Chapter 23
CHAPTER 23
When Elizabeth left his arms to tend to her son, Darcy went to his desk. With a far lighter heart than he had an hour ago, he wrote to his attorney. He needed to revise his will, and settlement papers had to be drawn up. Elizabeth might now have her own money, but he would provide for her—if she would let him. She might argue and want her personal expenditures to come from the five thousand he had already given her.
He smiled to himself. They would have a spirited debate over it, but he could convince her once he told her how much of a legacy there would be for Edward if she left that money untouched. Still, if she preferred not to take any more from him, he could accept that.
Darcy set aside his quill. He had to tell Georgiana the joyful news, but he had someone else to speak to first.
He went to the nursery expecting to find Elizabeth with Edward, but Rebeckah was there instead.
“Mrs Fitzwilliam is taking a nap,” she replied in answer to his question. “Master Edward only sleeps about six hours at night, so she often sleeps before dinner, if she can.”
Darcy came nearer and peered at the baby. He was alert and had pulled the cap off his head to chew on it .
“I will tell Mrs Fitzwilliam you were looking for her,” she said.
“Are you Mrs Fitzwilliam’s maid, or Edward’s?” he asked, still looking at the baby. Edward peered up at him with deep, soulful eyes.
“I am a maid of all work.”
He had the sense that Rebeckah was fond of her young charge. “I am marrying Mrs Fitzwilliam.”
Her eyes went wide, but she curtseyed and muttered, “Congratulations.”
“Would you like to be his nursemaid rather than set fires and tend to Mrs Fitzwilliam’s clothes?”
“I don’t enjoy working in a house with men,” she said cautiously. “Husbands and sons think they own every woman in their employ. What is it about some men that make them think women in their employ wish to share their bedsheets?”
He could think of no answer. He thought of Milton wanting to use Elizabeth to give him a son. Although his twisted scheme differed from what Rebeckah had implied, it was still a wealthy man who tried to control a woman and use her body.
“Still,” Rebeckah went on, “considering what you did for Mrs Fitzwilliam, I don’t think I need to worry about you.”
“Certainly not,” he said quickly. “And no guest or servant in this house will threaten or importune you, lest they find themselves cast out with only the clothes on their back.”
Edward made a cooing sound and kicked his legs. Darcy smiled at him, and to his surprise, the baby grinned back. He had never wanted to hold a baby so badly in his life, not even when he was curious to see his new sister when he was twelve.
“Will Mrs Fitzwilliam mind if I…” His throat closed, and he gestured to the baby.
Rebeckah considered his request, and if she said no, he would have to turn around and leave. “She won’t mind, not after you went after your own cousin like an avenging angel to save Master Edward.”
Darcy reached down cautiously to pick him up, his tiny legs squeezed up tight as though he had forgotten he was now born and had as much space as he needed. He settled him against his shoulder and felt his heart about to burst.
“Master Edward and I will walk the gallery,” he said, rubbing circles on Edward’s back. How could something so small suddenly take up such a large piece of his heart? “We need to have a conversation. When Mrs Fitzwilliam wakes up, please tell her where we are.”
He carefully descended the stairs, terrified of dropping him. A footman opened some doors for him and certainly held back a smile. He passed a maid on the way and noticed her softening eyes and audible sigh as she curtseyed.
“It is as though they had never seen a man hold a baby before, Edward,” he said as they entered the portrait gallery. It was side-lit by a row of windows, and Darcy carefully opened the curtains with one hand. “See, the gallery has a northern exposure. This reduces potential sunlight damage.”
Edward began chewing on the fabric of his coat.
“I can tell you are fascinated. That is a portrait of me, painted about five years ago. Is it a good likeness? You do not know me well enough yet, perhaps, but you soon will. I am going to marry your mother, after all. I missed your first three months, but that is all about to change. Pemberley will be your home now.”
He gazed down the gallery and thought of his family, new and old. “Do you think there is room on that wall for a portrait of your mother? I do not want to be up there all on my own.”
The baby made a sound that was certainly an assent.
“I am glad your mother chose me to be worthy of her love and trust. Although, I am sure that was not what your father had in mind when he made me promise to always help her.” He hoped his cousin would understand. Any man falling in love with Elizabeth must seem natural to him. “I think I can make your mother happy, Edward. She is ready to be happy again.”
He walked down the gallery with the baby, narrating what he saw and did to help Edward know him better.
“You are going to grow up here, and there is so much to show you. Do you see out that window?” He pointed. “We will ride there when you are older, and I will teach you how to shoot with your dogs. And you can read whatever you like in the library. My father never let me remove books from the library until I was nearly grown, but you can read whatever you like as soon as you know your letters.”
This elicited a shriek that Darcy interpreted as enthusiastic agreement.
“Most of these portraits have no connexion to you. We want you to feel at home here, so I have an idea. Your cousin Georgiana has sketches of your father. Would you like to have a miniature of him? I think she would love to paint one for you.”
Darcy ran his hand over Edward’s head as he rested against his shoulder. He had dark hair like Elizabeth, but his eyes belonged to his cousin. It was too early to tell whose disposition he would take after, but he suspected that with parents such as Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam that Edward could not help but grow into a lively fellow.
What influence would he have over this little boy, whom he would love like a son but would never fully be his?
“Those are my parents, and my mother, Lady Anne, is your great-aunt,” he said, stopping at his mother’s portrait. “Her brother is your grandfather. I am not sure if you will ever meet him. Everyone in my family, in your family, is blind as far as your mother goes,” he said sadly. “I won’t let them hurt her or you.”
He shifted Edward from his shoulder to cradle him in his arms. In turning as he did so, he saw Elizabeth at the other end of the portrait gallery. He wondered how much she had heard, but the tender expression in her eyes and faint smile told him she had heard quite a bit.
“I hope you do not mind that I introduced myself,” he said as she walked near. “We had some things to talk about.”
She grinned. “Did Edward give his permission for you to marry me?”
“I need no one’s permission but yours, but we discussed his living at Pemberley, and he heartily agreed.”
Edward shrieked and smiled to see his mother.
“Of course he did,” Elizabeth said, smiling and speaking cheerfully at the baby. “And he will have an excellent father, won’t he? ”
A fear that he would never be enough for the little boy in his arms gripped his heart.
“Will he think of me as his father, or will he merely see me as a replacement?”
Elizabeth placed a hand on his arm. “You will be the only father he knows.”
He nodded, but that assurance was not enough to push back the fear. “What should he call me?” he whispered.
“Papa,” she said quickly.
“But he will always know that I am not his father,” he said, staring into Edward’s eyes. “No matter what I do, how much care and attention I show him, he will always wonder about his ‘real’ father.”
“I do not think so,” she said. “He will be raised as a son of Pemberley, and if we have other children, they would call you Papa. We will be one family going forward. You won’t treat him like he is less than your own flesh and blood.”
“Of course not,” he said, still watching Edward.
“Then he will call you Papa, and we will explain his relationship to Fitzwilliam in a way that he can understand.”
Darcy looked at Elizabeth. “I wish he was here. It would mean our current happiness was lost, but I still wish Fitzwilliam could hold his son.”
Her eyes watered a little as she murmured, “Me too.”
Edward made a fuss, and they walked the gallery together. “Do you want to wait to marry?” he asked when the baby quieted. She would not have come to Pemberley if she did not feel ready, but maybe his cousin deserved a longer remembrance. Elizabeth had changed her dress from unrelieved black to grey, and white with black, but her feelings on the matter must be as conflicted as his were.
“Why would we wait?” she asked carefully.
“To give you a full year of mourning. We could wait until March, if you want to.”
She stopped walking and looked at him. “You are the only man who steals the breath from my lungs simply by walking into the room.” Her gaze dropped to his lips, and his pulse soared. Her lashes swept back up as her eyes locked with his. “I want to begin and end every day with you, and I have been stubborn and prideful for too long.”
If not for the baby, he would grasp her in his arms and haul her against his body. From the look on her face, it seemed like she wanted him to do it. But Edward was here, and they were in the picture gallery in front of a row of windows.
Their gazes held for a heartbeat with no intention other than to look at one another. He felt the tension and longing between them build, and the temptation to kiss her, even though they were not alone, was too much to be overcome.
He bent forward slowly, so she could retreat if she did not want to kiss him here. Instead, Elizabeth leant into him, her mouth closing over his, soft and warm. Her palm flattened against his chest, the other resting on his arm that held the baby. He wrapped an arm around her waist, wishing for some time soon when he could hold her closer and let his hands roam across her body.
When she pulled back, her eyes were sparkling, her lips slightly reddened. Her gaze took in every inch of him. There was a suggestive look on her face that said she wanted to kiss him even more. “Let us not wait until March. Unless, do you want to?”
“I don’t want to wait to start our lives together,” he said through a mix of emotions choking his throat. “I want to kiss you again. I crave to have you touch me, and a lifetime hardly seems long enough for all the ways I want to kiss you senseless.”
“Then we marry after three Sundays,” she said, colouring faintly at what he had implied. He knew it was from modesty and not reluctance. “I want all of those moments too,” she added. “All the important life moments and the small everyday ones.”
The baby made more fussing noises, and Darcy said to him, smilingly, “Not everything can be about you, Edward. You are a charming boy, but you cannot be the centre of attention all the time. Although, you will take after your father if you are. He could make everyone like him just by being present, just like you do. ”
He shared a look with Elizabeth and wondered if every mention of Fitzwilliam would make his heart ache with the loss.
“We only stopped wearing black on the outside,” Elizabeth said gently. “There will always be a shade on my heart. And yours, and his,” she added with a look to Edward. “But life does not wait for grief. I have finally chosen to be happy and to trust you, and there is no reason to wait any longer.”
Darcy nodded solemnly. “Grief will still hit us when we least expect it. I would rather us be together when that happens.”
“And three Sundays will bring us into the new year, so at the least I won’t have two new husbands in the same twelvemonth.”
He laughed. The fluctuations of grief and joy were strange, but he would experience both with Elizabeth by his side. She was mistress of so ample a fund of humour. She had an innate cheerfulness that she never lost despite her hardships.
Edward’s fretting sounds grew louder, and Elizabeth took him from him.
“This one is getting tired. You should tell your sister our joyful news while I put him down. I love you,” she said, kissing him quickly in parting. He turned to leave through the other door when he heard her say, “And Darcy, Edward will love you too.”
Christmas was in two days, and while it would be a smaller gathering with neighbours rather than family, Darcy felt more content than he had ever been. There were glossy sprigs with red berries wrapped around every balustrade and strung over every entrance, and Elizabeth and Georgiana had made certain that garlands of holly were on every surface.
For the first time in what felt like a long time, he and everyone around him were happy.
Georgiana was still as delighted with his upcoming marriage as she had been a week ago when he told her the news. Elizabeth cheerfully prepared Pemberley for the holiday and had learnt about the house and servants. Edward charmed every person he smiled at. After a year of so much loss for his family, and for Elizabeth, he was ready for 1812 to begin.
Darcy’s wedding gift arrived today, and he looked at it under the lamp. He was getting married on the seventh of January. A fortnight and one day from tonight.
Not that he was counting.
“Edward is finally asleep,” Elizabeth said as she entered the room. Darcy closed the box and hid it behind the lamp. “When Jane last wrote, she said how much trouble she had sleeping. I did not have the heart to tell her that would not improve after her baby was born.”
They decided to stay in Derbyshire for the winter, then go to town in March to meet the Gardiners before visiting Netherfield at Easter for the arrival of the Bingleys’ child.
“Did you not say your other sister was marrying soon?”
“Mary is marrying a few days after we do, to my father’s heir,” she said. “He visited a month ago and picked her out of the lot. Lydia describes him as dull, although she is still going to stay with them for a while. My father implied he was not a sensible man, but my mother is happy Mary will be provided for. I also learnt,” she said, coming to his side, “that Mr Collins is your aunt Lady Catherine’s rector. When I eventually visit Mary, we can make it a family affair,” she said, laughing.
“Who would we stay with, the obsequious cousin or the condescending aunt?”
Elizabeth frowned. “How do you know Mr Collins is obsequious? I only said I heard he was stupid.”
“My aunt chose him,” Darcy said drily. “He would have to be a servile flatterer for her to like him. We will stay at Rosings; it is larger and easier to avoid anyone whom we find tiresome.”
She shook her head, but she smiled. “What will Lady Catherine say about bringing me into her house?”
“She disliked that Fitzwilliam married beneath him, but now you are the widow of an earl’s son with a child who could inherit her father’s earldom. Once she gets over my not marrying her daughter Anne, she will be civil, or as civil as she is capable of—and for a once-a-year visit, I can tolerate it.”
He saw the look on her face and remembered all the awful things the Fitzwilliams had said and done. Darcy put his arms around her. “I have already told her not to repeat anything that the Fitzwilliams said, lest she lose the right to visit Pemberley. I suspect future holiday gatherings will also be small. Maybe we can convince the Bingleys to move north.”
She settled into his arms. “And you will like the Gardiners, I know.”
“I met them briefly last winter when you got engaged to my cousin, but I look forward to knowing them better.”
She leant away to look at the parcel he had put on the table. “What is that?” she asked mischievously.
“That is a gift for you, but you cannot have it now.”
Elizabeth picked it up. “Christmas is only two days away, practically one now.”
He smiled as she held the lid, keeping her eye on him. “It is supposed to be a wedding gift, not a Christmas one.”
“Well, that is a fortnight away. I would hate for you to forget to give it to me,” she added.
“Yes, that sounds very like me to be forgetful.”
“It is a fault, but I love you anyway.”
“You are impatient,” he said, smiling.
“I am eager; there is a difference. But I can wait a fortnight.”
She held the jewellery box in her hand, but did not open it. If he asked her to wait until the seventh of January, she would. He gestured for her to go ahead, and she grinned and lifted the lid. Her teasing expression faded and an emotional one replaced it as she pulled out the brooch of two entwined open hearts topped with a crown.
“You remembered I had a witch’s heart?”
“I could never replace the heart brooch Fitzwilliam gave you,” he said, “but now you have a reminder. This one has two hearts, one of diamonds and one of garnets. Our hearts entwined, and a remembrance of his love for you. ”
Her eyes glistened with moisture. “This is beautiful, and it is just another example of how thoughtful and generous you are. It is a perfect symbol of our partnership, our love and loyalty.” She ran her fingers over the stones. “So I bewitched you?” she asked softly.
“Oh, certainly, my dear—” He was about to tell her how much he loved her and prove of what importance she was to him, but she rushed into his arms, lifted her face, and pressed her lips against his.
She stroked his cheek and drew her fingers along his jaw. He traced a hand down her back, pulling her against him. The heat of her body warmed something deep inside him. Now she kissed him hungrily, her hands exploring his chest. It all felt natural between them, a familiarity built from their months of friendship and mutual longing.
Elizabeth was returning his kiss with such an equal passion that it startled him when she suddenly stopped. Her pupils were so wide, her dark eyes now looked black.
“We should go to bed together. Now, before we get married. Everything is signed and planned, after all.”
His heart pounded so hard he was certain Elizabeth could hear it. “I can restrain myself until January seventh.”
“I cannot.”
He blinked, feeling enthusiastic and astonished. Into his surprised silence she added, “I did ask you to marry me. I was very forward then, so you should not expect any different from me now.”
He chose not to mention that she had been adorably rambling and apologising for so long that he interrupted her to ask her to marry him. “Your forthrightness is a great attraction. Not that I am complaining, but why not wait until after we come back from the church?”
“It is my choice, you see, if we go to bed together now, before we marry.”
Darcy’s breath came out in a gust of disappointment. “You cannot think that you will lose the power of choice when your name becomes mine?”
“The law says so,” she muttered resentfully .
“But I don’t say so,” he snapped. “You always have a choice.”
“I know that!” she cried. “I do.” She sighed and came back into his arms. “Is it so wrong that I am eager?”
Darcy put his arms around her, and she fit perfectly beneath his chin. “Of course not. I would be lying if I said I had not been counting the days for many reasons, and that is certainly one of them.”
She pressed her head into his chest and it was difficult to hear her. “I thought I only had to appear before you at Pemberley, show a conciliatory spirit and a little of my deep affection for you, and then you would renew your addresses. But I loved you, and you deserved more from me.”
“You have nothing to prove, you know.”
“Nothing more, you mean,” she said, and he could tell she was smiling. “I had to prove I trusted you and wanted you.”
“And as much as I wanted the decision to marry to be entirely your choice, I suspect I would not have been able to wait for an opening of yours. I loved you too much to risk losing you a second time.”
“I just… I want you to know that I am choosing you,” she said, tilting to meet his eye. “That no law is forcing me to submit. And I am eager,” she repeated.
“You mentioned that,” he said, failing to hold back a grin.
“It is against womanhood to be forward in our own wishes, so I am defying a lifetime of convention by asking you to…” She trailed off with an emphatic look.
“Have my way with you?”
Elizabeth looked near to laughing. “I did not think it would be so hard to convince you!”
“Oh, I am perfectly willing to fall sacrifice to an irresistible passion. I just want the reason to be because you love me and want to, and never because you feel you have to.”
“Really? Then I am yours, to refuse or accept.”
“I accept,” he said, a little breathlessly. “I readily accept.” He took her hand to lead her into the corridor.
When they were about to turn one way, Elizabeth stopped him. “We should go to my chamber, not yours. ”
“Does it matter? In fifteen days, I hope to occupy the same rooms together.”
“We will, but it does not speak well of me if I am seen in your chamber at nearly midnight. If anyone sees you leaving mine, then you are just a man satisfying your needs with a willing widow. If I am seen in yours, I am a shameless harlot.”
Darcy lifted his eyes, but allowed her to lead them the other way. “And my future bride. You make it sound as though you were merely the first widow in a long corridor of options for me to choose from tonight to ruin my reputation with.”
She snickered. “But if I am seen leaving your room, then I am pursuing a respectable man—throwing myself at you—and acting wickedly.”
He considered how right she was, how guilty he might have been in the past of looking at the situation in that way. “That is unfair. The act is the same, and so are the desires of both people.”
“When is being a woman in 1811 ever fair?” They reached her room, and she entered ahead of him.
“I suspect that is a topic we will return to again and again,” he said, shutting the door behind them, “but I have better things to do tonight than discuss it.”