Chapter Twenty-One
When Darcy went upstairs to look in on Emily one more time before leading the festivities, and to encourage Elizabeth to hurry her preparations, he had not expected to find his wife crying in her dressing room while Rose held his daughter.
Emily kept reaching for Elizabeth as she said, “Mama Lizzy, Mama Lizzy, what’s wrong? What’s wrong?”
What immediately went through Darcy’s mind, like a stab, was the certainty that this was it.
He had made Elizabeth miserable. It had not taken long.
He did not even have any idea what he had done.
He had thought she was happy.
He had been happy.
Just like with Mary.
Darcy froze.
As soon as she noticed his presence, Elizabeth immediately sat up straighter. She sniffed back the tears. “I shall…just a minute. I am well. I only require a little time. Sarah knows how to make it look as though I have not cried at all. Do not concern yourself. I can manage. I shall be ready.”
Elizabeth’s lady’s maid sniffed in a way that suggested disapproval.
Emily pointed at Elizabeth. “Mama Lizzy is crying.”
“What is the matter?” Darcy asked with some asperity.
He wanted to hear what her complaint was.
Elizabeth flinched at his tone. “You do not need to be concerned about me. I shall be down in a few minutes. I apologise that I have taken so long. Emily is ill, and she did not wish to part from me. There is nothing the matter. I am only tired.”
She sniffed again but then stood up and went to the basin and splashed her face thoroughly.
The lady’s maid, who looked at Darcy with a definitely disapproving frown—just like Mary’s maid always looked at him—gave Elizabeth a towel and helped wipe her face.
Her gown and face were lovely.
What had he done wrong?
Darcy ached to touch her, but he feared doing so.
Mary had always been angry with him when he touched her when she was upset because of something he had done.
That thought annoyed Darcy. He had married Elizabeth because she would not act like Mary.
“Elizabeth, the tenants are expecting us. We do not want to keep them waiting. It is wrong to treat those beneath us with disrespect. You know that this event is important.”
“I shall be ready in a minute or two,” she replied, looking to be on the verge of tears again. “Sarah, just something simple.”
“I’m sorry,” Emily said. “I will just stay with Rose. But I’ll miss you.”
Elizabeth smiled at the girl. “I shall miss you too.”
Darcy picked up Emily, suddenly guessing what might have happened, even though he still did not understand why Elizabeth had been crying. “You wanted to keep Elizabeth with you?”
“Yessss! Ill. I’m a baby lion. Roar.”
Emily was in fact ill, and she felt hot in his arms, though not with a temperature that concerned him.
“I see,” Darcy replied seriously. “I would like Elizabeth to stay with me if I was ill as well.”
Elizabeth turned to look at him, earning a scowl from her maid at the sudden movement of her head. “Do you mean that?”
Darcy nodded.
She smiled, and she also appeared once again on the verge of tears.
“I’m a baby lion,” Emily said. “I want Lizzy. My nose is wet.”
Darcy took a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to his daughter.
“No! You wipe my nose. I’m a baby lion. Roar.”
Darcy smiled at her and wiped her nose.
Elizabeth looked at him warmly; her face had been prepared, and she was smiling. “It is hard to refuse her when she does that, is it not?”
“One must set some limits with a child,” Darcy replied. Then he kissed Emily’s hot forehead and handed her to Rose. “I imagine you will be asleep by the time dinner is over.”
“I wanted to go! Ill! Want to sleep with Lizzy.”
“All reasonable plans,” Darcy agreed, “but I shall tell you everything that happened tomorrow.”
This set Emily off into a flurry of tears, but Darcy only smiled at her, feeling a deep warmth in his heart towards his daughter.
They walked Emily to the nursery and put her down in her bed with Rose to watch over her. Tea with a great deal of honey had been brought up for her to drink, and the girl was able to sit with her various cloth toys.
“I shall come and look in on you later,” Darcy said after kissing her forehead once more.
He then took Elizabeth’s arm and led her out of the door.
As soon as they came out into the corridor, that familiar anxiety rose within him that something was amiss with his wife.
She sighed and frowned a little.
She had been crying.
What had it really been about? Was it about him?
There was no time to think about the matter, though, and as soon as they descended the stairs, Elizabeth transformed, turning into the smiling and glowing young mistress of a great estate.
She was warm and friendly but in a manner that maintained the necessary distance with the tenants.
Her quick words made everyone laugh, and Darcy’s heart glowed to watch her.
But he noticed that she was tired.
When she was not actively speaking with someone, Elizabeth slumped and sometimes closed her eyes. There was more quietness to her, and she refused to drink the wine and had little appetite in general.
Was she really just tired?
Jove, why must he guess at what was in the mind of a woman? Why could they not simply tell him what they thought?
Of course, Mary had often told him directly what was on her mind, and that had not been to his taste either.
The plan was for the party and dancing to continue until after midnight, but Darcy thought that as the night wore on, Elizabeth looked worse and worse. A little after ten o’clock he suggested to her that she go upstairs if she wished to.
She looked at him with blinking eyes and then nodded. It took her half an hour to say her farewells as she continued to perform as the mistress of Pemberley for the whole time that she was in the room.
Darcy felt a sort of virtuous sense of taking care of her by sending her up early.
She would be asleep when he finally retired, and he would not wake her just so that he could take his pleasure with her.
They had been together every night since the first at the inn, but his hunger to touch her, to kiss her, and to be deep inside her seemed to grow more desperate the more often he satisfied it.
But what he truly wanted was for her to be happy.
When midnight had struck, and they all wished each other a Merry Christmas, Darcy went up to first look in on Emily in the nursery.
He found Elizabeth there, asleep on Emily’s bed, with her arms around the child.
She looked uncomfortably curled up since the bed was not of a size for an adult form.
Darcy felt an intense wave of affection and delight towards his wife.
Spurred by an instinct that he could not quite explain to himself, he grabbed one of the cushions from the window seat, took off his shoes and coat, and lay down on the floor next to the bed.
He had been getting an hour or two less sleep than usual nearly every night for the last week, so despite the discomfort of the situation, he fell asleep nearly immediately—only to be awoken by a child jumping on his stomach.
“Why are you sleeping here, Papa?”
The dawn light streamed through the window.
Emily giggled. “Silly Papa. Don’t you know that you are supposed to sleep in your own bed?”
“Oh,” Darcy said in faux confusion. “I am?”
She bounced up and down on his belly. “You are! You are! You are!”
Elizabeth stirred and yawned.
She looked at him through bleary eyes. “Darcy?”
“I…um…” He could not quite explain, not even to himself, the impulse that had led him to decide to sleep on the floor of the nursery.
His hips and back were rather sore now.
“Papa slept on the floor!” Emily said. “Isn’t that silly? He belongs in his bed.”
Elizabeth smiled at Darcy with a brilliant, sunny smile. “Sometimes,” Elizabeth said, “such things can be disregarded.”
“But it’s a rule.”
Darcy stood up and shook out some, but not all, of the cricks in his back. He picked up Emily, who coughed after she was settled in his arms and moaned, “Ill!”
“Not so bad as yesterday. You barely feel hot,” Darcy replied.
He yawned. He was still quite sleepy. Emily had woken him rather early for a man who had not retired until more than an hour past midnight.
Elizabeth yawned with him.
Darcy smiled at her. She was lovely in the night gown that she wore. “You look like you need more sleep. Let us take you to your bed.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “No, Emily will want me now.”
“Miss Lizzy always spends the morning with me!” Emily said cheerfully. “I always go to her room and wake her up because she likes to sleep too late, and she would miss breakfast, then.”
“You let Emily wake you up every morning?” Darcy asked with some surprise.
“I promised to be there for her, always, as her mother.” Elizabeth smiled at Emily. “And she is quite pleasant in the morning.”
The girl preened.
Darcy then asked, “After being awake late each night for the past week?”
“Do not fret. I am well. I know that it is my duty to be present for such events, and to meet your friends, and to always be available when you wish to spend time with me, and to…and to…I am well. I shall succeed in the duties that I have taken on.”
“Jove,” Darcy said, struck strongly by the notion. “You are nothing like Mary was.”
Emily suddenly said, “My nose is wet.”
Darcy picked up his coat from the ground where he had left it next to his shoes and pulled a handkerchief from it. He tried to hand it to Emily.
“No!” Emily refused to take the cloth, putting her hands dramatically behind her back. “I’m a baby lion.”
“Emily, you must learn to wipe your own nose.”
“But I’m a baby lion.”
Elizabeth sighed and started shaking herself awake. “Let me.”
“No.” Darcy shook his head. “She must learn some independence.”
“Don’t want independence. I’m a baby lion.” Emily made her adorable little roar again.
“Just do it,” Darcy said.
“No! No! Mama Lizzy wipe my nose.”
Elizabeth took the handkerchief from Darcy’s hand and reached towards Emily’s nose.
Darcy stopped her and said, “No. She must do it herself.”
This of course set off sobbing. “A baby lion. A baby lion. I’m a baby lion.”