Author's Notes
Summer stole the words; it smothered every spark. How hard it is to start again with nothing but the dark.
The Heart Asks Pleasure First
Elizabeth laughed as she twirled and sashayed across the floor, her cheeks pinked with a rosy glow. As a rule she enjoyed dancing, but in this particular instance, her pleasure was owed less to the act itself than to the individual with whom she was engaged.
When the lively folk reel drew to a close and Elizabeth, rather breathless, stilled, her partner made an inarticulate but unmistakable sound of protest. To this, she could not help but toss her head back in mirth.
"So sullen! Whatever am I to think when you look at me with such an expression?"
The pair of dark, vivid eyes continued to regard her half morosely, half hopefully.
"Very well," Elizabeth relented with a smile, quite powerless to refuse. "Again, Elena?"
Her daughter, spirited, restless little thing that she was, deliberately nodded her approval. To be truthful, at barely over a year old she was at a juncture where a nod would be offered in answer to any question put to her, whether she was actually in favor of it or not.
Georgiana giggled from the pianoforte bench. "Perhaps 'Season of the Sun' this time? Or, oh, I know—a waltz!"
"Might I claim the honor of the next set?"
All turned towards the entrance of the music room from whence the voice had come only to discover Darcy, his eyes twinkling, leaning comfortably in the open doorway as though he had been there for quite some time.
At the sight of him, Elena gave a blithe shriek and instantly began to wriggle in her mother's arms to be let down. Once aground, she toddled until she reached his legs, her upraised hands fisting and unfisting as she looked up.
"Miss Darcy," he bowed with mock solemnity before scooping her up and whirling them both about as Georgiana's fingers flew over the keys once more.
Elena's laughter, which along with her mama's had drawn Darcy from his study to begin with, came bubbling. Ever since the first time that infectious, half mad sound came about, Pemberley was forever echoing with it. It now weaved in the air with Darcy's own deeper, richer tones between his pressing little kisses to the curls at the crown of her head.
.*.
That evening at supper, Darcy watched his wife carefully, and not for the first time, he wondered if he should send for the doctor.
Elizabeth's repeated assurances that she was perfectly well had done little to convince him. He had eyes. For some weeks now, her appetite was not what it should have been; to-night, the fillet of veal in her plate remained virtually untouched, as had the previous dishes.
More disquieting to him, however, were the faint shadows beneath her eyes. Though she would never confess it, Darcy had noticed how much more easily Elizabeth would become fatigued of late, but far be it from her to submit to any kind of frailty by rendering herself amenable to it.
As Georgiana asked after Mary and how she liked being mistress of her new home, Elizabeth caught Darcy staring. She returned his look with an enquiring one of her own and a wan smile before cheerfully relating the particulars of Mary's letter that morning.
Hardly had half an hour passed after they removed to the library when whatever immaterial attention Darcy was able to devote to the volume in his hand was captured by a soft weight settling onto his shoulder. Elizabeth had fallen asleep. Setting aside his book and hers as it lay abandoned on her lap, he studied her face at length and felt a shock of dismay at seeing how pale was her complexion.
With knitted brows, he glanced up to find his sister still absorbed in embroidering handkerchiefs by the fire.
"Georgiana," said he quietly, bringing her needle to pause, "should you mind terribly if we left you to retire early?"
Eyes flickering unsurely from Elizabeth to her brother's uneasy countenance, Georgiana replied, "No, of course not."
Reluctant to wake her, Darcy gathered his wife into his arms. He bid his sister a good night, distractedly quitted the room, and once he reached their chamber, he dismissed Lily and his valet for the night.
Elizabeth's lashes fluttered as Darcy was doffing her silk slippers.
"Fitzwilliam?"
"Shh. Go back to sleep, Elizabeth."
She gave a chuckle that was low and throaty with sleep. "Have you mistaken me for Elena? I am altogether capable of—"
"As am I," he interrupted her feeble protests, smiling gently in the dark as he pulled the pins from her hair.
By the time Darcy finished, Elizabeth had all but drifted off again. He dressed himself quickly and joined her under the counterpane. She brushed her lips against the corner of his jaw, curling into him as his arm lay its possessive claim of her waist, warding away the early February chill.
.*.
As Elizabeth readied herself to go down to breakfast one morning, Lily was taking longer than was ordinary in helping her dress. Not wanting to mortify the poor girl, who was timid enough as it was, Elizabeth said nothing. No sooner had she formed this resolve than her lady's maid addressed her.
"Mrs Darcy?"
Elizabeth met her gaze in the reflection of the looking glass. "Yes?"
For a moment, Lily visibly struggled to speak. With a flustered air, she managed, "Your stays, madam. I…I cannot seem to tighten them properly."
"Really? How strange. I was just fitted…"
Elizabeth's voice trailed off and her eyes went unfocused for a long moment, seeing nothing.
"Oh," she breathed.
.*.
Elizabeth knew she had appeared to be woolgathering all day, but there was a reasonable explanation for it: she was.
Upon wandering into the breakfast room that morning, she found the rest of her family already at the table. She joined them, only to sit stirring sugar into her tea until it was too cold to drink. So abstracted was she that Darcy had to repeat himself three times and touch his fingers to hers before she finally realized he was speaking.
He looked at her with a crease between his brows, confusion and concern etched on his face. Oh, how she longed to tell him right then and there; it was dancing on her tongue, her lips were trembling with it. But Elizabeth knew Darcy was due to spend the day surveying the damage rising river waters from the melting snow had wreaked on bridges over the property.
This time, as it should be, the discovery was hers to make, to tell, and she did not want to have to part with her husband so soon after.
So she would wait. She could be mistress of herself for a few hours.
A changeable propensity marked Elizabeth's behavior for the rest of the day. She started letters only to leave them unfinished. Her sampler was taken up a dozen times and impatiently discarded just as often. Books required a degree of concentration she could not summon. More than once, Elizabeth felt a burning flush creep over her face and neck. It had even drawn Georgiana's notice, prompting her to ask if she was well.
Elena alone seemed to recommend her any sense of her usual self, and Elizabeth scarcely let the baby leave her sight until she put her down in the nursery for the night.
As the evening waned and Darcy returned home, her distraction became more pronounced, but at last the time came to retire.
The fire their only light, they prepared for bed. Elizabeth sat brushing her hair with long, unhurried strokes at the vanity.
"Elizabeth, is something wrong? You've seemed out of sorts since this morning."
She turned to face her husband as he sat up in their bed. "Have I?"
"Yes," was his emphatic reply.
Setting the gilded brush aside, Elizabeth moved across the room and slipped under the quilts with him, considering her answer all the while.
"I have only been thinking…"
"Mmm, dangerous indeed," Darcy teased, easing back into the pillows.
She reached over to take up one of his hands then, toying with his fingers, threading and unthreading them with her own.
"I was thinking," she continued slowly, "that Elena must be lonely having no one her own age to play with. The Bingleys are too far for Charlie to be an everyday companion for her. I had the Lucases just down the lane growing up, to say nothing of my sisters." Elizabeth paused. "I suppose something could be done to put the latter to rights..."
And with her eyes intent on his, she brought his hand to her abdomen, gently pressing it there while she bit her lip against the happiness that was threatening to undo her.
For a few breathless seconds, Darcy was silent. In the next moment, he bolted upright, but his eyes, wide and searching in the firelight, never left hers. "Elizabeth, are you...are you saying...?"
A dazzling smile spread over her face. "I need Neil to confirm it, but yes, I think so."
The words were hardly out of Elizabeth's mouth before Darcy was suddenly atop her and, with a tremulous laugh, began kissing her passionately.
.*.
As the days grew warmer and Elizabeth grew, the passing months gave rise to a great many changes.
Spring was harbinger to both Elena's first words and the unborn baby's first movements. Not long after the Darcys shared their joyous news, Colonel Fitzwilliam and his wife learned they were expecting their firstborn. By summer's end, a triumphant Mrs Bennet saw Kitty, her last unmarried daughter, engaged to Mr Oliver Shaw, a clergyman from Holloway with whom she had made and perpetuated an acquaintance in the course of her visits to Pemberley until it progressed from friendship to a mutual attachment.
The day after Kitty's letter had come, a particularly vigorous kick startled Elizabeth from sleep in the small hours of the morning.
She rubbed the spot, vaguely wondering if it was a foot or a hand, and drowsily unclosed her eyes. She blinked as the bed, empty but for her, presented itself. Raising herself upright, she peered around the room, yet in shadow, for her husband.
Darcy was standing by the window.
Incapable as she was in her condition of a graceful disentanglement from the sheets, Elizabeth came to his side without him realizing it. She touched his arm.
"What are you doing awake?"
He fleetingly glanced over at the sound of her voice and covered her hand with his, but her question hung unanswered for several minutes as they both watched the fading stars.
"I don't think I can bear to go through it again!" at last burst from him fiercely as he turned towards her.
Elizabeth took in his face, twisted in torment, and flung her arms around him, her urgent whispers promising him that it would be different this time even as he felt her shiver with the same unspoken fear that it might not.
He stepped away just far enough to look at her. She could have broken his heart with the picture she made—his wife, heavy with the child they had made and willing to give everything of herself. Everything for those she loved, everything for their children. Everything for him.
When they returned to bed, Darcy fell asleep entwined around his wife, one hand resting protectively over her stomach.
.*.
It was a mild September night when Elizabeth awoke to pains.
An hour after her travails had begun in earnest, Darcy found himself facing the damnable door of the confinement room once again.
He had thought he would have more time with her, but everything was happening more quickly this time. Their moments alone were brief and tender, intimate and punctuated with uprushes of panic and pain that were chased by reciprocally soothing exchanges.
Dr Neil and the midwife arrived on the heels of the messenger who had gone for them, while one of the maids hastened to the guest wing to tell Jane that she was needed with her sister when it could no longer be helped. Together, they turned Darcy out of the room.
All he could do now was wait.
Not Mrs Reynolds, not Bingley, not even Georgiana could persuade him to go below stairs with them. He would stay here. If Elizabeth needed him, he would be close by.
Darcy's mind worked in jerks and spasms as the hours crawled by. He heard cries that sent him leaping to his feet, hovering near the door as if to force the lock. Try as he did to fight it, he inevitably found his thoughts overcome with memories of the day Elena was born. It came to him in sharp fragments and chaotic impressions that snatched at his breath. Elizabeth in terrible pain. How close they had come to losing Elena. Himself, useless, useless, as his entire world was crumbling around him.
He pressed his lips tightly against the growl of agony tearing at the inside of his chest. Before he could think about it, Darcy rose from his post and strode away from the room, down to the second floor.
Miss Hart and Miss Everblanc were surprised, to say the least, to discover that the soft knock on the nursery door was Mr Darcy, but that was nothing to when he asked them to leave their charges to him, if only for a few minutes.
Once the nursemaids stepped outside, he turned to the children. It was quite early in the morning by now, and Charlie was sleeping soundly in the new cradle he and Elizabeth had put in the nursery. Nearabout two and a half years old, he had Bingley's light blue eyes and honey-blond curls diluted with his mother's sweetness of temper.
Gaze drifting from his nephew to the other pannier, Darcy saw that its occupant was awake and looking at him steadily from between the palings.
He lifted his daughter into his arms, rocking her gently as she tucked her head into the crook of his neck and shoulder, still partly asleep. "I am sorry for disturbing you, Elena," he murmured.
She did not seem to mind, her tiny fingers curling into his disheveled neckcloth.
"Mama?"
Darcy's throat constricted painfully. "You can see Mama soon, I promise you."
It was not long before her weight snuggled more deeply into his embrace, letting him know she had fallen asleep once more.
As he held her, something inside of him shifted. Harrowing as the last delivery experience was, from it had come Elena, and here she was, warm and alive and theirs—his and Elizabeth's—and that was comfort for anything.
He went back to the sun-splashed gallery, resuming his vigil with a fretful energy that would not allow him to sit. Another half an hour wasted in that manner.
And then…and then…
A new sound pierced the air. Darcy froze, too far gone to be able to understand if his ears could be trusted.
When the door cracked open some indeterminable time later, Jane, beaming, stepped back to invite him inside, and he shuffled only a few bewildered steps into the room.
The sight that beckoned beyond the door could not have been more different than that of nearly two years ago. Looking exhausted but radiant, Elizabeth was resting serenely on pillows propped against the headboard, her arms full.
Focused entirely on his wife and the blanketed bundle she held, he was hardly conscious of Neil clapping his shoulder on his way out or that he was followed by the midwife and Jane to leave the Darcys to themselves.
He stood there still as Elizabeth turned her sparkling eyes to him.
"Come meet your son, Fitzwilliam."
Darcy moved to sit gingerly on the bed, and Elizabeth laid their baby in his arms.
The newborn stared up at him quietly for a little while, then wrinkled his nose and opened his mouth as wide as it could go in a breathy yawn before turning into his father's chest and nuzzling closer, fast asleep.
Tearing his eyes away from his son's face, Darcy brought one hand to cradle Elizabeth's cheek and leaned forward to kiss her ardently. "I love you," he told her in a voice that shook with emotion, blinking back tears. "So very much."
Between them, Christopher Fitzwilliam Darcy slept on, blissfully unaware that he was of any great moment.
End Author's Notes
Chapter title ripped off…make that lovingly borrowed from Michael Nyman, the brilliant bastard.