8. A Snail’s Patience #2
Georgiana’s hand flew to her mouth, and Elizabeth went still beside him—not with composure, but with the restraint of a woman absorbing a blow she refused to display.
The nursemaid swooped down the path to gather up her charge, but the boy threw up his arms, resisting. Yet Hartley, being stout and strong enough, hefted his kicking, squirming, and screaming body over her shoulder as she hurriedly retreated up the gravel path toward the nursery.
Elizabeth carefully picked up the snail, cupping it gently in her palm, and carried it to the violet clump at the base of the wall, where she set it upon a broad, damp leaf.
“Your friend shall be here tomorrow, Thomas,” she promised, though the boy was already halfway to the house and could no longer hear her. “Right here. Whenever you are ready.”
“I should not have said that.” Darcy offered. “He was not ready to call you ‘Mamma.’”
“No, perhaps he never will.” Elizabeth arranged the violet leaf over the snail. “But do not despair, husband. You said it because the afternoon was kind, the boy was quiet, and you wanted very much for the next step to follow from the last.”
She kept her gaze fixed on the snail, adjusting the violet leaf once, then again, as if the creature’s comfort were of the utmost importance. Darcy recognized the occupation for what it was: a kindness to them both and a moment to gather what had been scattered.
A rustle from the rosemary border announced Hannah, who emerged carrying a flat basket of herbs and wearing the expression of a maid servant who has been listening from behind the shrubbery.
“Has the little one gone up to the nursery, sir? I did see Mrs. Hartley carrying him, and he did appear exceedingly cross. But the snail was a lovely idea, ma’am, if you don’t mind my saying. Cook will be quite sorry she missed it. She is rather partial to snails, as it happens.”
“Not in the same manner, one hopes,” Elizabeth replied dryly, and Hannah laughed before she could stop herself, pressing her fingers to her mouth as though she might somehow push the sound back inside.
Georgiana, who had been sitting quietly on the path throughout the tumultuous scene, rose and brushed her skirts with a thoughtful air. “The snail must have a name. One cannot promise a child that his friend will return tomorrow if the friend possesses no name. It is a matter of trust, you know.”
“Oh, he does rather look like a Sidney,” Hannah agreed readily. “Most snails do, ma’am. It is a well-established fact below stairs. Don’t you agree, Mrs. Darcy?”
Elizabeth looked at the violet leaf, where Sidney was extending his stalks and beginning his afternoon repast. “I think Sidney is the most self-possessed creature I have met in Derbyshire, and I include the master of Pemberley in that assessment.”
“The master of Pemberley accepts the comparison,” Darcy said. “Though he notes that he has never been known to eat a violet.”
“The day is young,” Elizabeth said, her eyes teasing as she walked by him in a manner that made him swallow. And then his cheeks heated at Georgiana’s arched brow and Hannah’s hurried and slightly clumsy curtsy.
Both his sister and the maid wore the dreamy, satisfied glow of young women convinced they had witnessed a romance blossom in the kitchen garden, all thanks to a humble brown snail.
Hannah retreated with her basket of herbs, and Georgiana plucked a sprig of rosemary from the border, mischief, no doubt, in mind.
“Georgiana,” Darcy warned. “I can see from the look on your face that you are contemplating something I am going to regret, and I would ask you to reconsider.”
“It is mistletoe,” she declared, holding the rosemary sprig above their heads. “You must kiss your wife. Those are the rules.”
“It is rosemary, and we are in April,” Darcy countered. “There are no such rules, because you have manufactured the entire occasion from a sprig of herb and an excess of imagination.”
“I have manufactured nothing. The tradition is perfectly clear. When mistletoe appears, a gentleman is obliged to kiss the lady beneath it, and if the gentleman refuses, the lady is entitled to consider him a coward. I am quite certain Elizabeth does not wish to think you a coward, Brother, especially after she has spent the afternoon sitting in the dirt on your behalf and has earned, at the very least, a kiss.”
Elizabeth laughed, and the sound reverberated through Darcy’s chest, settling somewhere he could not quite name.
He looked at her—hair half-down, dress ruined, a snail named Sidney feasting on violets at her elbow—and saw that the peril he had once fled in Hertfordshire now sat before him, entirely undaunted by dirt or bandages.
Taking her hand, not the bandaged one, but the other, he raised it to his lips, pressing his mouth to her knuckles. And he kissed her there, holding her still as if he would not let her go.
Georgiana emitted a sound of mock disappointment, but at least she withdrew the branch.
“I cannot properly kiss my wife with my sister present,” he explained, releasing Elizabeth’s hand with a care that was not quite steady. “You must accept this abridged edition.”
“How disappointing,” Elizabeth chuckled. “And after Georgiana labored so hard over the shrubbery.”
“It was mistletoe,” Georgiana said, but she was beaming, and Darcy knew that whatever she had seen on his face when his mouth was on Elizabeth’s hand, it was enough to sustain her romantic convictions for, hopefully, the rest of the evening.
Elizabeth rose and brushed the dirt from her dress.
She plucked the sprig of rosemary from Georgiana’s fingers and tucked it into her pocket—a gesture so slight it might have gone unnoticed, except that Darcy did not overlook it.
Except he did not know what to make of it, feeling both the danger and swallowing the hope that this woman was as different as she was unexpected.