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BUT THIS CONVERSATION had not resolved what was to be done about Caroline.

Mr. Darcy announced at dinner that he and Elizabeth would leave in the morning, making a joke of it, saying that no one would wish to watch them making eyes at each other, and Mr. Bingley laughed and Jane tittered, and they both said they wished them joy.

“Much, much joy to be enjoyed in solitude,” said Jane, giving Lizzy a teasing grin.

Caroline moved her food around on her plate and said nothing.

Elizabeth sat next to her in the drawing room after dinner, even as Mr. Darcy said they should retire early to get rest for the journey tomorrow and Mr. Bingley chortled and said, “Oh, yes, rest.”

Elizabeth did not know what to say to Caroline, and she sat there, sorting through things and discarding them until she finally settled on, “I have not forgotten our vow.”

Caroline sighed heavily. “It is late December. No one is in London, anyway.”

“I did speak to him about bringing you with us,” said Elizabeth.

“He hates me,” said Caroline vehemently.

“No,” said Elizabeth immediately.

Caroline glowered at her .

Elizabeth realized she could not confess to Caroline everything she had shared with her husband.

It would be abundantly mortifying for her friend.

She would instruct Mr. Darcy not to ever indicate that he had any notion that Caroline had ever fancied him.

“I think,” she said carefully, “that it might not be pleasant for you, being with us right now.”

Caroline considered this.

“Only because we shall likely be… well, you would have nothing to do and no one to entertain you, and you would be on your own too much of the time and—”

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Caroline, taking a deep breath, composing herself. “I do see that, actually.”

“But in a few weeks’ time or a month or… well, then—”

“I shall find a way to London,” said Caroline, giving her a little smile. “I am not without my own skills and resources, Eliza.”

Elizabeth smiled back. “You are quite formidable, and this I know.”

“If you ever leave your bedchamber,” said Caroline.

“Caroline!”

“If you are out in society at all, then you must look about for me,” said Caroline. “Look at the men and see what you think?”

“Absolutely, yes,” said Elizabeth, her smile widening.

Across the room, Mr. Darcy yawned pointedly.

Elizabeth flushed. “My husband is ever so tired, and I think I must make sure he doesn’t fall asleep on the way to his chamber.”

Caroline snorted.

Elizabeth giggled. She shot to her feet, smiling broadly. “Well, I shall begin to say my good nights, I suppose?”

“The two of you are ever so subtle,” said Mr. Bingley.

Back in her husband’s bedchamber, and she and Mr. Darcy agreed that having the commentary of the others was not something they would miss at all when they were alone.

They were both eager for each other again, but things settled a bit awkwardly between them for some time, perhaps even more awkwardly than the night before.

There were a number of halted statements, nervous laughter, mishaps trying to help the other undress.

When they were finally both bare skin on bare skin in bed together, he breathed into her ear that he thought he had done it wrong the night before, and she disagreed vehemently, saying nothing about it had been in any way wrong.

“I think you’re supposed to… have a release,” he said.

“A release?” She was puzzled.

“You see, I didn’t think you did,” he said. “You’re going to have to help me.”

“Help you?” She was entirely flummoxed.

“Haven’t you ever done this to yourself?”

She hid her face in his chest, letting out a giggle.

“So, yes?” he murmured. “So, show me how?”

So, she did show him.

And it just got better between them, better and better and better.

In London, they didn’t spend a night apart for a fortnight. Every night she spent in his arms, every night feeling herself grow closer and closer to him, every night that sweet, deep thread of connection strengthening.

And then, her bleeding came, and she realized that she had not been quite thinking about the fact that this thing they were doing was for the purpose of getting her with child, and this knowledge settled into her in a strange way.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to have a child, she thought, but she didn’t want one yet.

She did not see how it was she was going to navigate matchmaking for Caroline if she were increasing. On the other hand, she didn’t think her husband would take kindly to that idea, nor was she pleased at the thought of not being with him in that way.

Even so, when her bleeding had ended, and he inquired about that, and she knew it was because he wanted to resume their nights together, she put him off too long, saying she was still bleeding when she was not .

During this time, she was making feverish and covert inquiries to everyone she could think of.

She had a whispered conversation with her maid, who directed her to the cook in the house, who was married to the driver, and the cook got a message to a woman who Elizabeth had to receive downstairs in the servants’ rooms. They had a furtive conversation hidden away in the larder, of all places.

The woman gave Elizabeth a packet of seeds, from a wild carrot plant, but when she explained the way they would work, Elizabeth knew it was not going to be the solution she had hoped for.

She was supposed to take the seeds whenever she’d had a night with a man, but they weren’t to be taken every single day, and that was the way of it between herself and her husband.

Elizabeth tucked the packet of seeds into a drawer, feeling frustrated.

Mr. Darcy cornered her that night, in her bedchamber, and explained he’d gotten confirmation from her maid that she had not been bleeding for the past five days, and he was all concern and worry.

“I don’t mean to burden you with this,” he said.

“My understanding is that, erm, perhaps I have been too demanding with you. I think it must be more of an invasive sort of thing for women, and I know women’s appetites for it are perhaps not the same as men’s.

I only want you to know that you do not need to resort to subterfuge.

You may deny me, and I shall not take that badly. ”

She shook her head at him.

“I wish us to be honest with each other, Lizzy,” he breathed. “Do not keep things from me.”

“I’m not ready,” she whispered.

“All right,” he said. “That’s all right. When you are ready again for me… should I wait for you to tell me, or may I attempt—”

“I mean I’m not ready to be with child,” she said miserably.

“Oh,” he said with a very relieved smile. “Oh, that is all.”

She eyed him, shaking her head. “You are not disappointed or angry?”

He chuckled. “This again, my love? I should have realized, of course, that you would be assigning blame to yourself for a rather natural inclination. You know, there are twelve years between myself and my younger sister?”

“Oh?” she said, unsure as to what bearing this had on the conversation, and thinking to herself, with a bit of alarm, that it might be odd that she had yet to meet any member of his family.

Certainly, he should have introduced her to someone, shouldn’t he have?

But they had not actually left the house at all.

They had stayed in, reading books, staying up late at night pleasuring each other, sleeping late, breakfasting in his bedchamber half-dressed…

She had not found any of it unpleasant, but she could not help but think he might be hiding her, that he might be ashamed to be seen with her in public.

If that were the case, he might also not be keen to get her with child either.

“My mother was not at all enamored with the process, you see,” said Mr. Darcy.

“It is not an uncommon feeling amongst women, as I understand. My mother only had two children. My aunt, Lady Catherine, only one. My aunt, the Countess of Matlock, only two. I think it may be a difference between the city and the country, truly.”

Wealth, she thought, it was a difference between people with wealth and people without it. Though she could not pinpoint why, of course, and it didn’t necessarily hold true, for Queen Charlotte herself had thirteen children. However, yes, the more wealth, the less children, it seemed.

“Yes, if you are primarily in the country, where there is nothing but space and open, rolling hills, and very large houses, it must seem as if one has nothing to do but fill them with more and more babes. But the city, the crush of people, the houses being much more compact, no large gardens, just city streets and all of that, it makes one feel as if there are quite enough people on earth already, thank you very much.”

She cleared her throat. “Well, maybe that is why, I suppose, but you have a country house, sir, and I rather imagine your mother spent time there.”

“True,” said Mr. Darcy, nodding slowly. “And Lady Catherine almost never leaves Rosings.” He shrugged. “Well, the point is, you need not worry about that, and there are ways to prevent a babe if we wish to wait.”

“What sort of ways?” she said.

“It’s mostly about keeping my seed out of you,” he said. “There are barriers, or I can simply pull out before finishing. It’s no worry, my darling. Please.”

“No worry,” she repeated. “So, you don’t mind if I am not having your babe yet.”

“Not a jot,” he said cheerily.

This is what you wanted, Elizabeth, do not think anything of that, she scolded herself.

“You will someday,” he said.

“Oh, of course,” she said. “Someday.”

“You’re still so young,” he said. “Why, when I was twenty, I would have made the worst father of all time.”

“It’s different for men,” she said.

“Yes,” he agreed. “Even so, giving it a few years, Lizzy, I think it’s wise.

” He wrapped an arm around her and kissed her forehead.

He rubbed her back with one hand. “From now on, please come to me instead of assuming I am going to be angry with you. You do not do things that provoke anger, despite how you see yourself.”

That feeling again, coursing through her, the relief of it, being accepted by him, not being scolded or reprimanded.

She must have spent her entire life being reprimanded, she thought.

Her own mother had not felt that Elizabeth’s natural inclinations were very good, and she had been taken to task more often than not.

She was a sensitive child as well, absorbing what she heard in church and what she read in books with care.

She wished to be good. She did not know why it was so enticing to be bad, however.

And Mr. Darcy didn’t seem to think she was bad at all.

Of course, if that was the case, then… why didn’t he introduce her to his family?