CHAPTER 2 THE QUEEN OF CUPS
The morning found Georgiana in the conservatory, tending to her orchids. She watered them while speaking to them in a gentle murmur, and Elizabeth suspected, without evidence, that she told them things she did not tell her brother.
“Good morning,” Elizabeth said from the doorway. “Am I interrupting a conference?”
Darcy’s sister looked up with a smile that, over the years, had become one of the most reliable comforts of Elizabeth’s life at Pemberley.
The painfully shy girl of sixteen had vanished, replaced by a woman whose reserve was deliberate, but whose kindness and patience made her the best of listeners.
“You are not interrupting anything the orchids will not forgive,” she said. “Miss Varney and the two officers arrived in the evening, and we did not wish to disturb you.”
Elizabeth enjoyed the warmth inside the conservatory, kept warm and humid with a coal stove and a system of pipes that Darcy’s father had installed.
The glass walls were fogged with condensation, and beyond them the snow-covered south lawn was visible only as a faint blue-white blur.
“I did not hear the carriage. They must have arrived very late.”
“The roads from Lambton were slow, and the inns were full. Miss Varney was chilled through. Hannah brought them chocolate and warmed bricks.” Georgiana paused, the watering-pot still in her hand.
“I ought to have spoken to you earlier about the visit. I know my brother announced it rather suddenly.”
“Your friends are most welcome, Georgiana.” Elizabeth adjusted her shawl and felt Callista turn—a slow, liquid movement pressing against her ribs, stealing her breath for a fleeting moment.
Her own mother had borne five children without a single mishap and had never allowed any of them to forget it.
“I hope you will not imagine I resent it. I am glad you have Miss Varney, her brother, and his friend.”
Georgiana’s face colored, and Elizabeth, having already gotten an indication of the nature of this friend’s visit, offered her most encouraging smile. Setting down the watering pot, Georgiana avoided Elizabeth’s gaze.
“His friend is Captain James Keighley, of the Royal Navy. He took his commission at seventeen and earned his captaincy in the Mediterranean. He is not a fortune-hunter, Lizzy. He has prize money of his own, and he has never once asked about the settlement.”
“I have every confidence in your judgment,” Elizabeth said, closing the distance to take Georgiana’s cold hand.
It had been months since she’d held anyone’s hand—not since September, when Jane’s small daughter had grasped her fingers, forcing a swift retreat to the rose garden where she’d stood for ten minutes with her fist pressed to her mouth.
But this was different—a young woman seeking reassurance, and Elizabeth found herself quite capable.
“I shall reassure your brother that you have been observant and careful. Your brother is a good man, Georgiana. He loves you, and he will want you to be happy. He will only need to be reminded that happiness does not always arrive in the shape he has imagined for it.”
Georgiana’s grip tightened. “You look well this morning, Lizzy. Better than you have in some weeks.”
“I slept, despite Callista doing her best to wake me.” Elizabeth rested her hand over her belly.
“That is a good sign.” A tentative smile touched her lips. She had learned to curtail the enthusiasm she had exhibited the first time Elizabeth announced she was increasing. “I shall pray for both of you.”
“Prayers are always welcome,” Elizabeth murmured, watching Georgiana select blooms for the centerpiece.
Elizabeth had unfinished business, so she pulled her cloak tight and set off for the burial wood.
Someone, probably Hannah, had broken the path, making her progress easier.
The morning held its breath, grey and still, the sort of Derbyshire morning suspended between snowfalls.
The yew trees loomed ahead in their dark winter shapes, their scent reaching her before she was truly among them.
She had a prayer to finish, and perhaps an hour before the visitors would be up and about, and she would be required to be gracious and composed.
The two small stones were set close together beneath the yew.
The snow had drifted against them in the night, and the dates were half-obscured.
She brushed the snow from the first, and then the second, and she knelt there, cold fingers resting against her full belly.
She thought she heard a faint whine, the rustle of an animal in the brush, but dismissed it as wind. Drawing her cloak closer, she began.
“Good morning, my loves. I have—”
“Lady mother, I am cold.” A child’s voice came from behind the stones. It was small and clear, entirely without inflection, quite unlike the theatrical voices shades and spirits were supposed to use.
Elizabeth pressed a hand to her chest, listening. Then a dog barked—sharp and unmistakably real. She looked about and traced a set of tiny footprints to the shadow of the yew, where the snow had piled, and stepped carefully around the gravestones.
A boy sat shivering in the hollow between the roots, his back pressed to the trunk, arms wrapped tightly around a half-grown spaniel with long, floppy ears.
He might have been five or six, with copper-red hair untouched by a comb and a face that, beneath the mud, hinted at handsomeness.
His coat was several sizes too large, his boots did not match, and his eyes—large and calm—regarded her as if she were the curiosity he had journeyed to find in the wood.
“You are the Queen of Cups,” he announced. “I knew you would come in the morning. The Frog Mother said so.”
Elizabeth opened her mouth but had no words. The boy rose from the hollow with the puppy still in his arms and executed a bow, keeping one hand on his heart and the other around the squirming dog.
“I am Toby,” he declared. “I am the Boy of Acorns, and I have been sent to find you. May I go inside now? Puppy is very cold, and I believe he may have eaten some snow, which does not count as breakfast.”
The puppy lifted its head and barked exactly once.
“How long have you been waiting here?” Elizabeth asked.
“Since the night before this one. The Frog Mother brought me after the wagon broke, and she said you would come in the morning. But you did not come, and it was night again, but now it is morning, and you are here.” Toby smiled, revealing a gap where one of his front teeth should have been.
“The stones kept us company. They are very quiet stones. I told them stories, but they did not tell any back.”
“The stones are cold, and so are you.” Elizabeth’s heart went out to the boy and his puppy who had been sleeping behind her children’s graves. “Come, we shall discuss queens and frogs inside, where there is a fire, bread and milk.”
The child set the puppy down and slipped his cold, bare hand into her gloved one. His fingers gripped with such unguarded trust that Elizabeth felt something shift within her chest. Whose child was this, and where were his people?
She gathered the wriggling puppy with her free arm—his legs far too short for the snow—and settled him atop her full abdomen. The small inhabitant within delivered a sharp, indignant kick, and the puppy wagged his tail in cheerful reply.
“What is your name?” she asked, though he had already told her.
“Toby,” he said again, apparently unbothered by the repetition. “I have been many things, but Toby is the principal one.”
“Many things.”
“A mouse, once, for the Bakewell fair. And a frog three times, because I am very good at frogs. And the youngest prince in the story of the castle and the soup, although I was obliged to share the part with a girl named Nell, who was not half so princely as I.” He looked up at her with frank assessment. “You are very tall.”
“I am not at all tall, being the smallest of five sisters. You are quite small yourself.”
“I am six,” he said, as if this explained everything. “When I am seven, I shall be a great deal taller. The Frog Mother said so.”
“The Frog Mother sounds remarkably wise.”
“She knows the most,” Toby said, “except for the Queen of Cups, who is you.”
Elizabeth had not felt like a queen of anything.
When she first married Darcy, she had fancied herself a princess in a fairy tale: a prince for a husband, Pemberley his grand kingdom, the household devoted, and her friends suitably envious.
Yet a loving husband and ten thousand a year did not ensure smooth waters, and after her second loss in as many years, Elizabeth’s outlook had grown considerably more realistic.
And now, here was a lost child and his puppy, both in need of her.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“Perishing,” Toby said, with theatrical gravity. “Puppy and I have not eaten since the day before yesterday, which was a very long day, and I believe Puppy may have eaten some snow, which does not count.”
“Then we shall go to the kitchen directly,” Elizabeth assured them.
The housekeeper, Mrs. Reynolds, was in the kitchen passage, deep in consultation with Cook over the guests’ provisions. Both women looked up, saw the unlikely trio, and gasped in unison.
“Mrs. Reynolds,” Elizabeth said, with a composure she did not entirely feel, “this is Toby and his puppy. They are cold and hungry. I found them in the burial wood, and I would be very grateful for warm milk, bread, butter, eggs, and whatever ham and bacon we have available.”
The boy looked at Mrs. Reynolds and bowed with one hand on his heart.
“Good dame,” he said. “I am pleased to find you well.”
“Come along then, Master Toby,” Mrs. Reynolds said. “There is milk warming on the stove, and Cook has a fresh loaf from the morning bake, and I daresay there may be bacon enough for both of you.”
Toby followed her and climbed onto a stool while the puppy sat on the flagstones, looking up at Cook expectantly.
Cook brought milk, bread, a plate of butter, and a bowl of drippings for the dog. Elizabeth sat at the kitchen table, watching them eat, a small pang softening in her chest. “Toby, where are your people?”
Toby looked up from his bread crust. “I suppose my people are you, my queen.”
Which was no answer at all, for it was plain he had been left in the graveyard, and the Frog Mother had vanished.
“Then you eat your fill, Master Toby,” Elizabeth said, the title feeling both ridiculous and inevitable now. “By order of the Queen of Pemberley.”
“Queen of Cups,” he corrected. His gap-toothed grin—wide, bright, and entirely certain of its welcome—struck her heart like a spark on dry tinder. The puppy’s tail thumped faster, as if he, too, knew without doubt that a home had been found.
End of Excerpt - To read more, please go to: Mr. Darcy’s Christmas Strays