Page 73 of The Difference of a Darcy
Darcy covered his mouth with a gloved hand, visibly shaking.
She described Longbourn in summer—the way the roses grew wild around the kitchen door, how Mary insisted on practicing her pianoforte during thunderstorms because she believed the lightning added drama.
And how Lydia once claimed to have seen a ghost in the west field.
“My youngest sister often woke in the middle of the night to go downstairs and sneak biscuits and other treats from the kitchen,” Elizabeth said, doing her best to repress her mirth.“She looked out the window on her way down, and there was a pale specter moving across the west field by moonlight.”
“What did she do?” Darcy asked, intrigued by this wholesome view of the lively youngest Bennet daughter.
“She roused the entire house in alarm. Mr. Hill fetched his blunderbuss. But it was only the milk cow, poor thing, who had managed to snag a sheet off the line. It was draped across her horns like a death shroud.”
Darcy gave a quiet, helpless laugh. “I do not know what is better—the ghost cow or the poetry.”
“Oh, just wait,” Elizabeth said, warming to her subject. “One time, Mama insisted that Kitty debut her new cap at Lady Lucas’s garden party, even though I told her the feathers made her look like a goose. But Mama said it wasfashion-forward, and then of course it rained, and the feathers matted straight down her face. Lydia started quacking.”
He shook his head, smiling with disbelief. “You exaggerate.”
“I do not. Jane tried to help by offering her bonnet, but the damage was already done. Charlotte could hardly speak for trying not to laugh, and Mr. Lucas asked if we had brought a new breed of domestic poultry with us.”
Darcy’s laughter faded into something softer. “You… you remember everything so vividly.”
She paused. “Of course I do. This is my whole world.”
Her voice broke slightly on the last word.Will I ever regain my family again?
∞∞∞
Darcy looked down at hiswifewith a feeling of awe. There was no boast in Elizabeth’s voice. Just quiet affection. It madesomething stir in his chest—something that longed for warmth like that.
What would life at Pemberley have been like with so many siblings and a warm, loving family?
She went on to tell him about the time she read all ofRobinson Crusoealoud to Jane during a week of fevers—and changed the ending so that Crusoe married Friday and opened a lending library on the island. “She was nine and crying about Friday dying. I could not bear it.”
Darcy blinked. “You rewroteCrusoe?”
“With a happy ending. Naturally.”
“I cannot tell if I should be impressed or appalled.”
“Both,” she said sweetly. “You will learn that about me.”
He smiled again, then realized he had probably done so more in the last week than in his entire life.
Later still, she told him how her father had once gifted her a volume of Shakespeare’s comedies for her thirteenth birthday. It was the only time he had remembered her birthday without her mother’s prompting.
“I readMuch Adofirst. And I decided then and there that I would never marry anyone who did not at leastattemptto banter with me.”
“High standards,” Darcy murmured.
“You have not yet heard what happened to Mr. Poole a few years ago,” she said with mock severity. “He told me that girls had no head for Shakespeare. I challenged him to a sonnet contest. He fled the next day.”
Darcy pressed a hand to his heart theatrically. “Remind me never to slight the Bard in your presence.”
“Oh, you are quite safe,” she said lightly. “You read. You laugh. And you have not yet compared me to a summer’s day, which is frankly the dullest of all options.”
“I shall aim for something more original, then.” He met her gaze. “You deserve it.”
The air shifted.
