Eleven
The fish question began before breakfast.
Darcy, from the corridor, heard Anne’s voice, pitched at the register she reserved for matters of philosophical urgency, which was most matters, most mornings.
“But do they feel it, Miss Bennet? When they are in the water. Do they feel wet?”
He paused at the nursery door. Elizabeth was seated at the table, her sleeves pushed to her elbows, buttering toast. She had probably fielded six impossible questions before nine o’clock and expected a seventh.
“That is an excellent question, Miss Darcy. Consider it this way. Do you feel the air around you?”
Anne frowned. She held Muffin aloft, as though consulting him. “No.”
“And yet you are surrounded by it. You breathe it, you move through it, it touches every part of you. But you do not notice, because you have never been without it.”
“So fish do not feel wet because they have never been dry?”
“Precisely.”
Anne absorbed this. Her brow furrowed deeper, and Darcy recognised the expression—the dangerous one, the one that preceded the follow-up no adult had anticipated.
“But Miss Bennet. Fish do come out of the water. When they are caught. And then they flop about and gasp.” She demonstrated, slapping Muffin against the table in a credible impression of a landed trout.
“So, they have been dry. Which means when they go back in the water, they must feel wet. Which means—” She straightened in her chair, triumphant. “Fish have feelings.”
Elizabeth set the butter knife down. She regarded Anne for a long moment, her lips pressed together, her eyes bright.
“Miss Darcy, I concede. Your logic is flawless. Fish have feelings, and I have been bested by a six-year-old.”
Darcy laughed.
It came out of him before he could catch it—full, startled, a sound that belonged to a younger version of himself, one who had not spent his life rationing joy.
Anne whipped her head towards the door and beamed.
Elizabeth turned, her mouth curved, and then she was laughing too.
It was not the careful, measured amusement she permitted herself at dinner, but real laughter, unguarded, creasing her eyes and shaking her shoulders.
The three of them laughed at the philosophical implications of wet fish, and it was the finest moment of his week. Of his month. Possibly of his year, though the year was young and he was not prepared to commit.
Anne seized the advantage. “Papa, did you hear? Fish have feelings. Miss Bennet admitted it.”
“I heard, sweetheart. You have made a significant contribution to natural philosophy.” He crossed the room and kissed the top of her head.
Her curls smelled of soap, sleep, and the particular sweetness that clung to children in the morning, before the day got hold of them.
“I shall write to the Royal Society on your behalf.”
“What is the Royal Society?”
“A collection of very clever gentlemen who would benefit enormously from your counsel.”
Anne nodded, satisfied. She returned to her toast, Muffin propped against the milk jug in his customary supervisory position.
Darcy straightened. Elizabeth had composed herself, the laughter fading to a residual brightness in her eyes. She met his gaze briefly, and the warmth sat in his chest refusing to dissipate.
He needed to leave. He had been standing in this nursery for four minutes, and each minute made departure harder.
“Good morning, Miss Bennet.”
“Good morning, Mr Darcy.”
He turned on his heel, walked the corridor to the stairs, descended to the first floor, and entered his study. He closed the door and stood for a moment, his hand still on the handle, the laughter still echoing somewhere behind his ribs.
The correspondence was stacked on his desk where Barton had placed it. Three letters from his steward at Pemberley. An invoice from Madame Delacroix that made him blink twice. And at the bottom of the pile, a letter in a hand he recognised before he turned it over.
His aunt’s penmanship was as she was—upright, emphatic, and entirely certain of its own importance. The seal was the de Bourgh crest, pressed deep into crimson wax.
He broke the seal.
Nephew,
I write to inform you that I shall attend Georgiana’s wedding. I trust suitable arrangements will be made at Darcy House for my accommodation. I shall arrive on the Friday preceding the ceremony and depart the day after.
Furthermore, I wish to see the child. It is time I meet my granddaughter. You will present her to me upon my arrival.
I remain, etc.
No enquiry after his health. No mention of Anne by name. No softening phrase, no courtesy beyond the bare scaffolding of the form. Lady Catherine did not request. She announced, and the world was expected to arrange itself accordingly.
Darcy set the letter on the desk and stared at it.
I wish to see the child.
His aunt had never laid eyes on Anne. She had not visited Cornwall while he waited there for the date of birth to become plausible to society.
She had not come to London, nor asked for portraits, for reports, for any scrap of information about her granddaughter growing up.
Whether this was grief or fury or something more complicated, Darcy had never determined.
Lady Catherine did not explain her silences any more than she explained her demands.
Darcy pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. The laughter from the nursery was still warm in his chest, and the letter on his desk was dismantling it word by word.
There was a sharp knock, and the door opened without waiting for an answer, which narrowed the possibilities to one.
“You are brooding.” Richard marched inside and dropped into the chair opposite the desk, stretching his legs. “I could hear it from the corridor. Your brooding has a frequency, Darcy. Dogs could detect it.”
Darcy did not dignify that with an answer. Instead, he said, “Read this.”
He pushed the letter across the desk. Richard picked it up, scanned it, and set it down. His expression did not change, but there was a steadiness, a weight in his eyes.
“Well.” He shrugged. “She was going to come eventually.”
“She wants to see Anne.”
“Yes. I read that part.”
“Richard.” Darcy’s voice was low, taut.
“So what?” Richard’s tone was mild. “She arranged the entire affair. It is time to meet the consequences.”
The silence between them cracked open. Seven years of shared knowledge carried without acknowledgement, the way they had carried everything since boyhood.
Richard had been at Rosings. He had stood in the corridor while Lady Catherine issued her edict.
He had watched Darcy emerge from Anne’s chambers, grey-faced and obedient, and he had said nothing, because there was nothing to say that would not have made it worse.
They had never spoken of it. Not once. He had come to Anne’s funeral in Cornwall, but they barely spoke.
The truth about Anne—about the child, about the marriage, about all of it—had existed between them as a presence rather than a conversation.
Acknowledged in glances. Understood in the things they did not discuss. The Fitzwilliam way.
Until now.
“She has a right, Darcy.” Richard’s voice was quiet. “Anne is her blood. Her daughter’s child. The only piece of her daughter left in the world. You cannot keep them apart.”
“I can try.”
“You cannot, and you know it. She will come whether you invite her or refuse her, and if she comes uninvited, you lose every advantage. Control the visit. Set the terms. Welcome her graciously and manage the situation from the inside.”
Darcy stood, crossed to the window and gripped the sill, his knuckles whitening against the painted wood.
“She is mine, Richard.” The words came out rough, scraped raw.
“Not hers. Mine. I was there. I held her not long after she drew her first breath. I carved her a wooden horse because I did not know what else to do with my hands while I waited out the months until it was safe to bring her home. I have read every story, answered every question, weathered every why. I have been her father every single day of her life, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh does not get to walk into my house and claim her because of blood.”
Richard did not flinch. He sat very still, his hands resting on the arms of the chair, and let the silence absorb it.
“No one is claiming her,” he said, after a moment. “Least of all Aunt Catherine. She is your daughter, Darcy. Legally, publicly, and in every way that matters. That will not change because an old woman wants to sit with the child and see her daughter’s face.”
Darcy’s grip on the sill loosened and his shoulders dropped a fraction.
Richard rose and crossed to the desk. He picked up a fresh sheet of paper and set it before the inkwell.
“Write this. ‘Dear Aunt. We are delighted to welcome you for Georgiana’s wedding. Your rooms will be prepared for the Friday preceding the ceremony. Anne looks forward to meeting her grandmother. We remain, et cetera, et cetera.’” He gestured.
“Standard courtesies. Nothing warm, nothing cold. A door opened exactly wide enough to walk through and not an inch wider.”
Darcy sat and picked up the quill. The nib hovered over the paper.
“Delighted,” he repeated.
“Delighted.”
“I am not delighted, Richard.”
“No. But you are a gentleman, and gentlemen are delighted whether they feel it or not. Write the letter, Darcy.”
He wrote it. The quill moved in short, reluctant strokes. Richard stood behind him, his arms folded, supervising the composition with the same calm authority he brought to inspecting a troop formation.
The letter was brief, courteous, and committed to nothing beyond the bare minimum of hospitality. Darcy signed it, sanded it, and sealed it with the Darcy crest pressed so hard into the wax that the impression was nearly illegible.
Richard clapped him on the shoulder.
“There. That was not so terrible.”
“It was terrible, Richard.”
“Yes. But it is done.”