Epilogue
ONE
The duke was especially celebrated for his role in the running of Moorland Mills, a luxury textile company located near Lambton yet on Lymebourne land.
Although locals credited Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth Darcy as the champions of the safe working conditions that Moorland workers enjoyed, Darcy was quoted, in the Peak Report article, praising the duke for his moral and financial support to the company, especially crucial during the first five years of its existence.
Elizabeth passed the newspaper back to Darcy, nodding her head. “Well done, you,” she said.
“Me? I merely stated the truth, basically repeating what you had said just an hour before the Peak reporter interviewed me.”
“Very well,” she said, sending a blindingly brilliant smile to her husband. “If you wish to give me the credit, I will allow you to praise me to the skies.”
Darcy could not help but smile in return.
How his wife could make the sober discussion about the death of an esteemed neighbour delightful, he would never know.
He said, “Thank you. Ho, there, skies, please heed my words: Elizabeth is due all praise in general, and specifically, this time, she is due credit for the words attributed to me in today’s paper. ”
Elizabeth laughed. “Wonderful! At least the skies are informed of my contributions, humble though they be.”
Darcy lifted his eyebrows. “Your contributions, humble?” He shook his head and said, “You are the architect of everything marvellous about our little corner of the world. Other people make contributions; you are the foundation, the cornerstone, the braces and beams and load-bearing walls of honesty, of love, of charity, of goodness.”
At that moment, Thomas and Alexander burst into the room, soon followed by the baby of the family, little Annie. Elizabeth saw Nurse just outside the door and nodded to her, a signal that she was welcome to sit and rest while the children were with their parents.
“Tell them!” Thomas said.
Alexander looked down at his scuffed shoes and muttered, “I knocked a table over, in the courtyard, and a pot broke.”
Elizabeth beckoned to him, and he immediately went to her and, as she gently pulled his hand, the five-year-old boy sat on her lap. A sob escaped his lips, but Darcy saw that the boy shook his tears back, straightened his back, and looked his mother in the eyes.
“Did you mean to knock the table over?” she asked kindly.
“‘Course not.”
“Did you mean to break the pot?”
“No.”
“Then, I gather it was an accident?”
“Yes. I meant to kick the ball through the gate opening. It would have been a goal.”
Darcy’s eyes flew wide. He had assumed that the table had been knocked over with some rough-and-tumble play, with Alexander knocking into the portable furniture.
“You kicked the ball hard enough to knock a table over?” he asked.
“Yes.” His son shot a glance at Darcy and smiled a little with the admission.
Darcy saw Elizabeth’s mouth quirk into a smile, as well, but she quashed the expression and went back to being the caring, serious parent. She said, “I admire that you admitted your mistake, and I hope that you wish to tell Mr Abraham that you are sorry to have broken a pot.”
“Yes, mother, I will. And, Mama, I am very, very sorry.”
“I know you are.” Elizabeth kissed his forehead and sent him on his way.
Thomas, two years older, said, “You would have been so proud, Papa. He is able to kick the ball so hard now.”
Darcy said, “That is wonderful, but I believe that means that you will have to begin to play in the grass field, instead of so close to the house. We cannot have you kicking the ball into windows, can we?”
“No, sir, yes, sir.” Thomas ran off after his brother, and little Annie toddled after them, repeating, “No, sir, yes, sir, no, sir, yes, sir.”
Darcy got up and checked to make certain that Nurse had followed the three children.
When he returned, he said, “I am as proud of all three of them as a father could possibly be. I know that I have been working hard not to be the proud, disagreeable fellow I once was, but now I have to admit defeat on the proud bit—I have relapsed into a much higher level of pride than you or I could ever have imagined before Thomas’s birth. ”
“I promise to forgive you your pride if you forgive me mine.”
“Perhaps pride in one’s children is not improper pride at all,” Darcy said with a wink.
Elizabeth laughed and said, “As long as you have it under good regulation….”
“Indeed.” Darcy pulled her up from the chair and swept her into one of his ardent kisses.
After a decade of marriage, three live births, and one miscarriage, he was as enamoured of Elizabeth as he ever had been.
He was not one to wait for special moments—times of grief or of celebration—to show his love, nor did he only show his ardency in the privacy of their bedchambers.
No, he had lived without Elizabeth for more than two and a half decades, and he had lived without the hope of Elizabeth, once he finally knew her, and knew he loved her, for thirty-two days and four hours.
He took advantage of many moments, day or night, at home or out, to express how very much he still loved her.