Epilogue
Six Years Later
In the aftermath of a loud shriek, the nursery at Pemberley was unnervingly calm.
The nursemaid was abed, felled by the same head-cold recently suffered by the eldest Darcy children.
Instead, it was Darcy and Elizabeth, pulled from a rather passionate embrace, who came hurriedly to investigate the odd silence.
Darcy paused at the threshold, looking round the brightly lit blue and yellow room.
There was neither toppled furniture nor toys out of place.
There was no sound of sobs, only a quiet giggle.
Three-year-old Henry sat on the rug, humming.
Behind him stood his elder brother Bennet, his hands clasped behind his back.
Elizabeth moved towards them. “Boys,” she said quietly. “Your sister is asleep. What are you up to?”
Darcy strode into the room and leant down, trying to peer behind Bennet. “Son, what do you have there?”
The four-year-old looked up at him, all innocence. “Nothing, Papa.”
“We are playing with Jasper,” whispered Henry.
“Who?” Darcy looked at his wife, whose expression revealed similar confusion.
She shook her head. “Is this a new toy?”
“No, he is our new friend,” said Bennet.
Darcy looked round the room. “Is Jasper an imaginary friend, or has he hidden himself?”
Again the boys shook their heads. Henry pulled a sheet of paper from his robe. “Here, Papa.”
Darcy glanced at the blotches and scrawls on the paper.
He could make out what appeared to be letters; other lines seemed to form a map.
Or a perhaps a volcano. Whatever it was, it had been drawn using a quill neither child was of an age to use.
He glanced at Henry’s ink-stained fingers and the spots on the carpet and felt his frustration mount.
The maid assigned to replace the ailing nurse had twisted her ankle trying to keep up as the boys ran on the lawn.
Elizabeth was fatigued by their infant daughter, mercifully asleep in her cradle, and exhaustion plagued him as well.
It was past the boys’ bedtime. Clearly they had needed more exercise in the day, more supervision and, perhaps, a writing tutor. He could read neither their minds nor a bloody word on the paper.
“Read it, Papa. We made a story.”
He glanced at Bennet, whose encouraging looks were dissolving into something closer to disappointment. Henry’s eyes welled with tears.
Squinting again at the paper, he sighed impatiently and reached towards his empty waistcoat pocket.
“Fitzwilliam. Do not even think about it.”
He straightened quickly. “Think about what?”
Elizabeth fixed him with the knowing stare that had undone him since their earliest acquaintance.
“You know perfectly well. You were tempted to use the quizzing glass.”
Darcy said nothing; his silence gave away the truth of his impulse.
The quizzing glass he had long relied on was tucked away in a locked drawer in his study.
He had not touched it in years, not to read maps or contracts, nor even Bingley’s letters, and certainly not to judge the character of a stranger or new acquaintance.
Not since he had learnt, with the help of his radiant Elizabeth, to trust his own discernment by listening to and observing people.
Under his wife’s affectionate guidance, Darcy had tolerated more than a few insipid conversations with Georgiana’s suitors; together they had determined that his sister’s new husband was truly the best of men.
He had arranged, again with Elizabeth’s prodding, to ease Lambton’s elderly physician in retirement and hire a new doctor.
He had accepted her choice of midwife and nursemaid, and welcomed new friends and neighbours into their home.
Some people remained a mystery to him, uninteresting, unlikeable, or plainly unknowable, and thus were destined to be kept at arm’s length.
The characters of his own children were still forming, their scrawls still illegible, and tonight, not only were they conspiring to hide something, a secret was involved, and their faces were as impossible to read as Henry’s letter.
Darcy cleared his throat. “It was but a reflex born of fatigue and frustration.”
Elizabeth squeezed his arm and in a soft voice, said, “Are you certain, or do you need magic to understand our children?”
He hesitated. Truth was, magic would make it easier to understand them, particularly their scrawled letters. “They are…surprisingly opaque creatures.”
Elizabeth’s lips twitched with the laugh she was clearly trying not to let out. She stepped closer, her sunny glow pulsating round him as she rose on her toes to whisper into his ear. “Shall I tell our children their Papa needs enchanted toys to understand them?”
“You would not.”
Still holding in a laugh, she raised an eyebrow. “Try me.”
Suddenly, something chirped. Elizabeth’s hand flew to her mouth as Darcy stepped closer to their son.
“Bennet,” he said slowly, “what is behind your—”
The boy proudly held out the object he had been hiding.
A frog. A very large, very wet frog, which quickly slipped from his grasp and leapt directly onto Darcy’s boot.
“Jasper!”
Elizabeth burst into laughter—bright, unstoppable, utterly contagious. Darcy sighed and bent down to catch the creature.
“You see?” she said between giggles. “No magic needed. They reveal themselves and their secrets eventually.”
Darcy shook his head, but a reluctant smile tugged at his lips. “I suppose they do.”
He watched his wife scoop Henry into her arms, requesting he help her read his letter, and hug Bennet to her side while urging him to tell them all about Jasper—who she promised would be returned by their Papa to his own family in Pemberley’s pond.
No, Darcy had no need of the quizzing glass, and neither would his children.
He had all the clarity and happiness he could ever want right here.