My dear friends, it has been a long time since I've worked on the Vindicating a Man of Consequence series, but while I was sick with covid I received a couple of reviews of these stories here and on AO3, and I guess they permeated my mind because a storyline started to grow in my head while I was too ill to work on it, and piece by piece it got added onto in my head until now. Now that I've recovered, I'm going to see what I can do to get it down. Expect this to comprise two chapters or so, that I will probably post about a week apart. I am not promising to add onto this story in earnest now beyond that, but we will see what happens.

As this is Part III, if you haven't read the earlier parts of the story, I strongly suggest that you start with VMC I. For those who read VMC I & II and need a refresher, Darcy and Elizabeth successfully got married at the end of VMC II and now need to sort out what married life looks like. This challenge is increased, of course, by Darcy having autism. Although Elizabeth knows of his struggles and wants to be helpful to him, they still need to figure out how to work as a team.

I'm not all that happy with the prologue of VMC III as I like portions from someone else's POV to really add to understanding of the narrative and to give you all information that you can't get from Darcy's POV, and I don't think that I've really achieved that, so expect me to swap that out with something else at some point.

As always, thanks for reading and reviewing. Your support makes all the difference.

Chapter 1: The Foundling

Following a fortnight at Netherfield and then a few days in London, we returned to Pemberley along with Georgiana and Edwin. As usual, I rode, with naught for company along the road (save during our stops) but our outriders. I knew that the occupants of my two carriages would have welcomed my company inside, and indeed a part of me very much wished to be inside the front carriage with my dear wife and family, but the stronger part of me wanted no part of its confining walls. I well recalled the last time I had attempted to ride inside a closed carriage, two years earlier with Bingley, just a few blocks between Hurst's home and my own.

Bingley had suggested the experiment more than once since he first learned that I would not set foot in a carriage, and although I had put him off again and again, I felt obligated from his great trust in me, to try it. Just after the door was closed, I understood what a great mistake I had made, how I had misjudged the torment it would be to me. Although the carriage was not dark, the curtains not drawn, I felt as if the walls and an oppressive darkness were closing in on me. In that moment, I somehow reverted to a child in a grown man's body, for I rocked and closed my eyes, "Be good, be good. Fitz out, out, out, out."

The horses had just begun to walk in prelude to running, but I was insensate to it all. Bingley must have banged on the roof, for I burst through the door as the carriage was slowing but had not yet stilled. I narrowly avoiding taking a tumble and knocking over a flower vendor and found myself clinging to a lamppost with both arms wrapped around it, desperately holding on. I was shaking, trembling, sweating, panting, as if I had run a great race, or rather been chased by a wild animal.

Bingley must have emerged only moments later behind me, but I still startled and flinched dramatically as he lay a hand on my shoulder, even as I grasped the lamppost tighter.

"Good God Darcy, I had no idea it would be so awful for you. I . . . I shall not ask it of you again." He had remained faithful to his words.

My dear family, my good wife, all knew I could not, would not ride inside, but I did not like to be away from them, to have this be one more sign of how I was different from them.

When we reached Pemberley, I was quite saddle-sore, but finally there was no need for such separation from my love. Having learned that Elizabeth did not ride, when we went out together, we used an open carriage to visit Lambton and our neighbors, in pony cart upon our lands where there were no roads, but our outings were limited to when the weather was fine. If it was not fine, or uncertain, I did not go out at all. On those occasions, Elizabeth and the others might go out in my carriage, but I would remain at home. Elizabeth had enquired what we would do when the winter came, and then I was able to show her the lovely open sleigh we could then enjoy, and the white fur wrappings that would keep us cozy.

The first two weeks of our homecoming passed away pleasantly enough. Every morning after breakfast, I attended to my duties, but made a point to join the ladies for tea and afterwards to visit the children, Abby and Sam, in the nursery. In the afternoons, Elizabeth and I often read together in the library, and dinner was followed by music or games. Edwin frequently away during the better part of the day until dinner as he directed many small improvements to his estate, showing a fortitude for work that I had not expected from him. He did indeed seem to be planning so that he could someday marry Miss Bennet.

But my favorite part of everyday was the night, when it was late enough that we could excuse ourselves from company and gain some time alone in my chambers for our marital duties. This part of marriage, when we could touch and be touched, when words did not matter, well that was when I fully knew the joy of having Elizabeth to wife.

Almost as good was falling asleep with her small form pressed against me. As an only child for many years, and the only male one, I had seldom shared a chambers, and never a bed with anyone. At Netherfield I might have continued in this pattern, just visiting her, had not the malodorous odor of fresh wallpaper glue brought us together in my room, and once such a habit was formed, I depended upon it. The bracelet formed from her ribbon and my string adorned our bedpost here, too, just as it had at the master's chambers at Netherfield, although sometimes when I was troubled, I missed having her ribbon at the ready in my pocket.

All might have gone on more or less the same until the harvest, were it not for the sounds of a wailing baby which rang in my ears one morning. It was an unexpected sound as we were too newly married to have an infant of our own and any children of the servants or tenants were tended to away from the great house. Still, at first, I assumed that someone had called to show Mrs. Reynolds the infant, as she is well known to have a tender spot for young children, knew that while it was not part of her duties at all that she regularly visited my wards.

Curious, I set down my paper and followed my ears to the front of the house and found Mrs. Reynolds looking at a small baby held by a footman, Theodore, who was young and certainly had no wife or child.

"Mrs. Reynolds, whose baby is this?" I asked.

"I could not say, for I do not know. Theodore here found him here on our front steps just now." Mrs. Reynolds leaned over the infant, who was wrapped in a shabby and fraying white blanket, with a knit cap upon his head. She tisked, and shook her head. "It is as I have feared. The word must have been bandied about regarding your wards, and someone thought you might take in yet another defective."

"Defective?" I moved closer. It was a word that had been applied to me more than once, but I did not see how anyone could know to apply this term to such a small baby. For who could know such a baby had my oddities when it was so young?

Mrs. Reynolds took the child from Theodore, cradled the infant in her arms and rocked it. As she did, the infant began to quiet. "Look at the shape of the eyes and how the tongue sticks out. That's a sure sign that this babe shall be simple. You have been more than generous with those two in the nursery, but we cannot have every shiftless parent leaving their rejected children on Pemberley's doorstep in the hope that you will take on more wards. And it seldom turns out well for ones of this sort. Many have weak hearts and do not survive childhood, and if they do, they are not good for much."

I looked at the child's face and saw the signs Mrs. Reynolds did. I did not know much of such children, but I had seen them before.

As I had long done when a prickly problem was raised by the housekeeper that seemed more of her purview than mine, I asked "What is your advice, Mrs. Reynolds?"

"The baby must be taken to the foundling house in Lambton. I suggest that an accompanying donation would be appropriate."

"Very well then, I shall let you see to it."

"Very good, Mr. Darcy." She nodded.

I left the foyer and returned to my paper and to my coffee, and if I thought a moment or two about that baby while I buttered my toast or later worked on letters of business, my thoughts turned more to what it might be like to be a father and when my dear Elizabeth might give me a child, and hopefully an heir.

I was not prepared, then, when sanding my latest missive, to have Elizabeth yank my office door open and burst inside, her face red, her lips downturned, demanding "What have you done?"

I rose, tugging my waistcoat down (with the summer heat when at work, I often left my coat off). "I do not have the pleasure of understanding you, my love." I truly did not, I had not a notion of whatever appeared to be making her angry? upset?

Elizabeth stepped into me, hands on her hips. "But it has been done on your orders!"

"What?" I truly was flummoxed.

Through gritted teeth she said, "Did you, or did you not send a poor baby to its death?"

I felt my forehead tense up. I was being attacked and for what? I wished to tell her to get out. This office was one of my sanctuaries. No one was to speak loudly or to interrupt my work.

I took two deep breaths, trying to calm the tightness in my chest, to make sense of her words which made no sense. "If you are referring to the foundling, I simply did as Mrs. Reynolds suggested and told her to take it to the Lambton Foundling House, with a donation toward its care."

"Then you as good as signed his death warrant. And why was I not consulted? Am I not the mistress of this house?"

"Of course you are, my darling."

"Do not 'darling' me. Matters of this sort are always within the mistress's role."

It is difficult for me to admit when I am in error, but I of course knew what was due the mistress of my home. "I . . . I am sorry for not consulting you. Truly, I believe Mrs. Reynolds simply wanted to handle the matter expeditiously, with a view toward avoiding any unpleasantness."

"I shall address the matter with her separately." Elizabeth sighed and a bit of her anger seemed to leave her.

"Darcy, have you any notion of how founding homes are managed?"

I considered this for a moment and replied, "I know enough. They are rather grim, but charity only goes so far."

She took a seat upon the sofa, and I joined her, seeing that I would not be returning to my work for a while. But she did not scoot closer to me as she often did, instead keeping to her corner.

"Grim is an apt word for such a place. From what I know, industrious children may be set to useful tasks, but otherwise have rather indifferent care. There is never enough food, clothing or staff. As for infants, well they require so much care and foundling houses seldom have a wet nurse or any means to feed one. That poor child shall likely starve and then die there in the next few days."

I thought about that, truly thought about that. It was a sad thought, but life is often harsh, especially to those of lower stations. While I might have saved Abby and Sam, how many more children were begging on the streets, liable to freeze where they lay when the weather turned cold? How many boys who survived such conditions might do so by learning to ply a trade as a pickpocket? How many girls might learn to trade their commodities for a bit of coin?

"Perhaps it is better this way," I opined. "I have already undertaken more than I ought to shelter and care for the children in our nursery; I cannot care for the whole world. If I were to deign to help this infant, soon there would be a deluge of such children upon our front step. Mrs. Reynolds says such children like that, often do not survive for long and if he will die anyway . . . ."

"That is NOT certain," Elizabeth exclaimed. "One of the upstairs maids got a good look at the child and says he resembles her younger brother, who is still alive at nearly twenty. He is a trash picker and manages adequately with some assistance from his family."

I did not like to have my judgment, in doing what anyone would have done in like circumstances, questioned. I wished her to defer to my superior knowledge. Womankind is simply too tender-hearted, and in being raised as the gentler sex she was unaccustomed to seeing the ugliness of the world. There was nothing to be done but to prove how she erred in her reasoning.

"But what family does that baby have? Not one willing to do a whit for him. If anyone condemned him to death, it was his own parents who abandoned him on my doorstep rather than have the expense of raising a child who will never be able to do for them. It was a rational plan for simple folk of limited means, to send him elsewhere to die, before they could grow too attached."

Elizabeth shook her head, and in a voice that was quite different from her normal tone, exclaimed "I cannot believe you would be so callous, so cruel, to a wee baby. I would not have thought it of you." She arose and left, without so much as a "goodbye."

I sat for a while, flummoxed. I did not see that I had done anything wrong, but it felt as if I had. After some fruitless efforts to attend to my correspondence, I sought out Edwin, who fortunately was within Pemberley on this day. Perhaps he could help me understand how things had gone wrong and what if anything I should do now.

He listened attentively to my account and then noted, "Women just do not understand the cruelty of the world, the unfairness of fate, but there is little to be done about her mood. Let her have a good cry and in time she will come to accept that you did as you ought. Someone has to be sensible, practical."

I thought his advice made good sense, but what neither of us counted on was Elizabeth's determination when she believed herself to be right, and her willingness to defy me in such circumstances.

A/N: What do you think Elizabeth will do? How will Darcy react?