Page 58

Three Years Later

It was a lovely spring day, so lush with cherry and apple blossoms that the countryside appeared to float on pink and white clouds.

Elizabeth took a deep breath and let out a contented sigh.

The bundle nestled in her arms shifted, raising her arms over her head to stretch.

“There, there, little one. You go on back to sleep,” she soothed.

Mrs Gardiner leaned forward over the newest addition to the family, holding her hand up to shade the baby’s face from the sun. “She is a perfect little angel, Lizzy. Ah, you must be so proud.”

“Yes, I must confess, she has stolen our hearts. Haven’t you, Melissa?

” Elizabeth cooed. She looked across the round, linen-covered table where they had set out the tea service, and smiled at her husband.

It was strange to think that they had already been married for three blissful years.

She felt as if she had known him her whole life, unable to imagine life without him.

“She is, indeed,” Darcy agreed.

“Charlie! Do not go too far, my dear!” Jane called from the table.

She was seated beside Elizabeth, her burgeoning belly announcing that she and Mr Bingley would soon be welcoming their second child.

Their first, little Charlie, was nearly two.

The adventurous little boy had toddled up to the nearest tree, grasping it as though he meant to climb.

“Let him alone, Jane. He is only following in his aunt’s illustrious footsteps,” Elizabeth teased. “Who knows, perhaps his Uncle Fitz will leave him a grand inheritance.” She cast a glance at Darcy, whom she had referenced in parallel with the not-so-vast fortune her great-uncle had left to her.

Everyone around the table laughed. Darcy raised a brow and held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “But do not put any stock on it, just in case.”

Elizabeth relished the time her family spent together.

Her aunt and uncle often brought the children for weeks at a time during the spring or summer, whenever Mr Gardiner could afford to leave his business.

Now that he was an even richer man than when she had stayed with them during that fateful season, he could often leave the business in the hands of a trusted manager, allowing him much more time in Derbyshire.

“I do love returning here,” breathed Mrs Gardiner, who had grown up near Lambton. “I always say that I should like to retire in Derbyshire someday, as it is my true home.”

“You know you shall always have a place here with us,” Elizabeth told her.

Indeed, she owed her aunt and uncle a great debt of gratitude.

Had they not suggested that she come to them in London that fateful year, she might have gone distracted from being chased by an overabundance of suitors — and far worse, she might never have become Mrs Darcy.

“We quite agree,” Mr Bingley said. “Derbyshire is the best place to raise a family.” He took Jane’s hand and smiled.

They had moved to Derbyshire not long after their marriage, to an estate just eight miles from Pemberley.

Though Elizabeth had thought that nothing could have added to her happiness after her marriage, the pleasure of near constant visits back and forth proved to do just that.

The Bennets had come for an extended visit during Elizabeth’s confinement and had stayed for several weeks after Melissa’s birth to help her.

However, they had returned home, since Kitty’s wedding was soon coming and there were many preparations to be made.

She seemed incandescently happy with the match she had made.

Of course, it was more sensible than she would have chosen for herself, had her father allowed her free rein when she had first come out into society.

However, Colonel Forster had done well in introducing her to one of his lieutenants, and she was now due to marry Lieutenant Harrow in a fortnight at the Meryton church.

Lydia, unwilling to let Kitty outdo her for any length of time, had quickly got herself engaged to another militiaman. And although he was an older man, he was respectable and genuinely seemed to care for her. Elizabeth hoped she would be happy with Captain Phillips.

The only one of the Bennet sisters left unattached was Mary, who seemed quite content to keep it that way.

She had voiced her plans to travel from house to house of her married sisters, acting the doting aunt and providing pianoforte lessons when their daughters were of an age to understand their scales.

Elizabeth winced as she tried to stretch her lower back.

“My love, would you mind taking Melissa for a while? I need a chance to stretch my legs,” she said.

Darcy quickly did so, bending to kiss his daughter on her forehead.

“Ladies, would you like to take a turn with me about the gardens?” she asked, turning to Jane and Mrs Gardiner.

“Yes, that is a splendid idea,” Jane replied softly.

Mr Bingley stood and helped pull her chair out for her, kissing her on the cheek before she stood and joined Elizabeth at the steps leading down from the terrace into the garden.

Mrs Gardiner joined them a moment later, and they walked out into the sunshine.

Gentle breezes circulating the flower beds, stirring up the scent of the fragrant blooms.

Pemberley had become the dearest place in the world to Elizabeth.

She loved the peaceful walks among the flowering plants and trees in the spring, the long phaeton rides about the beautiful peaks and rolling, green pasturelands in the summer, and the cosy autumn and winter days nestled in their beautiful home.

Elizabeth linked arms with Jane, relishing the closeness they had shared ever since they were girls.

Although things had changed as they had entered their married lives, they still were each other’s closest confidants.

She was so glad that Jane and Mr Bingley had moved closer to them, and that their children would grow up together.

It was more than she could have asked for when praying for her future.

And now that she was living her dream, it was better than she could have hoped.

Mrs Gardiner looked up at the sky, puffy white clouds sailing lazily by on the uncharacteristically warm day. “Oh, I do love coming here. Thank you for allowing us to intrude on you, Lizzy,” Mrs Gardiner said.

“Aunt, you know you are no intrusion at all. We love having you,” Elizabeth replied.

She stretched her free arm, a little sore from having held Melissa for so long in one position.

At three months, she was growing heavier every day.

Elizabeth did not mind in the least. She was only glad that her daughter was healthy and thriving.

“I never knew what joy motherhood would bring me,” she breathed.

“Melissa is a darling child,” Jane agreed.

“As is little Charlie. I cannot believe how much he has grown since we last saw him!” Elizabeth said.

Her nephew was very much a kindred spirit, and although he was a sweet boy, he was also adventurous.

She knew that Jane sometimes found it difficult to know how to guide him, being so docile and quiet herself.

But she was blossoming into motherhood with a grace that astounded Elizabeth.

And with another little one on the way, she could not wait to see how their personalities would differ.

“How are things in the Bingley circle, now that you have left Netherfield?” Mrs Gardiner asked.

“Well, there is some news there,” Jane said with something as close to a wry smile as her gentle nature would allow. “I believe I told you that Caroline was being courted by Mr Dalton?” she asked.

Elizabeth nodded. Caroline Bingley had struggled for nearly three years to find a match that satisfied both her own demands for wealth and consequence, and the gentleman’s willingness to propose to her.

“They will wed in a fortnight,” Jane informed her.

For any other couple, Jane would have surely concluded with her most confident belief in their future happiness, but such a comment would have been rather too difficult to believe.

Caroline Bingley, who had been so insistent that only a match of great fortune and consequence would do, had at last settled for a merchant old enough to be her father — and one who lived within sight of his own warehouses, at that.

It was a pity. Caroline Bingley had been so insistent on marrying for status and wealth, when she might have sought genuine affection and respect.

Money she would have, but without the security of true admiration and regard for her husband, it seemed all too likely that she would live out her days in relative misery, without the companionship and understanding that marriage ought to afford.

“It must be a relief to have her settled, I assume?” Elizabeth asked.

Miss Bingley had been a near-constant shadow since Jane and Bingley married.

It would have driven Elizabeth to distraction to have so difficult a sister-in-law constantly at hand.

Where Georgiana’s presence was a blessing, Miss Bingley’s was surely a torment.

“Caroline has not been a problem for quite some time, I assure you.”

Yet it had been a difficult road, at first. It was really a blessing in disguise that Mr Bingley had lost his temper with Darcy when her husband had suggested that Jane was not good enough for him, for it had taught him to stick up for himself.

When he and Jane were first married, Caroline Bingley had tried to keep the management of Netherfield and continue to act as hostess, when the role should have passed to Jane.

Thankfully, Bingley stepped up to tell his sister that he would not tolerate such impudence.

If she wanted to stay under his roof, she would stand aside and let his wife fill her role as mistress of his house, or she would be asked to leave.