Epilogue
As a scared, lonely fifteen-year-old girl learning that her past would irreparably tarnish her future, Elizabeth could not have imagined such joy could be hers.
The first year of her marriage to Fitzwilliam had been an education for them both, but they worked through every struggle together.
For example, they had a few disagreements when Fitzwilliam had not thought Elizabeth should lower herself to befriend their tenants, although he had long before.
She had to remind him what he already knew about birth and rank, and he had to urge her to remember they still lived in a society with a few requirements.
They had compromised by welcoming the tenants’ company on the farms and at their harvest festival but not inviting them to dine at Pemberley with the nearby gentry.
Other trials were external, as the needs of the estate and so many people reliant on it would always bring demands. Again, they remained united and forged a better community for all in the area.
After a well-earned and successful harvest, Fitzwilliam had taken Elizabeth and Georgiana to the seaside.
Early November may not have been the best time to walk along the beach and feel warm breezes, but it was an excellent time for Elizabeth to capture on canvas the roaring waves of the Irish Sea in western Lancashire.
They had come to stay at Morton Hall, the estate she had inherited from her father.
The home was between tenants, so it was the perfect time to explore the grounds and residence her grandmother’s sister had left to Papa Oliver.
The sea was all Elizabeth had imagined it would be, and she sketched and painted furiously between solitary walks with her husband in the biting wind.
Uncle Bennet had told her she had lived in this home, and he had visited her parents here before her birth.
This was not, after all, her first glimpse of the crashing flood she so admired.
After a fortnight soaking in the home of her infancy and finding the morning room wall that was the backdrop for the Rowe family portrait that now hung at Pemberley, the Darcys traveled on to Rowe Manor.
Fitzwilliam had been eager to get her settled at her grandfather’s home. She admitted to a degree of relief herself once she was comfortably sitting beside him, her weary legs propped on a footstool.
“You have come very late, Elizabeth,” her grandfather chided. “What if something had happened to you in the wilds of Lancashire?”
“Fitzwilliam and Georgiana have taken every precaution for my care, Grandfather. I am sorry to have caused you distress, however. I will allow Dinah to dote on me as much as she chooses now I am here.”
“And you will not leave my sight until you are safely delivered, my love.” Fitzwilliam placed a tender kiss on her brow.
She smiled up at him. “If you wish, but I suspect you and Georgiana will find more to do exploring the estate and the nearby town than sitting with me for the next nine to twelve weeks. Perhaps you will have to allow me out of the castle for short excursions to relieve your own ennui.”
Fitzwilliam’s concern was clear, but she was certain that once she had rested for a few days, he would see she could be left alone for a few hours at a time. The presence of both Dinah and Matthew would also reassure him.
“When does your other family arrive, my dear? My housekeeper has all the details, but they keep slipping my mind.”
“The Gardiner family will be here in about five weeks, December 18th or thereabouts, and my extended Bennet family will come a few days later. All will be here in time for Christmas and will leave before the new year, so as not to overtax me in my weakened state.” Elizabeth rolled her eyes, but Fitzwilliam gave her such a soft smile she could not regret his tender care for her.
The months at Rowe Manor turned out to be well-worth the restrictions imposed on her. She loved learning about her father’s childhood home, the home that would belong to the child she now carried if he proved to be a son.
If Elizabeth had thought her grandfather loquacious in London, it was nothing to the stories that flowed now that everything in sight reminded him of anecdotes he must tell Elizabeth.
She began to write down all the stories he told and the ones she remembered her Uncle Bennet had gifted her through the years.
The festive season with her two aunts, two uncles, eight cousins, three cousins-by-marriage, and one cousin’s daughter was the happiest she had ever experienced. Kitty had married Mr. Collins, and Jane already had a child. The family would only continue to grow.
“Fitzwilliam, shall we invite your relations to Pemberley next Christmas?” They were cozy in their Yorkshire sitting room, and her husband had just put aside the book he had been reading aloud to her, as he did most evenings at her request.
“If you like. Could we also invite His Grace and the Gardiners? I cannot imagine your grandfather would wish to be excluded, and the Gardiners have felt like my family, too, for so long.”
Elizabeth smiled her agreement, knowing they would end by inviting the Bennets, as well.
A few weeks after all the family returned to the south, Elizabeth gave her husband and grandfather another cause for celebration with the birth of the ducal heir, Oliver Bennet Rowe Darcy.
True to his word, as soon as Elizabeth had recovered enough to go for sleigh rides with her husband and sister, her grandfather brought in a painter.
When they left Rowe Manor to return to Derbyshire at the beginning of April, he had a large portrait to hang beside the one she had given him on her birthday. This one featured the duke, the future duke, and the baby’s parents.
“I am sorry you do not yet have an heir, Fitzwilliam. Does it bother you very much?”
He reclined beside her in their bed a few days after coming home to Pemberley, both propped against pillows, as he cradled his small son sleeping in his strong arms.
“How could anything bother me when you and Oliver are healthy and beautiful?” He leaned over to kiss her lips.
“Do you remember when you told me you did not care who my father was?”
“Forgive me for any disrespect to him, but yes. You have always been the person who matters to me, Elizabeth, not your father or his rank.”
“Will all of our children be the same to us? Oliver will be a duke, someone else’s heir. Our next son will inherit Pemberley. Will it matter?”
“In the way we love them? Not a bit. If we have five sons and ten daughters, we shall love them all. Oliver gets Rowe Manor, our second son gets Pemberley, our third son gets Morton Hall. Our other twelve children will divide themselves into groups of four and make their way to one of their elder brothers’ protection.
And we will live with whichever children we prefer most at the time, likely based on whether they are giving us grandchildren or running up gambling debts. ”
They laughed so hard they woke Oliver, but Elizabeth suspected her husband had been waiting for the chance to see his son’s eyes once more, only to prove they sparkled like Elizabeth’s.
“He may have your grandfather’s eyes, and he may one day have his title, but he will always be my son.
If we have no more children, Oliver will inherit Rowe Manor, Pemberley, and Morton Hall.
And you and I, my bride, shall follow him around to each of his estates, smothering him with our love and teaching him what it means to be a Darcy. ”
This time, their laughter was tinged with tears, as their joy poured out without restraint.
Thank you for reading Mr. Darcy’s Diamonds. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, I would be honored for you to recommend it or review it.