Author's Notes

I'm sorry, but just, Darcy babies, okay?

Just As You Are

Elizabeth had explored all the usual hideaways—the library's secluded window seat, the disused cupboard tucked away beneath the staircase in the west wing, behind the embroidered tapestry in the gallery—to no avail.

With the established sanctuaries which she knew of exhausted, she began to search more broadly. By the time she had reached the south passage, she could not help but mark that Lady Catherine's pontificating could be heard, albeit in a muffled sort of way, even in this part of the house. She suppressed a sigh.

Really, she supposed she ought to be grateful that her husband's aunt now managed to constrain her vitriol to what were rather harmless subjects on the whole. Lady Catherine had never truly accepted a country nobody as the new mistress of Pemberley, but she had learned well enough that if she wished to remain in her nephew's good graces, she must be courteous to his wife. And after all, it was Elizabeth who had softened Darcy to reconcile with his aunt after more than three years of estrangement, though Lady Catherine knew not to whom she was indebted. Undoubtedly, she imagined that such a lengthy separation from his mother's sister had naturally been too much for her dear nephew to bear.

The abrupt silence hanging in the air could only mean that Lady Catherine had paused just long enough to either take breath or tea. Elizabeth's light step faltered as she considered in which direction to go next. She was becoming a little anxious.

Just as she started to wonder if she would do better to enlist Darcy's help, a sudden clatter quite near to where she stood startled her.

She followed the sound until it died away, only to find herself before the doors to the conservatory.

She had not ventured far into the sunwashed room before she found him at last, curled up among the lemon trees and staring out the windows. He had yet to notice that he was no longer alone.

"Benjamin."

Though her call to him had been gentle, the six-year-old boy gave a squeak of surprise, his start upsetting the empty watering cans at his feet and producing the very noise which had drawn her here. As it almost always did, the perpetually windswept look of his hair nearly teased her mouth into a smile, her relief making the impulse that much stronger, but his countenance quelled it. He had obviously depended upon not being discovered here, but there was something else in his reaction that could not but betray itself to a mother's heart.

Elizabeth arranged her skirts about her so that she could kneel on the ground beside him. Benjamin hugged his knees more closely to his chest.

"Benjamin, why are you hiding?"

"I'm…I'm not," came his reply.

"No?" she urged softly, studying him attentively.

So she would not see how his lip trembled and his blue-eyed gaze unexpectedly filled with tears, he tried to look away, but Elizabeth caught his chin with a tender hand.

That same hand moved to stroke his hair back. "Darling," she murmured, "what has upset you so?" When he would not answer, only sat fidgeting and looking ashamed, she ventured a guess. "Did Aunt Catherine frighten you?"

Benjamin's glassy eyes went wide and panicked before avoiding her own entirely. "I cannot tattle, Mama."

There was no denying that his words elicited a twinge deep in her breast. "It is not tattling to tell me or Papa when something has hurt you." A heartbeat passed, then another, but still he said nothing. "Please tell me. It makes me sad to see you sad."

Her son's eyes flickered back to hers, and this time, he could not seem to tear them away again. The tears welled higher and a few spilled over. "He-he did not mean it," he mumbled, "not really."

He? Elizabeth dried his cheeks with her fingertips. "What didn't he mean?"

Almost crossly, his knuckles scrubbed roughly at his own face. "When you and Papa left after breakfast, Aunt Catherine was asking me all kinds of things. I tried to answer, but she makes me so nervous and I did not say as much as she wanted me to. She called me a 'strange child' and went away." Benjamin's voice wavered dangerously, "Christopher laughed at me and called me a baby. He said Grandmama Bennet thinks I am strange too, that he heard her say at Christmastime that it is a shame I am not more like him and Elena."

She was stricken. "Oh, darling—"

His face crumpled. "I try to be brave, I do!" he sobbed. "I cannot help that I do not like to speak with people I don't know, or…or…" The rest was lost to the force of his crying.

Elizabeth took him onto her lap, cradling him close while he continued to wet the calico of her dress with hot tears. She was grateful for the opportunity to get her own emotions back under her power, for a maelstrom of fury was battering at her heart. How dare her mother speak so, and within hearing of any of her children? Mrs Bennet had regularly compared her own daughters in such a manner while they were growing up, particularly the two eldest, and it was only because Jane and Elizabeth were so close that their mother had not inadvertently fostered an animosity between them. But whether it was her mother's intention or not, Elizabeth would not endure it to be done again among her own children—never. Of the four, Benjamin was the only one of them who was painfully shy, it was true, but for him to think it meant he was somehow worth less than the others made her want to weep with him.

Once his hiccupping and sniffling had quieted considerably, she loosened her embrace just enough to be able to see his tear-streaked face.

"Now," she said, "you listen to me. What Grandmama Bennet said was wrong, and it was wrong of Christopher to repeat it. He and I will have a talk about that."

At that last part, Benjamin became visibly distressed. She knew what it cost him to admit what the elder brother who he adored had done. "No, he—"

Elizabeth soothed, "He is not in trouble, but he cannot be allowed speak to you that way."

This calmed him somewhat, but he still looked miserable.

"Did you know," she sank her tone as if she was imparting a great secret, "that Papa is also shy?"

"Papa?" The absolute amazement of his expression was as if he would sooner believe that his father could fly.

"Yes, and Aunt Georgiana too. Many people are shy, and that is perfectly all right. Now that he is older, Papa is more comfortable with strangers, but even still, he does not find it so easy as someone like Uncle Bingley. If ever Papa needs help, I am right there with him, and I can help you too." She framed her son's face in her hands. "I would not change a thing about you, my sweet darling."

Benjamin brightened for a moment, but that light was swiftly blown out. "But Elena and Christopher…"

"You are your own person, just as they are."

"I am not special. Not like them," said he.

Elizabeth willed away the sting of tears that rose behind her eyes.

"Of course you are." She stooped to press a kiss to each of his eyelids; the lashes were yet damp. "You have the most beautiful blue eyes of anyone I have ever known."

He tilted his head incredulously at her, but she was not finished.

"Just yesterday, Miss Ashcombe told me how impressed she was with how quickly you have learned to do your sums. When we play hide and seek, who is it that finds all the best spots?"

"…me?"

"You!" she declared with a smile, beginning to tickle him. His peal of laughter was chased by one of her own. "And your laugh? It is one of my favorite sounds in the entire world."

Benjamin, beaming, threw his arms round her neck and squeezed tight, his nose pressed to his mama's cheek.

"Always remember that Papa and I love you so very much," she whispered in his ear, "just as you are."

End Author's Notes

Second verse, same as the first.