Page 65 of One Night with Mr. Darcy
Elizabeth pushed herself up into a seated position against the headboard. “Oh my, he just said a sentence.”
“Sentence,” repeated Willie. “Sentence, sentence, sentence.”
She laughed softly. “Good morning, my beautiful boy.”
“He doesn’t speak in sentences, does he?” said Mr. Darcy.
“I’m told it’s no cause for concern, that he will get there,” said Elizabeth. “But I can’t say it banishes my concern, all the same.”
“He’s a very intelligent little boy,” said Mr. Darcy, smiling affectionately up at his small son. “I can tell these things.”
She laughed. “And you’re not the least bit biased, I see.”
He laughed too. He sat up, too, holding Willie’s small body against his, and he felt a wave of such love and joy and togetherness that he felt as if it might drown him and that he would enjoy the deluge. He wanted this, every morning, this, the three of them. This was his family.
And therein lay the problem, of course.
“I need to go,” he said. “You’ll have a maid popping in here soon enough, no doubt. I cannot be here when that happens.”
“She’ll knock,” said Elizabeth. “But you’re right. You must go.”
“We have things to discuss,” he said.
“After breakfast,” she said. “I shall take Willie out to let him run about in the gardens. We can happen upon each other and talk while he runs ahead and keep him from getting into too much mischief.”
“It’s a plan, then,” he said, gazing at her beautiful face. “I cannot wait until I’m alone with you again.”
She blushed prettily.
He wanted to kiss her.
Best not in front of the child.
He left.
“MY SISTER ISshaken and likely will never truly be whole,” Mr. Darcy was saying as he and Elizabeth walked behind their tiny son, who was chasing after a butterfly and falling down every so often on his bottom. He just pushed himself back up and determinedly went after the thing, which seemed to be fluttering all over around the little boy’s head, as if it were engaging in play with him.
Elizabeth didn’t know what to make of that. She didn’t believe in signs or portents, but it seemed to her a sort of balance—the butterfly here to be beauty in stark opposition to the sheer ugliness of the day before.
Mr. Darcy continued. “But I think she is better already. In some intangible way, free. I have never seen her so free, I don’t believe. She…”
“Yes, the blankets are gone. She is eating. I think she is confused. Things she said to me… he twisted her mind. He told her so many lies.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Darcy. “I don’t know how to help her, what to do, but I know I must. I need to be there for my sister.”
“She has a great deal of healing to do,” said Elizabeth. “But perhaps she can do it here.”
“Yes,” he said, and he reached down and took her hand. “Yes, here, at Rosings, with you, and with Willie, and… yes.”
She smiled up at him and he smiled down at her.
“We will be sending the body along to Pemberley,” said Mr. Darcy. “Along with our regrets that we cannot come for a funeral. Wickham will be mourned and buried and gone. I almost wish I could destroy his good name. It will wound me to hear people speak well of him, but that would only serve to further hurt Georgiana, if it were known what he had done to her. I can’t think the other women who he’s been hurting would relish that being known of them either. So, it is best all around this way.”
“Yes,” she said. “And it is just an accident, that is all anyone thinks.” The footman with the colonel apparently had seen her take hold of Wickham’s ankles but had interpreted it as her trying to pull him back in and being unable to do so. So, everyone thought she had done her best to save Mr. Wickham’s life, and she was not about to disabuse them of it.
“Richard wanted me to tell you that it was he who ended his life, not you.”
“Oh.” She turned to him, eyes wide. “Yes, I wondered. I looked down. He was… moving.”
