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Amanda startled from her sleep when she heard a faint knocking sound. Still half asleep, she pulled herself from the warm embrace and cosy sheets to stumble to the door. Cracking it open, she found a young lady far too chirpy for the late hour.
"Oh Lordy, I forgot," laughed Lydia Bennet. "You're a married woman now. Mamma always said that married couples behind closed doors should not be disturbed."
"What do you want Lydia?" asked the tired woman blearily, resting her head against the door.
"What peculiar nightwear you have," said teenager with a short attention span, both mortified and intrigued. "Is that your nightgown?"
"What? This?" replied the modern woman, looking down. "No, it's Darcy's." She could see that the revelation was suitably scandalous for the youngest Bennett and ushered her away. "I will see you in the morn Lydia."
The young girl winked – actually winked – and turned to make her way down the hall. "I will leave you to it."
Amanda shut the door on the giggling girl. What on earth had possessed her to bring Lydia back with her to Pemberley? She was good company for Georgiana at least.
Taking a seat on the edge of the bed, she braced herself over the man lying before her. "Are we to expect every Bennet in the countryside?" asked Fitzwilliam Darcy sleepily, propping his head up with one hand, the other threading through his wife's hair.
"Mm?" asked Amanda, momentarily lost.
"What's got your mind lost in another world?" queried Darcy, his eyes dark on hers as he shifted his head for a better angle.
"Honestly?" said Amanda, bordering on hysteria. "I'm wondering if there are any drugs around here."
"Drugs?" asked Darcy in confusion, sitting up. "Whatever for? Are you ill?"
She scrunched her face. "Of a sort."
"Allow me to send for a doctor," he said in concern, reading to dash out the door then and there. She clasped his hand before he could get too far. "You're going to be a father."
That certainly stopped him in his tracks.
He was speechless. She had actually rendered him incapable of words. "Well, it's not that unexpected when you think about it," she babbled nervously. "What, when you consider the rate we go at it, it was bound to happen sooner or later."
She saw him flush at her openness, still struggling with her declaration and pulled him toward her. She rested his hand on her shirt where there was the beginning of a very slight swell.
Time held still.
He was braced above her now, his face inscrutable as she looked up into his candlelit features. Austen had never written about this, she thought to herself as her husband brushed stray hairs from her face before lowering his lips to cover hers.
Darcy resisted taking it further as he looked down upon his wife with concern. "Trust me," said Amanda breathlessly. "It's more than fine."
"I will be gentle," he promised, his lips were a hairsbreadth from hers.
Amanda snorted as she wrapped her arms around his neck. "I'd like to see you try."
Next chapter:
Caroline Bingley.