Chapter Seven

Chapter Six

The carriage wound its way slowly up the hillside.

The road to Pemberley was well kept, but still the twisting back and forth made Elizabeth feel a little sick and unable to read her book.

She was rereading Belinda , but this section was not nearly interesting enough to hold her attention under the severe penalty of a headache and a sick stomach. Elizabeth saw Mr. Darcy studying her.

He often studied her.

That look in his eyes made her think of how he came to her bed every night, and then usually fell asleep next to her. Before they were engaged, she had assumed that he stared at her to catalog imperfections. She had not realized the deep desire he felt for her.

He probably had not ceased to notice her every imperfection.

Noticing her noticing him, Darcy smiled, with that small self-satisfied smile he had, and placed his hand on her knee. "We are nearly there."

He had long warm fingers. The wedding band gleamed on his hand. Elizabeth leaned towards his touch, almost wishing that he would stroke her leg like he did at night, in that way which made her whole body tighten with a need for more.

She had proven to be quite as wanton as Papa had accused her of being.

Odd, that that , and not the accusation of her being mercenary, had the ring of truth.

Elizabeth softly put one of her hands over the hand Darcy had put on her knee and pressed his hand tighter against her leg.

She cuddled herself closer to him.

They had been on the road long enough that the heated bricks had become the vaguely warm bricks, and the carriage was cold from the icy December air. The coachman only let the horses move at a walk so that he could carefully watch patches of ice that had formed over the night.

He disapproved of her, he wished to separate her from her family, and he refused to offer any explanation of himself. When he was pushed sufficiently far to become angry, he showed that he also despised that thing in himself that had led him to kiss her and forced them to marry.

But …

When he touched her, he wasn't a hateful arrogant man.

In bed, Elizabeth had a power over him, that when they joined together, how she touched him, and that she accepted him into her, was terribly important to him. He somehow became… innocent. Simpler. Different.

And she loved the way he looked at her as they made love, and she loved how she knew she was wanted.

"You will love Pemberley." He spoke with assurance.

"An order?" She smiled at him.

"I only make orders where such is necessary. This is a confident prediction — I've seen enough of what brings you joy, enough of your habits."

"You have already learned me so well?" Her hand was still on his hand, she wanted to entangle her fingers with his, but she was not brave enough to do so.

"You will like Pemberley. And ah—" He moved his hand away from hers and peered out the window of the carriage. "This stream," he smiled, turning back to her, a happy and unusually relaxed smile, "it is the border between my land, and that of Mr. Pyke's."

The carriage clattered over a small cobblestoned bridge, before the sound became softer again when they reached the packed dirt on the other side.

Darcy had a broad boyish grin as he looked at the trees, glancing in turn out each side of the carriage. "Nothing quite like home!"

They traveled through a small wood. Then Darcy pointed to the fields on the right, with a large barn and farmhouse near the road. "These are mine, and the forest is wholly mine. On the left is freehold land that the old yeomen living there never sold to my ancestors. But fine farmers, and not so prickly as to be unwilling to cooperate in joint matters, so long as they are treated with sufficient respect."

"I am surprised that you condescend to that."

"They are my neighbors, even if they are from a lower station in life."

She could hardly get a full picture of his character. The pictures she had received of him were so often contradictory. And though in the main she tended to dislike him, there was much about him to like.

Despite his obsessive awareness of his superior station with regards to her family, he was always kind and generous to his servants, and he always left ample tips for the innkeepers, and he expected his people to try to avoid making the lives of the staff at the inns they stayed in more difficult.

One part of the solution to the mystery was clear: The innkeepers could never pretend to equality, so he could be the generous lord with them.

But he was in fact a generous lord.

The land displayed wide hedges and fine fields covered in sparse snow. The roads and houses showed signs of recent painting, filling of potholes, and clearing of snow and fallen leaves.

As they went along Darcy pointed out the sights, named the hills, and simply smiled.

It made him seem terribly attractive, and different from the forbidding daytime aspect he usually wore like a cloak. Well did Elizabeth now understand what Bingley had meant when he said that he did not know a more awful object than Darcy on particular occasions, and in particular places, especially when he had nothing to do.

Nothing of that in him now.

"You are very proud of your home."

"I…" Darcy paused. And that relaxed smile crossed his face again. "I am, very. But that is only natural."

"Will we pass near Lambton?"

"Lambton? No, it is five miles distant, and to the west of the house, while we approach from the southeast… Why do you ask? The town is distant enough that we do not often patronize it."

"Oh."

Elizabeth was silent and flushed again. She was disappointed to hear that, though Mrs. Gardiner had repeatedly mentioned that the town was five miles distant, which she realized now made it clear that there would likely be a different market town closer to them. Yet, she'd been hoping to see the place, and spend some time there, simply because it might make her feel a little closer to her aunt, and thus to the world she'd been dragged from.

"Do tell—" Darcy took her hand in his. His finger softly stroked over her knuckles. "It is a charming town. All brown and white timber frame, with a red brick church. Some lovely shops. I remember as a child in my wanderings climbing the old walnut in the village center."

She tilted her head. "I can hardly imagine you wandering so far from home."

"We did." Darcy frowned.

"We? Was it Colonel Fitzwilliam who was your childhood companion in these wanderings?"

Darcy's frown darkened. His hand convulsively gripped hers tighter. He looked out again at the well-kept fields. "But what do you know about Lambton?"

Now it was Elizabeth's turn to flush. She knew her husband's attitudes well enough to suspect that he would not like this. It had been a mistake to ask at all. "My aunt, the wife of my mother's brother, grew up there. She gave me a few messages to deliver to her friends and old acquaintance."

That again.

There was that expression, that sneering, disdainful, hateful expression. Even though the way he kissed and held her at night made her shiver, she must always remember that he despised her. He despised her, and her family, and everyone who did not happily bow deep enough to make it clear they expected nothing but generous condescension from his grandeur.

Darcy looked out at the sun glinting off the snow. The carriage turned up another hill, rising into a forested area away from the tenanted lands. "Another entanglement for the Darcy name with those towards whom we ought to have no obligation.".

"Delivering a note from my aunt to a person does not obligate you towards them."

"When one deals with those of the lower orders, there is never anything simple in what you do. The nature of the relationship must always be made clear, and neither party can overstep those boundaries lest…"

The darkness in his expression deepened, and Elizabeth saw in his frown and eyes some memory of real pain. She became unwillingly sympathetic to him. "What are you frightened of?"

They stared at each other.

He rubbed his hand over his mouth, and Elizabeth looked down.

"I apologize," she said. "That was not—"

"I am not frightened — ah, there—" He pointed to a fine church building half hidden by the woods. "That is the Kympton parish. You can see the parsonage a bit further down, with the church gardens surrounding it. We usually attend Sunday service there."

Was this the church that Darcy had denied Mr. Wickham? His manner in speaking it betrayed no sense of wrongdoing, no sign of guilty conscience. But then if he passed the church often, long familiarity would have worn away any such thoughts.

"Do you go to service each week?" Elizabeth suppressed her urge to ask him about Wickham. There had been enough tension in the past ten minutes of their ride.

"It is my duty, and my desire."

"Very upstanding of you." Elizabeth smiled. "And you provide a proper gentlemanly example to the lower orders."

"It is certain," Darcy replied in a wholly serious manner, "that it would be impossible for them to act in an upright manner without my example."

Elizabeth stared at him, and then his lips twitched and suddenly she found herself laughing.

He grinned at her. "I can tease you as well as you can me."

And there was also this. He had an excellent sense of humor, even if it was often extremely dry. He liked to catch her unawares with a joke told in such a way.

Darcy added, "Though I am not so conceited as to think my example is so necessary, to provide it is a part of my duty. We now are in the grounds of Pemberley itself. I refer only to the park and the house as ‘Pemberley', though the lands about which we have passed through belong to me."

They passed by an artificial ruin in the style of a Grecian temple, made in white marble, with heavy granite benches that overlooked the fields. A young man in farmer's clothes sat on one of the benches, carving slices off a sausage and eating it with torn bread.

Elizabeth half expected Darcy to leap into a rage at seeing an ornamental piece of his park in use by one of his tenants or servants, but the young man simply waved at the passing carriage, and Darcy made a small wave in return.

Still the generous lord.

"A deer!" Elizabeth exclaimed as several crossed the road before them as they went on the path through the forest. "How lovely! — I hope you do not keep them merely to hunt."

Darcy laughed. "Merely to hunt? — Georgiana has your mind as well, that they are too pretty to kill and eat. But I like to have venison on the table from time to time. And the deer would ruin the whole of the park if allowed to breed as freely as they might wish."

"Such lovely woods!"

Darcy smiled with no affectation. "The beauty of our home — but you must reserve a little delight for the building itself. We are coming up on the first view of it now."

They reached the top of a high eminence, where the wood ceased at the top. The carriage pulled to a stop and Darcy gestured to Elizabeth to look out the window closer to himself. The carriage now overlooked a valley, with Pemberley House situated on the opposite side. The road wound below them going up to the entrance of the house, which was a large, handsome stone building, standing on the rising ground, with woody hills behind it. A lovely stream ran in front of it, and the whole made a picturesque .

"I've never seen natural beauty so little damaged by awkward taste," Elizabeth murmured as she stared.

"It is perfect."

Elizabeth felt, in a way that she never had before, not even with the size and respectability of Darcy House, that to be Darcy's wife, to be the mistress of Pemberley was something.

She felt a little shame at how she had absolutely refused to buy more than a few dresses and was deeply aware that this spite at her father would make her seem yet smaller compared to the scope of the house.

They descended the hill, crossed the bridge, and drove to the door.

It was too big.

Too… much.

Elizabeth still didn't want to be Mrs. Darcy.

She hardly knew what to think. Darcy's unthinking arrogance now made sense to her — to grow up in such a place.

Such a place made the words "ten thousand a year" more than just a number, but a clear expression of power, of ancient heritage, of the control over the land on which thousands lived, and of the command of vast amounts of labor.

He was one of the wealthy masters of England, and this was his seat.

The park showed long walks, endless turning paths, a natural, unpretentious feel. Plenty of places to sit and rest, overlooks, endless places to lose herself again and again everywhere and nowhere. She'd seen a half dozen follies, and she was sure there were a huge variety of other beauties just waiting to be discovered.

Leaping fish in the river, and for an instant she thought that her uncle would very much like to try his hand at the trout.

That was a good reminder.

It helped to prevent her from feeling too much happiness at the thought of being mistress of all this. To be mistress of Pemberley was something indeed, but the cost was too high.

Elizabeth had been so absorbed examining the appearance of the house that she had forgotten to be frightened of meeting the staff, until she found the whole horde of them lined up in their coats to greet her in the cold. The large group was fronted by the respectable looking elderly housekeeper. Standing next to the housekeeper was an elegantly dressed young woman, whose facial features were stamped with the same chin and forehead as Darcy's.

The carriage came up the wide gravel drive and pulled up to a stop by the massive staired portico, in front of which the crowd waiting for them stood flanked by huge Ionic marble columns.

Darcy lightly stepped out, smiled towards his retainers, and then gave her his hand to help her out. After an instant of hesitation she took it.

She smiled worriedly at him.

"Welcome home, Mrs. Darcy."

And she smiled, for the first time, at being called that.

But then when she was presented to the servants, for a reason she could hardly describe, Elizabeth found herself trembling.

This didn't make sense. Why was she feeling that way? Why now ?

Don't let this sudden fear show.

Too big.

Mr. Darcy introduced him to his sister, though Elizabeth barely understood a word he said. They exchanged curtsies, and Elizabeth extended her hand and said, "I am very pleased to meet you."

Miss Darcy looked down and mumbled something that Elizabeth could not make out, and then stepped away from her, without looking at her.

Not exactly a warm greeting.

"Welcome, Mrs. Darcy," Mrs. Reynolds, the housekeeper, said cheerfully after Darcy introduced them. "Rather large place, isn't it? But you need not worry about anything. We have it all well in hand."

Lord! Was it so obvious that she was frightened?

"I will be eager to learn everything about your ways of doing things," Elizabeth said in a thin voice, her hand on Darcy's arm not feeling quite right, almost as though it were detached and belonged to someone else. "And I look forward to taking my place in the management of the house once I have familiarized myself."

The way that Mrs. Reynolds nodded said that she was pleased by that answer.

Then a long line of shaken hands, as she was told the name of every servant. She tried to commit them to memory, repeating their names after them each time. But it was useless. Besides, there were so many.

The whole had an air of ceremony, because it was a ceremonious occasion for the staff.

Her steps felt odd as they walked into the house.

Darcy seemed to see nothing of her unwonted mood. He cheerfully shook hands with the senior servants, greeted the junior ones by name, promised a two guineas to everyone in honor of his marriage, and asked the names and positions of the three young servants at the end of the line who had been taken on by the estate over the autumn while he was in the south.

"You must want to refresh yourself after the road," Mrs. Reynolds said. "Your things will be brought up to your room, Mrs. Darcy — ah I see, is this your lady's maid? Mary, I believe the name is?"

The second carriage had come up behind them, and Mary had gotten out and now stood by Elizabeth's shoulder. Elizabeth was startled to see her there; she had not heard the footsteps.

Mary nodded, and there was something in her expression that showed her to be as intimidated by Pemberley as Elizabeth was. "I look forward to working with you — half an hour I think, and then we can give you a tour of the principal rooms of the house."

"Yes, I look forward to that."

Darcy led Elizabeth up the huge staircase in the front gallery, and down the hall, pointing out the portrait of his father, his grandfather, his great uncle the judge, and his Darcy grandmother. He did not, however, make any comment on his own very handsome portrait, which was as large as life, in a naturalistic style and delicate brushwork that exactly caught something of Darcy's expression and character.

Miss Darcy trailed behind, and Elizabeth was sure that she was staring at her from the corner of her eyes, but the girl looked down and away every time Elizabeth directly glanced at her.

Mr. Wickham's model of the girl seemed not quite right. Miss Darcy struck her as more shy than proud. Perhaps it was all the same in some important sense.

Face felt odd and prickly. Hands were not right sized.

The mistress's room had a lovely soft yellow and pink wallpaper, and a grotesquely oversized four poster bed. The ceiling had another painted scene in the French style like the one at Darcy House. Darcy plopped on a chair in the room as soon as they entered and gestured towards a door. "The dressing room. The water closet is behind that. You'd not believe the trouble we had when they first installed it, it created a stink that covered this whole wing of the house. Do not worry about that now though. The maintenance is managed properly."

Elizabeth went into the dressing room, and she stared at herself in the mirror.

Wide eyes. Too wide eyes.

She gripped the dresser that she thought had inlaid lines of gold leaf, and there were precious stones dotted into the frame around the mirror.

She might dissolve and fly away.

A hand on her shoulder. Elizabeth shrieked and jumped.

It was Darcy looking at her, slightly concerned. "I did not mean to scare you."

Elizabeth laughed hysterically in reply. "I am well! Well! Perfectly well!"

She touched the wall and realized that rather than paper it was all covered in a silk hanging. Silk wall coverings, silk curtains, silk sheets, silk dresses, silk everything.

"Elizabeth, are you well?" Darcy's eyes were concerned, and rather surprised.

"It is so big!" she exclaimed. "Too big for comfort."

"Ahhh! That. Yes, I can imagine with your background it would be particularly intimidating and surprising to find yourself the mistress of all this."

With my background .

Elizabeth tried to seize on that. To feel her familiar anger at Darcy again for the way he thought so little of her. But she couldn't, the anxiety was growing in her throat and making it hard to breathe.

He took her in his arms. A squeezing tight hug. He pressed his lips against her hair and whispered, almost like when they joined together, "Lizzy, my dear Lizzy, my dear, dear Lizzy. You will be beyond comparison. You will be a better mistress for Pemberley than anyone else could possibly be. My dear Lizzy, you need not to worry."

Even though that was quite the opposite of what he usually told her, the warmth of his embrace, and the sweet whispers of reassurance, murmuring to her almost as though she were a child with a skinned knee, slowly brought Elizabeth back to herself.

It was in any case not fear of the house and its size alone that had panicked her.

This was home now.

A small part of her soul had hoped she could escape and go back to Longbourn, go back to Papa, and have everything be the same again. Hoped that she could become a girl again, a maiden, a happy laughing creature attending assemblies and reading books without a real worry in her head, but she couldn't.

This was her life, married to this strange, confusing, intense, and ever changing man.

She hugged him back tightly, needing the comfort, even though it shamed her to need it.

And then she started crying.

Darcy seemed to have no idea what to do with that, at first, he shifted to look her in the eyes, but Elizabeth squeezed him harder. "No, no. Just let me cry, I beg you."

He held her tightly and rubbed his hand up and down her back. "There, there. Lizzy, there, there."

Slowly she stopped crying, smiled and began to feel warm again.

He gave her his handkerchief, and she wiped her eyes, and blew her nose in it, and then when she offered it back, he told her to keep it. There was a deep tenderness in his eyes, and Elizabeth saw that he had been moved by the chance to take care of her.

Elizabeth smiled and went to the water basin. She picked up the extremely soft towel, and, after marveling for a second at how fluffy and soft it was, soaked it. She scrubbed it over her face, and then around her neck, under her bun of hair, the whole time aware of Mr. Darcy watching her intently.

She looked at him and smiled at him, unable right now to feel anything but an affection towards him that she could not understand.

He was who he was in the end.

"Do you wish to do anything with the rooms?" Darcy asked, glancing around. "The style is quite old."

Elizabeth shook her head. "No, no. I don't want an extra expense for that."

"It is proper when the new mistress comes for her to—"

Elizabeth raised her hand. "Please, I beg you. Not right now."

He looked at her closely and then walked over and gave her another tight hug.

She buried her face in his chest, and breathed deeply, that scent of dust from the road, the echo of his eau de cologne , and the spicy familiar scent of his body. "Thank you."

He kissed her forehead again. "We do not need to tour the house at all today. You could wait here till dinner, or even till tomorrow if you wish to rest. I would—"

"No, no, no." Elizabeth smiled up at him. "That is not needed at all. Besides, I like Mrs. Reynolds. At least my first impression of her."

"I hope so, I have known her since I was four, and she is one of the finest persons in England."

"Ah, then I must like her," Elizabeth said. "But I will strive to control my contrary instincts and continue to like her even though I have been told that it is my duty to do so."

Darcy laughed. "Now I begin to understand you. That is very like you."

"I have told you, I never wish to say anything," Elizabeth let down her hair as she spoke, and then began to pin it up again in a more comfortable way, "that will not astonish and amaze everyone, and be passed down as a parable."

He grinned at her.

Elizabeth then pushed him towards the door to his dressing room, which adjoined hers. "Now go, so that I can change my dress."

"But I want to stay," he replied, and he kissed her.

Elizabeth sank into the kiss, needing the comfort right now of that closeness, that binding of herself to her husband. Even if she was scared of this life and its irreversibility, she also found comfort in Darcy as the central person in this new life.

His fingers played along the line of buttons on the back of her dress. "You don't need Mary's help to undress."

Her insides tightened and responded to the low seductive tone of his voice.

He pressed his lips on her neck, as his nimble fingers undid one button, then another.

They'd never done this, gone so far in the daylight.

The kiss was endless.

It was impossible for her to not be aware of how handsome he was, how broad his shoulders were, the leanness of his athletic form, the shape of his jaw, and the way his hair fell over his ears and forehead. He was happier and more relaxed here in his real home — she realized that the London house could never be anything more than a waystation for him — than she had ever seen him.

It helped Elizabeth relax and enjoy how he kissed her, the feel of his hands stroking up and down along her back. She tensed with excitement as he undid one button after another on her traveling dress.

She pressed him back when the dress was half undone, "We must meet Mrs. Reynolds. She said a half hour."

"Mrs. Reynolds will wait."

"I'd be too embarrassed to see her." Elizabeth flushed, looking down.

She expected him to resume kissing her. She wanted him. She'd not resist or make any suggestion to stop again.

Instead, Darcy kissed her on the forehead. "You look very well here. In my home. I am glad to have a wife brought home, and… despite everything…" He shrugged, grinned boyishly. "It was bad form. Decided disaster. All of us were in our worst form that night. But you… I could not imagine another woman in the part of Mrs. Darcy. I certainly am not going to spend my life mourning my mistakes, when I can, as you once said, think of that which is good."

His eyes were bright and sweet.

Elizabeth did not know whether to be horribly offended, or if she should feel complimented. Darcy clearly intended her to be complimented.

The confusion made her wanting for him, a sensation she'd not known before, slowly ooze away.

"I will send in your maid to help you dress." Darcy kissed her on the forehead once more. He turned when he reached the door and said, "You won't always be so shy with me."

Elizabeth flushed.

Why did she suddenly want him to admire her person, and those parts of her body that were supposed to remain hidden.

He is your husband. It is only natural.

It was not natural.

Elizabeth growled at herself.

Mary came in, and she efficiently stripped Elizabeth from her dress, making no comment upon how it had been half removed, though she did raise an eyebrow, as though to ask why they had not finished. As she buttoned up Elizabeth's new dress, Mary remarked, "A very romantic gentleman, the master. I would not have guessed it from his manner."

"Nor would I," Elizabeth replied with an embarrassed blush.

"I'd swoon if a man looked at me the way Mr. Darcy looks at you."

Elizabeth laughed. "I can hardly make him out, but I do believe I swooned a little just now."

She went down armed with one of the two everyday dresses she'd ordered, and that Mrs. Gardiner's dressmaker had managed via heroic efforts to finish in time for their departure.

The footman directed her to the drawing room — she'd already forgotten the route, even though Darcy had pointed out the door as they went up to their rooms. When she entered Darcy lit up and smiled at her. He stood painfully handsome and tall in a new coat that she'd never seen him wear before. It was green and the silk waistcoat fit closely around her husband's chest.

Lips on her neck. That seductive whispering voice. And the way he smelled.

It was much easier to look at Mrs. Reynolds and Miss Darcy.

Elizabeth greeted Miss Darcy with a smile, wholly unwilling to allow the younger girl to frighten her, no matter how tall and elegantly dressed she was.

Miss Darcy said little in response to Elizabeth, and Mrs. Reynolds asked, "Where do you wish to start? Kitchens? The gallery with all the portraits?"

"The library of course," Darcy said laughing. "We've additions to deposit from Mrs. Darcy's purchases."

"No, no. The library is dessert ," Elizabeth replied. "We start there, and I'll not leave until I've read the titles of every book."

"That might take a long time," Miss Darcy said quietly. "We have so many books."

"Do you particularly like to read?" Elizabeth asked. "Novels, or something else."

The girl flushed, looked at Mr. Darcy, and then mumbled something.

"What was that, Georgie?" Darcy asked.

"Oh, you know that I only read novels if you gave them to me first. But I like travel narratives very much. Captain Cook's Voyages are my favorite."

Elizabeth looked at Darcy with a raised eyebrow.

He said in reply, "It is my view that until a girl is of age, and no longer the responsibility of the guardian, that he ought to have a good notion of what she is reading — but if there is some book you think appropriate, you may suggest it to Georgiana."

"Then if the library is to be last, we might start with the great ballroom in the opposite wing of the house, and we can circle back around." Mrs. Reynolds spoke in a practical tone.

"I deliver myself into your capable hands," Elizabeth replied.

"I am very glad that the house shall have a mistress again," Mrs. Reynolds said. "An estate of this sort ought to have a woman to supervise the household matters that the master simply cannot be expected to."

"Flower arrangements and the like?" Elizabeth asked, laughing. She believed that Mrs. Reynolds wished to say, without saying, that she would not make difficulties for the new mistress. A woman who had superintended the management of the house, likely since the death of Darcy's mother, which Elizabeth believed to have been ten years ago, could hardly feel entirely comfortable at being pushed from that position of supremacy over the household. "I know I will depend upon you greatly, especially as I learn the habits and customs of the estates."

"Flower arrangement, and choosing the gifts for the servants, and arranging entertainments — and updating the decor of the house. You understand how in such matters it is best for the family to be part of the decision — begging your pardon, Mr. Darcy, but a bachelor and his young sister simply are not the same as a wife."

"I am very well aware," Darcy smirked at Elizabeth in a way that made something inside her flutter oddly, "of the difference between a bachelor and a married man."

"I hope," Mrs. Reynolds added, "that we will be able to have balls and entertainments once more, to perhaps return things a little to the way that they were in your mother's time. Mrs. Darcy hosted balls, and grand parties, and the house was alive and active. This great manse was built to be the heart of the neighborhood. Poor Mr. Darcy — that is the master's father," she said, glancing at the current Mr. Darcy, "did not have the heart to entertain so often after his wife died."

Elizabeth glanced at Darcy, and his mouth was thinner as though he was remembering.

They entered the ballroom and Elizabeth gasped to see it. The room was larger than the assembly rooms in Meryton. Elizabeth was sure she had never been in a bigger room in a private house. The sun, already past its zenith and slowly setting, peeked through the tall, mullioned windows. Crystal chandeliers hung from above, the back wall had many mirrors set in it, and the whole view overlooked the lovely gardens and park of Pemberley.

The room was also cold, as there was no fire in the grates.

"I am convinced," Elizabeth said after taking in the room wide eyed. "We must throw a great entertainment every night."

Darcy laughed. " I am not prepared for an entertainment every night."

"No matter how much you prefer the family circle," she replied impishly, "if you own a ballroom such as this, you have no choice."

He grinned at her. "I do not think I have an obligation to my ballroom."

Stretching her arms out and slowly turning around while studying the ceiling Elizabeth deliberately looked at the whole room. She then said to Darcy, "Apologies, good gentleman, but you do."

"We'll turn it into a boxing ring," he replied seriously. "And I'll be required to lose my fortune betting on who will win at fisticuffs every day."

Elizabeth giggled.

Suddenly she realized that Darcy actually enjoyed it when she disagreed with him. He was like her father in that way. This made her feel an unexpected warmth of liking and friendly feeling towards him. "No, no!" she exclaimed, "we'll turn it into an extension of the library. But then you'll need to host reading contests."

Now Miss Darcy chuckled, to Elizabeth's surprise. "What does a reading contest involve?"

"Who can finish a book the fastest?" Elizabeth suggested.

"Not a sound contest," Darcy said. "Not unless you have someone who knows the book well to question them upon it. Otherwise, someone might claim to have read the whole book, without having done so."

"But then it becomes a question of how well a person can remember the text, or skim thoroughly enough to memorize the answer to the likely questions." Elizabeth rubbed her hands together. They were stiffening in the cold.

Mrs. Reynolds shivered and said, "Without the fires this room is too cold for my old joints. On to the gallery."

As they shuffled out, Elizabeth said with a smile, "This room demands something at least every month."

He smiled at her. "I thought we would have a ball for New Year's Eve."

That brought her nervousness about being the mistress of this house forward again. But now it was actually about being the mistress. How would she manage? This was far beyond what her mother had taught her.

But with a smile Elizabeth said, "I like that notion, but Mrs. Reynolds, you are the one who will have the most work for it. Two weeks to prepare a great ball?"

"I believe the white soup can be set in time, and the invitations printed," the housekeeper replied in a manner that suggested to Elizabeth that she had her own sense of dry humor that was similar to Darcy's.

"Miss Darcy," Elizabeth asked, "will you like to have a ball thrown?"

The girl flushed and looked down.

"Georgiana is not yet out," Darcy replied. "Unlike your sister who I believe is only fifteen, I thought it prudent to wait longer."

Miss Darcy stared at the floor, and Elizabeth gained the sense that there was some story to this beyond what Darcy had just said.

Also, Elizabeth realized she could have become offended by his reference to Lydia, had she been in such a mood. To her own surprise, however, at present she did not want to feel unhappy with her husband.

"I have always thought my sisters came out rather too early — Lydia even more than Kitty. Mama insisted, and while they do get their part of the fun, I have never thought it had been wise."

Darcy gave her a surprised look, as though he had not expected her to ever admit a flaw in her family.

"And when does Miss Darcy come out?" Elizabeth asked, speaking to both Miss Darcy and Mr. Darcy. "From your protective manner, I assume that you shall only permit society to see her when she is past five and twenty, and old enough that you can be certain she will make no foolish decisions."

That had an unexpected result of giving Miss Darcy a deflated, sad, and unhappy countenance. She turned and stared at one of the portraits along the gallery wall.

Elizabeth frowned, wondering what could be the matter with her. Darcy frowned at his sister as well.

"Not that I can imagine you ever," Elizabeth said to Miss Darcy, "making a particularly foolish decision, even at your present age."

"Oh!" Georgiana whimpered and pressed her hand to her mouth.

The whole episode gave Elizabeth a rather different impression of her character than she'd had a minute before. At the very least, the girl had done something that she considered as having been a very foolish decision.

Elizabeth did not consider it proper to reassure Miss Darcy by saying: Do not worry about whatever you did. Your brother and I acted stupider by far. We kissed in a room surrounded by witnesses when neither of us wished to marry the other.

Elizabeth viewed there as little chance that Mr. Darcy had given a sister twelve years his junior the details of how they had formed their engagement.

After an awkward period, Darcy put his arm around Miss Darcy who embraced him back. He then looked at Elizabeth with that dry smile that he had when amused, and said, "My intention had been to only let her come out when she turned twenty-five, but recently I learned the shocking fact that it is possible for those over twenty-five to make foolish decisions."

Even though the words could have stung, something about how he said it made Elizabeth feel included, as though they were laughing at themselves together. "Thirty then?"

Darcy laughed. "Perhaps twenty. But the woman principally affected should have some say in the matter." He squeezed Miss Darcy closer to his side and then let her go, asking as he did, "So Georgie, when would you like to come out?"

"Oh, certainly not yet!" She then looked down again.

The girl was shy, not proud.

They continued on, Mrs. Reynolds started showing the group some of the many, many guest rooms, pointing about them, and saying, "The decorations must be renewed — you see how the silk shows its age. And the style is from the early years of His Majesty's reign. I know you must want to make many changes."

"Not precipitously." Elizabeth laughed. "And you must give me time to familiarize myself with matters. At present I chiefly wish to know why you manage as you do, so that any suggestions I make will be informed."

"The estate is in excellent repair," Mrs. Reynolds added. "You will at least wish to update the furniture. Many pieces date to Mr. Darcy's grandfather's time or even earlier."

"How lovely! I adore antique furniture," Elizabeth replied. "You shall not find me an ally in changing out the old pieces. What I have seen of the house is precisely as it ought to be."

That answer brought a glow of satisfaction to both the master and the housekeeper, though Miss Darcy remained in the gloomy mood that the conversation about mistakes and foolish decisions had thrown her.

"Here is the painting that Owen did of Mr. Darcy shortly after he gained the estate, and as you can see it is very like him."

"Very like him indeed." Elizabeth looked between the portrait and the original.

Darcy shook his head half embarrassedly. "He made me look too pretty."

"I'll not hear that!" Elizabeth laughed. "Besides, is that not the purpose of the portraitist? To bring out the beauty in his subject, no matter how difficult it might be to mine? — the poor man."

"You mean to say that it would have been particularly hard to find the beauty in me?" Darcy asked.

"No, no." Elizabeth shot her husband a smiling glance. "Merely that I assume he must have found it so very difficult to paint a portrait when there was no difficulty of the sort."

Darcy's face heated, and he rubbed at the back of his neck and looked down.

It was a little like when they were in bed. She had a deep influence over him.

"Be honest, you told the artist to make you look as ugly as possible."

With a laugh, Darcy replied, "I may have quoted Cromwell, ‘flatter me not at all; pimples, warts, and everything you see'."

Mrs. Reynolds led them to another room off the gallery, saying, "This was the late master's favorite room. We have kept it mostly the same as it was during his life."

They entered, and Mr. Darcy went to look at the bookshelves stacked with what presumably had been his father's favorite books with a pensive frown. Miss Darcy looked out the window. Elizabeth noticed several miniatures hung up over the mantelpiece, and she thought one of them was of her husband, so she went closer to look.

Hanging next to the miniature of Mr. Darcy was one of Mr. Wickham. He looked as charming as in life, but younger. It shocked her to see the picture here, given the antipathy between Darcy and Wickham — a distaste her husband had still not deigned to explain to her.

Seeing Elizabeth staring at the picture, Mrs. Reynolds said, "This was the son of the late master's steward, he was brought up by the late master at his own expense, but he is now gone into the army, and I am afraid that he has turned out very wild."

"Mr. Wickham. I am acquainted with him. He joined the militia regiment stationed in Meryton, not a mile from my home."

"You know him? How does he do? Poor boy! I loved him dearly. He always could make us laugh, and his father was my dearest friend before he died. But the lad took more after his mother than his father, or his godfather. But he still has a dear place in my heart."

"He told me that the late Mr. Darcy was the truest friend he ever had," Elizabeth replied.

"Oh, the poor boy!"

Both Mr. Darcy and Miss Darcy came up behind them.

"You know Mr. Wickham!" Miss Darcy exclaimed in surprise.

"In Hertfordshire," Elizabeth replied. "He joined the regiment this autumn."

"Did he… say anything of me?" She then flushed and looked down.

Darcy glared at the portrait, as though he were willing it to wither away.

"Not a great deal," Elizabeth replied. She gave Darcy a winsome smile, though something in her stomach was suddenly hollow. "I merely understand that there is some serious disagreement between Mr. Wickham and the family. One whose details my husband simply will not explain."

"Burn it. Have it destroyed." Darcy's voice was harsh, and he did not take his loathing glare off of the portrait.

"You can't!" Miss Darcy exclaimed. "Fitzwilliam!"

Darcy did not look at his sister. He ripped the frame off of its hook and handed it to Mrs. Reynolds. "Only burn the painting, but I wish to never see even the frame again."

Mrs. Reynolds' eyes were quite wide as she took the miniature into her hands.

Clearly, she had not expected this from her usually even tempered master.

"You can't!" Miss Darcy repeated. "It was Father's."

Darcy looked at his sister. His hand clenched into a fist, and then he unclenched it and held his arm stiffly against his side. "Have you—" Darcy then closed his mouth and stared at his sister. "My decision is final."

After saying that he coldly walked out of the room leaving all of them behind, as Mrs. Reynolds held the portrait and stared blankly at it.

"Let me have it," Miss Darcy suddenly said. "It isn't right. It brought Papa comfort. It shouldn't be destroyed because of…"

"Quite a surprise," Mrs. Reynolds said. "The master almost worships his father. I never thought I'd see the day he'd let this room be changed."

"Please let me have the miniature. I'll hide it. Fitzwilliam won't ever know."

"I don't think—"

"Please! I beg you!" Miss Darcy turned to Elizabeth with pleading eyes. "You won't tell him, will you?"

"I was given a direct order," Mrs. Reynolds said. "I do not intend to disobey."

"Please? Please? Please?"

"You won't wheedle me."

"Were you in love with Mr. Wickham?" Elizabeth suddenly asked her sister-in-law, part of the mystery falling into place.

To Elizabeth's surprise Mrs. Reynolds flushed for a moment, seemingly until she realized that Elizabeth had directed the question to Miss Darcy, and not her. The old woman had said that the previous Mr. Wickham, her officer's father, had been her dearest friend. Perhaps that meant more than simply friendship?

For her part, Miss Darcy went white. She hesitated for a delay of three breaths, and then thinly exclaimed, "N-n-no! Of course not!"

The stammer did not make the statement more believable.

"A childhood crush? He is a very well appearing fellow." Elizabeth smiled, trying to speak as she would have to one of her younger sisters. "An excellent walk and the finest manners and countenance. Wickham is a very personable man. I dare say that I was halfway in love with him for an evening or two."

Miss Darcy looked down, now very red. Mrs. Reynolds had a quite curious expression as she studied Miss Darcy.

"Please, please, Mrs. Reynolds, please don't destroy it." Miss Darcy begged again.

"I do not see what harm the portrait can do," Elizabeth said. "And it was your father's as much as it was Mr. Darcy's. Mrs. Reynolds, I think it best that we let Miss Darcy keep it."

Mrs. Reynolds shook her head slowly.

Elizabeth replied with firmness, though she had no idea if Mrs. Reynolds would respect her will in this. "If he should ever find out, tell him that it was my order that Miss Darcy be allowed to have painting."

"I am not in the habit of disobeying Mr. Darcy."

Elizabeth stared at her. "We can bring the subject before him. But you know that whatever Mr. Wickham did to annoy Mr. Darcy so severely, this poor miniature does not deserve to suffer for it."

Mrs. Reynolds studied the face in her hand. It was clear to Elizabeth that she desperately did not want to destroy the painting. "He was always such a mischievous boy. And now gone into the militia? Poor child. I know Mr. Darcy — that is the old master — had meant to do better by him than that. I am certain Mr. Darcy had his reasons for breaking with Mr. Wickham, and that he did all that is honorable."

The three of them were silent, and then Miss Darcy reached out and pulled the portrait out of Mrs. Reynolds hands. The older lady limply let her take it, and then Miss Darcy, with a sort of affectionate gesture that Elizabeth had not expected from her, threw her arms around the housekeeper, and said, "Thank you! Thank you!"

The young woman ran off.

Mrs. Reynolds shook her head. "There will be trouble for this. There will be. We ought not defy the master in such a way. He has his reasons."

Elizabeth shrugged.

"But you are his wife, it is not my place to argue. And it was not right to simply have it destroyed."

"What was he like as a child?"

"Mr. Wickham? A bright mischievous lad. Master Fitzwilliam and he were inseparable — he was always followed behind Master Fitzwilliam. He was three years younger, and we thought Mrs. Darcy was barren after the master was born. She didn't show a sign of anything — never missing the monthlies, never being sick in the morning. Not until Georgiana, not so far as I know."

"Oh."

Mrs. Reynolds shook her head. "What ever happened between them? I had heard that he'd gone a little wild, taken on some debts. But he was always such a charming boy — the best natured smile you could imagine."

"I have met him, so I can imagine."

"Does he still look the gentleman?"

"Very much. His manners and his comportment are exquisite."

"I am glad to hear it. His father, old Mr. Wickham… I mourned for months when he died. His wife did not deserve him. Ah, but that is often how it is."

The housekeeper turned a piercing look on Elizabeth, as though to say that she was not at all convinced that the new Mrs. Darcy was worthy of her master.

"I had meant to ask about Mr. Darcy," Elizabeth said, "What was he like as a child?"

"Ah! The master. The sweetest-tempered, most generous-hearted boy in the world. But I have always observed that those who are good-natured when children are good-natured when they grow up. It is no surprise then that he has turned out so well."

Elizabeth nodded, not sure how well she thought he'd grown up. She always had such a mix of emotions about him.

"And now the kitchens — I can happily inform you that we do not have one of the temperamental French chefs that have become fashionable. A solid Englishman who can be told that a man prefers the soup more or less seasoned without taking the profoundest insult to his honor — though he will insist you taste the soup once as he meant it to be done before he adjusts the seasoning."

"I confess that I find that," Elizabeth laughed, "a wholly reasonable demand. "