CHAPTER 1 KEEPING COUNT
Elizabeth Darcy rested a palm against the gentle curve of her belly, the roundness of it a familiar weight beneath her gown. Her quill hovered over the inkwell.
“How many?” Her husband, Fitzwilliam Darcy, stopped at the doorway. He held his breath, a habit he had adopted around her lately, as if he feared disturbing her precious count. A jab here, a somersault there, and a distinct flutter deep within that felt like a tiny secret applause.
“I believe four strong kicks.” She made a note in a column labeled ‘Kicks.’ “And perhaps three shrugs or wiggles.”
He still lingered on the threshold, as if bearing news she might not wish to hear. Indeed, he held an open letter in his hand, and his attempt to hide it behind his back was at once pitiable and not a little endearing.
“You wished to disturb me. Has my mother launched another petition?” She glanced at the bracket clock and penned the time onto the ledger.
“Not since her last missive, but…” He stepped very carefully into her room and perched at the edge of the settee. “Georgiana’s particular friends will be arriving this afternoon. They wish to spend the Yuletide and stay until the Twelfth Night.”
“This afternoon,” she echoed, her hand smoothing the fine lawn of her gown over the restless swell within.
Was that a hiccup or a proper kick? Mr. Cox, her physician, had never clarified the distinction, but it hardly mattered.
Little Callista—her secret name for the restless tenant—seemed determined to make her presence known.
“The roads from London are clear enough. Their letter arrived yesterday.” He paused. “I thought I had mentioned it.”
She would have noted and commented on it if he had, but he was obviously fearful that she would have requested the company to lodge elsewhere.
It wasn’t that she did not love Georgiana, for she did, only that noise and company would complicate the last month before she hoped to deliver a healthy babe.
“You are mentioning it now,” she said, her voice measured. “What you have not informed me is whether these friends of Georgiana’s bring children. You know well how clamorous little ones can be.”
“In this, I can assure you, it is only one young lady and two navy officers: her brother and his friend.” He pressed the letter onto her desk. “Georgiana has had very few visitors this autumn. Miss Varney is her dearest friend, and it seemed unkind to refuse.”
“Georgiana may invite whomever she pleases. I merely observe that she welcomes three guests for Christmas, while the mistress of the house has spent the week composing apologies to her own family, forbidding their arrival.” The baby delivered a decisive protest, and Elizabeth dutifully recorded it in a new column marked ‘Protests.’
“Elizabeth, these two matters are not connected.” Darcy sounded as exhausted as she felt.
“They will be when my mother hears that Pemberley is entertaining officers over the Yuletide, and discovers that her own daughters and five grandchildren have been turned away because I cannot tolerate the bustle.”
“If you were to explain, I am certain they would tiptoe around you.”
“Like the rest of the household?” Elizabeth’s gaze fixed on the window to the gray, bleak garden below. “They need not creep around like wraiths, afraid to drop a teacup lest it frighten me. I am perfectly capable of a bit of merriment around the Yuletide.”
“Are you?” He leaned forward slightly, his eyes searching hers. “Then invite them. It is certainly not too late. The roads are clear, and…”
“Fitzwilliam.” The name passed her lips like a sigh. “I wished it to be quiet this season. I am in the eighth month. Last time…”
“You did not make it past the sixth month,” Darcy said, more gently now. “I am not saying the danger is past, but that perhaps we could use the cheer. You should not allow one consideration to outweigh every other.”
One consideration. For him, it was an empty cradle awaiting its occupant, a symbol of future promise. For her, it was three years, two small stones beneath the yews, and a ledger full of marks.
“If it were only Jane and her two…” Elizabeth waved a hand and shrugged. “Then perhaps. But my mother will surely prefer Pemberley to Netherfield in December, and if she even hears a whisper of Lydia and her unruly brood ice-skating on the pond here, I shall have no peace until Lady Day.”
“Elizabeth, you will never have peace from your mother, if you permit me to say so.” Darcy drew a breath.
“Your family has enjoyed the season here for three years running, and Pemberley is large enough that should you wish for peace, you can simply stay in the mistress’s suite and claim a headache.
You cannot keep the house closed forever. ”
“This is not forever,” she protested. “Only for one Christmas.”
“You kept it closed for Michaelmas as well,” he pointed out, his tone losing its softness.
“I was unwell.”
“You were—” He stopped himself, and she watched the struggle on his face. He was good at this, better than most men, better than she sometimes, in her frustration, gave him credit for.
“Elizabeth,” he said, more gently. “The baby is well. Mr. Cox is satisfied. You are strong, and you are carrying well. There is every reason to expect—”
“The letters are already written,” she said. “And I do not wish to withdraw them. Georgiana and her friends are welcome, but I shall not invite my family. Not this year.”
He nodded once. “Then I will sign them. Particularly your mother’s.”
Something in his voice caught her. The dryness and the particular inflection on the word “your” that she had always been able to hear underneath everything else, the warmth he did not quite suppress.
“You think my mother will receive a refusal better from the master of Pemberley.”
“Yes, my protection carries a certain weight. I should not wish her to vex you further.” He signed the letters, starting with her mother’s, then Mrs. Gardiner’s and the rest of the pile.
Jane’s was last, with the smallest hesitation as he no doubt thought about missing his friend, Bingley’s joyous and exuberant presence.
He set down the quill and straightened, as if bracing for the next skirmish.
“You should eat something before dinner,” he said. “You have had scarcely a bite all morning.”
“Thank you, I have been eating quite adequately.”
“And you should—” He paused. “There is something else I ought to mention.”
Elizabeth looked up from the ledger. “More officers? A regiment, perhaps? I understand they travel in packs.”
“Only the two I mentioned previously. But Captain Keighley…” Darcy’s tone shifted, becoming more guarded. “He has written to me separately, you see, and wishes to speak on a matter of some delicacy.”
“Ah,” Elizabeth felt the corner of her mouth lift. “He means to make an offer for my sister’s hand.”
“He means to request permission to make the offer, which is, I gather, the proper and expected form,” Darcy corrected gently.
“And you are telling me this because you seek my wisdom on the matter, or because you wish me to prepare Georgiana for the possibility of disappointment should your answer not be what the captain hopes for?”
“Neither, for I shall reserve my decision until I have met the man.” Darcy’s voice was careful. “I am informing you because I thought it fair to offer you some small warning, given your preference for a quiet Christmas.”
“That the excitement might be too much for me to bear?” She arched an eyebrow.
“Fitzwilliam, have you considered that your sister, if she is married to a naval officer, would spend half her life waiting for letters that might never arrive, and the other half reading the ones mailed long ago until the ink has blurred.”
“I have considered her loneliness,” he said. “And I believe she should always have a home here with us.”
“As she should. Do tell me you are actually considering this… match?”
“I suppose I did wish her a title. But she will spend her life with a man of sense and steadiness who has not lost a single man in three years off Brest. I find I would rather wish her happiness.”
Elizabeth set down her quill. “Fitzwilliam Darcy, preferring happiness to consequence. What has become of you?”
“I married you, dear.” He said it without flourish. “I learned that consequence is rather cold company when the house is empty.”
Elizabeth studied her ledger, the neat columns bearing witness to her long vigil.
She longed to speak—something honest that would meet his admission with her own—but the words refused her.
They had become so very careful, these months, so polite, as if grief had made them courteous strangers beneath the same roof.
“The house will not be empty this afternoon,” she said finally. “It will be full of young people who are at the beginning of everything.”
“As it should.” He paused. “The season ought to be kept, Elizabeth. Not because the family must come. But because tradition is what holds a household together when other things waver. You are mistress of Pemberley. The tenants look to you. So do the staff and the neighborhood.”
“Fitzwilliam.” She fixed him with a steady gaze. “What you are attempting to say is that we must move forward, and that continuing to grieve is—”
“I am only attempting to see to your comfort, dear. And I believe we can have a suitable Yuletide with the greenery, Yule log, and the cheer of the Season without undue strain.”
She regarded him a moment longer. He was, in truth, a good man, though he could never quite fathom the peculiar grief a woman bore: the quickening within, and the dread that shadowed every silence.
“I am attempting to be delighted, Mr. Darcy. Do not press your advantage.”
He laughed—a warm laugh, startled out of him—and the sound surprised them both. It had been some time since either of them had laughed in this room.
“I shall tell Georgiana that you are utterly delighted to have her friends.”
“You shall tell Georgiana nothing of the sort. You shall tell her that I am resigned to the invasion of her friends, that I expect Captain Keighley to comport himself with dignity, and that if anyone mentions babies or cradles or the blessed state of matrimony, I shall retreat to my sitting room and not emerge until Epiphany.” She said it sternly, although she trusted him enough to know she did not mean it.
“Understood,” Darcy said with a bow of his head that held just a hint of a smile.
“And Elizabeth,” he added, his voice softening as he stood over her. “Try to believe that all will be well.”
He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head and withdrew. The baby delivered a final, unmistakable jab, as if to insist upon notice. Elizabeth tallied it, added the ones she had missed, and closed the ledger.