opened it and scanned the lines.
Lizzy,
How surprised you will be when you read this! I can hardly write for imagining the expression upon your face. As there simply are not enough opportunities in England for a clever man to make his way without a better patron than your husband has proved to be…
Here, Elizabeth found it necessary to close her eyes for a moment as she wrestled with her temper.
She had a fair idea of the trouble and expense Darcy had gone to over the years to ensure Lydia, and later little George as well, did not end in an alms house.
She herself had long been in the habit of sending her feckless youngest sister small amounts from her own personal allowance to ameliorate some of the frequent insufficiencies in the Wickhams’ household budget.
That Lydia should dare to criticise—! But now was not the time.
She needed to understand what had brought her nephew here today, alone.
…we are now bound for a place where Wickham’s qualities will be recognised and appreciated.
We are to America to make our fortune! I do not know when we shall return, perhaps not for three or four years, and since sea travel is very hard upon the young, Wickham says we must leave our dear little George behind.
I wanted to send him to Jane, but my husband absolutely insisted that George have this opportunity to become familiar with the scenes of his father’s youth.
You will need to find him some clothes, for since he had nothing fine enough for Pemberley, I did not bother to pack him a valise.
If you would put him in lessons with your son, I am sure I should be grateful.
I taught him a bit of reading and writing, but it was so terribly dull I gave it up.
I have promised him a horse of his very own when we return to England as rich as Croesus, so you might wish to have him taught to ride also.
He will be no trouble at all, and if you find it difficult to manage four children, I am sure your husband will hire more servants.