Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Two

Elizabeth woke quite early the next morning, ravenously hungry as they had not only wholly skipped dinner but spent the time instead in vigorous exercise.

She did not move for a while, cuddling up next to Darcy, enjoying the feel of his arm against her cheek, the way that his body rose and fell with each peaceful breath, and then, driven by an instinct she did not understand, she wrapped her fingers in his while he slept.

He was very large and strong. And wholly naked. She was also naked. She had not really seen him while he was naked before. Not until they had risen from the couch to go to her bedroom. There was something about his stride then, like the movement of a young, vigorous stallion.

Which he was.

She studied him. It was too cold for her to do what she really wished and pull the blankets back to see him and study him freely. Perhaps she would dare to ask him for such a chance when the weather turned warmer. That would be very daring, even though they were husband and wife, but she had been daring yesterday.

He loved her.

She'd known he admired her, lusted for her, desired her before.

But there had been something more, something deeply tender yesterday. And her heart longed to respond in the same way.

Yet, as she had said last night, everything was so new. She simply wanted to enjoy the sensation she had now, the way she felt at present.

When she glanced back up at his face, he had awoken, and he looked at her with a soft smile.

She kissed him tightly.

She was now as filled with lust for her husband as he was for her.

When they went down to breakfast later, Georgiana blushed to see them, but made no comment upon how they had not appeared for dinner. Elizabeth cheerily greeted her, while Darcy also blushed.

The siblings could not meet each other's eyes for a good ten minutes.

While she was starving, as soon as she started to eat, Elizabeth felt the nausea again, and she could only take very small bites of the toast that was now her perennial breakfast companion.

Darcy at once noted this, and he went pale. "You are still ill? We must call the apothecary, and—"

Elizabeth raised her hand, smiling at him with a happy glow.

The hesitation that she'd felt before, even during the previous night, about telling him was completely gone. She just felt a simple happiness that she was bearing his child, and because she hoped that the news would bring him joy. "I have already been seen by the apothecary, and there is nothing to worry about… or it may be more accurate to say that my indisposition is wholly ordinary and expected in my current condition."

He looked at her, seemingly surprised by Elizabeth's broad smile.

"But—" His eyes then widened, and he looked to her belly, and back up to her smiling face, and back towards her belly.

As he did so her smile continued to widen.

Georgiana exclaimed, "I thought that was the case! But you would not say anything to me, and when I asked Mrs. Reynolds, she just told me not to worry."

"But, are you sure?" Darcy asked.

"Reasonably so. One is not supposed to be confident until the quickening, but it has been many weeks since my last monthly courses, and all of the symptoms are what is ordinary when one is in the family way — I apologize for not saying as much to you earlier, Georgie, I wished to tell your brother first, and in person."

The joy that spread across her husband's face fully answered her hope that the news would bring him happiness. He leapt from his seat, pulled her from her chair, picked her up and swung her round and around. Then he put her back down, backing away with a worried expression. "I hope I didn't just — and last night when we…" His eyes turned towards Georgiana again, and he had an almost ashamed expression.

"Nonsense." Elizabeth laughed. "According to both my mother and my aunt, vigorous physical activity," — half against her intent, a leer came into her voice and eyes as she said vigorous physical activity — "is an aid to the development of the child."

"Ah. The advice of two worthy ladies is certainly worth more than that of any learned gentleman physician."

Elizabeth pouted in reply to that.

Darcy grinned, a handsome smile that made her stomach flutter. "I am more than half serious. I do not trust learned medical gentlemen. I have read too much written by them to trust them, especially when they are confident… when your time comes it might be better if a midwife was present rather than an accoucheur. My mother had one when I was born, and she always swore that the difficult birth would have killed both of us otherwise."

"Oh." Elizabeth looked at him, half in wonder. "I did not know that."

"Neither did I," Georgiana said, looking between them with wide eyes. "Lizzy, you truly are with child?"

"I truly believe that I am." Elizabeth replied, "And god willing, you will soon be the most useful aunt in England."

"I must imagine," Darcy said, "that there is a great deal neither of us know about the other. I am determined to see that as an opportunity."

"Oh, no! Do you mean that we will have nothing to speak of once we have exchanged all our childhood stories?" Elizabeth gasped and pressed her hand against her mouth as though in horror.

Darcy stepped close to her and whispered into her ear, quietly enough that Georgiana likely could not hear, "I can imagine things we might do when we cannot talk."

That was unexpected from him.

"I know you are flirting," Georgiana said. "And shockingly so. No need to whisper."

"On the contrary, I think he must." Elizabeth's face had gone hot and flushed, and her heart was happy. "You could have been a successful rake had your principles allowed you."

"No?" Darcy replied. He nervously asked, "You are certain that you wish to continue to walk so much, and make the journey south? It is long, and then we shall need to return to the north, and—"

"I am with child, not ill." Elizabeth smiled at him. His sudden worry was endearing. "My mother spent her entire confinement with Lydia taking the carriage to every ball in the neighborhood, and begging Papa until he took her to London for a week when she was already grown very large."

"Ah, now I understand your sister's character."

Elizabeth sputtered, and coughed on the milky tea she was drinking. "And at last, I do as well."

"My wisdom enlightens."

Elizabeth grinned and shook her head. "Join me for the walk? — I wish to keep the habit of walking with Georgiana each morning, but I do not think she would be too disappointed, if we spent one day just the two of us."

"I certainly will," Georgiana replied to Elizabeth. "You'll wholly forget me now that my brother is here—" Then she blushed looking at her brother. "I mean of course I do not mind."

"If you wish to come with us," he said, "I would not—"

"No, no, no!" Georgiana exclaimed. "Besides, you shall flirt and do married things . Like I know you did all evening." She went very red. "I'll have enough of Lizzy once you have been back for a few days."

Despite Georgiana's assent, once Elizabeth had donned her coat, she quickly hurried to Georgiana's room. She found the girl engrossed in a novel, but she put it down when Elizabeth entered the room.

"You truly do not mind that I will walk with your brother this morning?"

Georgiana waved her away and picked up the book again. "I am near the best part — oh, I could read it a thousand times, and my heart would still pound each time. You go, we'll take a walk this afternoon before dinner, if the weather holds."

A large bank of clouds sat out in the distance, visible through Georgiana's big window. They would be well for another hour or two, but not likely after that.

Elizabeth smiled. "And we'll walk the galleries till the floors must be replaced if it snows again!"

With a laugh and wave of the book in her hand Georgiana acknowledged Elizabeth's plan.

Elizabeth hurried down, her heart light and eager to see Darcy again. It was a feeling that she liked having.

He waited for her, dressed in his greatcoat, and he looked so handsome when he smiled at her that it made it hard to breathe.

When they stepped out, Darcy studied the snow covered fields. While today and yesterday were bright, the snow had fallen heavily over the weekend. And the distant bank of clouds promised yet more snow. "You do not mind the cold."

"Invigorating. Besides, I like the look of heavy coats. Their style is fetching on me."

"Everything is fetching on you."

Elizabeth blushed again.

She took his offered arm, and the two of them strolled out. "I never imagined that you were so funny."

Darcy started. "I do believe you are the first person to ever say that about me."

"Well shouldn't a wife know her husband's virtues the best?" Elizabeth replied primly.

Darcy laughed. "I shall make no argument with you. All my defects are to be in your keeping, to be claimed as virtues, while I shall keep your virtues, which will be an even more difficult task, as the plain truth will be seen as lies by everyone."

Elizabeth pushed his shoulder, grinning, "Flattery."

"No… well maybe I shall need to exaggerate a little if I wish to convince everyone I am engaged in pretense when I describe your perfections. But not—" Their eyes met again, and both of them paused for what seemed to Elizabeth a terribly long time, her heart beating in her throat. Darcy breathed out again, and he said fervently, "I would not need to exaggerate much."

If he'd spoken like that before he'd gone off, she wouldn't have been so angry… honestly, she had no notion of how she would have responded to Darcy's affection then.

"What is your favorite way?" Darcy asked as they came up to a splitting in the path, one way leading in a circle around the manor house, and the other towards the woods along the trout stream. "I dare say by now you must half know the footpaths as well as I do."

"No, no, I cannot," Elizabeth replied feelingly. "One can never really know a place until they have seen it in all four seasons."

"I love spring the most. Though autumn is beautiful, and summer is almost always the most pleasant," Darcy replied. "The shoots pushing their way up through the ground. The little buds of the leaves first opening, the flowers blooming, the birds pursuing each other full of love and lust, the scents of growth."

Elizabeth smiled. "I love autumn most because the leaves are pretty."

They walked around hedges and down past the stream, which Elizabeth had been told flowed fast enough that it almost never froze, and even then, only at parts of the surface, so that the fish could survive.

"My father died in the middle of winter — around this time of year. I know that this sounds like a thing from a poem — even a bad poem — but I swear, it was only when I saw the leaves budding, and the grasses pushing up through the ground that I truly accepted that he was gone, and that I could mourn him and remember him."

"What was he like?"

"Tall, handsome, quiet. He almost never laughed, especially after Mama died. He did not tend to drink, nor to gambling. He was always generous when someone had a misfortune beyond their control, but he also always expected the rents to be paid as due. He supported the Tories, while I am of a more Whiggish mindset — but do not tell my uncle that."

Elizabeth pinched her lips together with a finger. She then decided to add after a moment, "Papa and I tend towards Whiggery as well."

Darcy laughed. "We are not such a political family. Service to the king, and to the country, but we have never looked to have a high place in parliament or to change the country. It is the land around — that is what Papa would say. The land is eternal, the land was here before there were Darcys, and it will be there after our name is forgotten. That is what matters. And that we fulfill our duty to those who live upon it."

"Did he work hard like you?"

"Harder… he rather disliked himself when he did not have a task before him. He had few friends. He despised novels, he did not like ancient scholarship, though he tolerated how much I enjoyed Greek when I was in university. He read agricultural journals, and he made sure he knew about scientific advances in case any of them could be applied profitably to the estate — but otherwise, there was nothing he liked so much as planning out improvements, riding the land, even helping to dig the ditches for the drainage pipes — he kept that as secret as possible, lest it be known and damage his dignity."

"Very much like you, and yet very different at the same time."

"I wonder what our child will be like? — Mr. Wickham was in truth the man who knew him best — I mean the old steward. But Wickham, the present Mr. Wickham, I only ever saw my father smile and forget himself with him."

"Never with you?"

"No. I — it is a matter I still cannot decide in my heart. Did that mean that he loved Wickham more? Or did he love me too much to lose an opportunity to train me to be the heir he wished? He was satisfied with me. He told me he was proud of me. On the day he died. Those were nearly his last words, except he then asked when Wickham would arrive. And then he died before Wickham did."

"You wish there had been more affection."

"Discipline and duty are important. The heir must be of sufficient quality."

Elizabeth walked on with him. She thought about her own father. His failings, and his strengths, and the way that while she could forgive him, she could not forget how he had hurt and disappointed her. They crossed a bridge over the stream again, and on the far side she bent to pick up some snow and shape it into a ball.

"I promise, if you throw that at me, I will throw one back," Darcy said, his eyes twinkling.

"Then I shall wait," Elizabeth replied grinning, "until we walk out with Georgiana, I believe I can rely upon her to make the odds even."

So saying she tossed it against a tree.

"Two of you against me?"

"You are very tall."

Darcy thought about that for a moment. "That is not fair, it only makes me a bigger target."

Elizabeth laughed. She was delighted when he joked.

"No truly," he insisted.

"I would never wish for my child… for our child to not… always know that they are loved," Elizabeth said passionately. "You are a man with a deep ability to be kind and affectionate. I thought for a long time that you could not smile. Or that you hardly did. That you had little sense of humor, that you were cold and filled with a sense of your own pride and importance. I understand how you find it difficult to be sweet and easy with most people, but you must promise me that you will make certain that our child, especially if we should have a son, sees this part of your nature, sees the ways that you can be kind and sweet."

He nodded. "Pride is important, but I wish there to be love as well. Always love."

"And always an acceptance for human frailty—"

"Believe me," Darcy said dryly, "I have learned that I must accept that ."

"My father seldom works, and the only reason he does not read many novels is because he finds history and science more amusing," Elizabeth said. "A balance is best."

"Perhaps the lack of a son to pass the estate on to discourages him from putting any great effort into its improvement," Darcy replied. But something about the way he spoke showed clearly that he disapproved, nonetheless.

"Mama always has been so unhappy and nervous about if we would marry. It has been fifteen years since Lydia was born, and he sets nothing aside for our dowries."

When Darcy did not reply, Elizabeth glanced at him.

He said, "You will have to tell me directly if you wish for me to either abuse your father or to defend him."

Elizabeth laughed. " Your way of thinking, both in your virtues and your defects is very different than his."

"I do like him. He called on me in London, to encourage me to return. But his effort was wholly superfluous as I had already determined I would set off the next day… it was your letter, you know, that led me to come. It gave me hope, as I had not had before."

Elizabeth flushed. "Oh no! I now must say something that might encourage you to like my father yet further. It was his letter to me that encouraged me to write that letter."

Darcy laughed for a long time.

A very handsome sound that Elizabeth liked.

"He has been scheming to improve our marriage," Darcy said. "I do not know that I like to be schemed for any more than I would like to be schemed against."

"Being schemed for is wholly superior in my view."

"Ah, but he insisted that his motives were wholly selfish, so I do not need to worry about that question. He insisted that he only wished us to reconcile, so that I could say a good word to you on his behalf."

Elizabeth giggled. "Papa." She sighed. "I do not know that I have yet lost all my angry feelings towards him."

"And are you glad I came home?" His voice was suddenly small, the voice of a boy who wasn't sure if his father loved him.

"Very much."

"You wrote that you wanted to see me, but the way you wrote was restrained."

Elizabeth nearly laughed, but instead she pressed her gloved hand against his cheek as they looked at each other.

"I did not know how much I had missed you until I saw you in the stables in that wet shirt."

"That wet shirt, you are quite focused on the wetness of the shirt."

Elizabeth laughed. "Come summer, I will expect to see you wandering the estate like a barbarian, only wearing a wet shirt."

"It will dry."

"That is what the pond is for. I shall decree that you jump back into it every time you note that the shirt has become merely damp."

They kissed again, sweetly and for a long soft time before they took the final turn that brought them back to Pemberley .