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It was the Darcy’s turn to host the family for six weeks in the summer.

Pemberley was ready for the influx of guests who would start arriving that morning.

The housekeeper, a Mrs. Greta Perkins who had been promoted when Mrs. Reynolds retired six years previously, had the house prepared exactly as the Duchess had instructed.

Douglas, now well into his fifth decade, was still at his post as butler.

Although he knew that he had a very generous retirement waiting for him, he preferred to have an occupation.

Mrs. Perkins heard the thunder of the Darcy brood’s feet as they headed toward the breakfast parlour to join their parents.

She turned her gimlet eye on the six, who immediately slowed down and walked like the ladies and gentlemen they were supposed to be.

As usual, Lady Beth and Lord Ben were in the lead.

They had just celebrated their eleventh birthdays in May of the current year.

Lord George, two years younger than the twins, was behind them holding almost three-year-old Lady Jane-Marie by the hand.

Bringing up the rear was Lord Alexander, seven and lady Sarah-Anne, who was five and a half.

As they entered the parlour to take their seats, the children greeted their parents and their beloved Grandmother Anne.

Lady Anne Darcy had streaks of grey in her hair and more lines on her face, but still looked very well for someone in her sixth decade of life.

As always, Elizabeth and William were sitting next to one another.

He was as solicitous of her now as she carried their seventh child as he had been with their first children.

The Duchess was due to enter her confinement in November or December.

As it has been with all of her lying-ins and that of her sisters as well, this babe would be born at Longbourn and attended by Sir Frederick or one of his well-trained associates.

Lady Anne surveyed the scene with supreme contentment.

If wealth was measured in happiness, then she was the wealthiest woman alive.

She had ten grandchildren so far. Georgiana and James had added four to the growing number.

They had two daughters followed by two sons.

Lady Anne suspected that Georgie was increasing again, but until her daughter confirmed it was so she could only speculate.

She thought back to the wedding that had been the talk of the Ton for many years after.

The four best friends who had their coming out together had decided that they wanted to marry together.

Never before had four couples been married in the same ceremony, but they were insistent.

Rather than use one of the three estates where the brides had grown up, the ceremony was held at St. George’s, the largest church in London at the time.

The wedding breakfast, at the insistence of their cousin the Queen, had been hosted at Buckingham House.

Lady Anne smiled as she remembered how members of the Ton had clamoured for invitations, but only those who had genuine connections to the family were invited.

In the end, Lady Mary Bennet, as she had still been then, had cajoled her father to shorten his time requirement for courting and engagement from six months to four, and then she had convinced her Uncle Cyril to allow the same for Loretta.

Lady Anne almost started to giggle as she remembered how Mary had worked on William and Richard on Georgie’s behalf until they were so tired of her haranguing that the two had finally capitulated and the wedding had taken place in early September.

No matter who was upset at not receiving an invitation, it had not affected the joy of the day in question.

Yes, it had been hard not to see her daughter whenever she desired, but they did spend a lot of time in each other’s company, and the Dowager Duchess spent four months each year as a guest at Netherfield.

Coupled with the time that they all spent together during the season and visits to Pemberley, mother and daughter were in each other’s company more than most with their married daughters.

As was their wont, the breaking of the fast, as with most informal meals, was not a quiet affair.

Beth was a very outspoken young girl who combined her mother’s intelligence and wit with her grandmother’s looks.

She had the blondest of hair with the cerulean, blue eyes that were hallmarks of the Fitzwilliam line.

While not tall like her grandmother and Aunt Gigi, as Georgiana was called by her nieces and nephews, she had gained her mother’s stature as well as her impertinence.

Both Ben and George were carbon copies of their father, but were far more outgoing like their mother.

Alexander had his father’s character, quieter and more reserved, but looked very much like the Bennet men, Sarah-Anne looked very much like her mother, but was serene like her Aunt Jane, while little Rose seemed to be a blend in looks and character of her parents.

One of the first things that the family would discuss after the arrivals, which was much quicker and less tedious thanks to the railway service that was crisscrossing the realm, once everyone had washed and rested form their travels and the children sent to their entertainments, was the charitable foundation and the status of the many branches of Haven House and the schools that had been created and funded.

The wealthier the family became, the more they gave back.

The Duke of Derbyshire and the men in his family who were in the House of Lords, had convinced enough others of the merits of changes to the laws regarding the treatment of women.

They were extremely proud that the law making it illegal to treat women as property, had strong penalties for physical abuse of women, be they a wife or not.

The new king, George the IV, the former regent who ascended to the throne when his father George III passed in 1820, signed the bill making it the law of the kingdom in 1822.

The family had mourned the passing of his mother, Queen Charlotte in November 1818.

The passing of the queen had been great loss to the country and the family, but by far, not the only members of the family that were lost in the preceding years.

Lady Anne thought about the death of her niece and her two siblings.

Anne Ashby had finally delivered a son in 1815.

It was a very hard confinement and had taken her many months to recover, prompting Sir Frederick to recommend that she not try and become enceinte again.

Anne was determined, and in 1817 delivered her daughter but it had cost her life.

Ian had mourned his wife for a full two years before he fell in love with the then Maria Lucas.

They had married six months later and had added two more daughters to their family.

Losing her daughter had broken Lady Catherine’s heart, and even though she had two wonderful grandchildren she was never the same again and succumbed to a fever less than a year after Anne’s passing.

Two years after the loss of his sister Catherine, Lord Reginald Fitzwilliam, Earl of Matlock, had a massive heart attack that ended his life instantly.

The family had just finished mourning Aunt Catherine when they had to mourn the beloved Reginald Fitzwilliam whose loss was felt by all who knew him.

It was with great sadness that Andrew and Marie became the next Earl and Countess of Matlock in 1821, and with their elevation their oldest boy, almost ten-year-old Reg, became the new Viscount Hilldale.

After their son, Marie and Andrew had been blessed with two daughters.

Jane and Richard were blessed with another son three years after Sed, followed less than two years later by identical twin daughters who at the age of five looked just like their mother and aunt did at the same age.

Amy’s and Tom’s first child was a daughter, and she was followed a year and a half later by Tommy, the new Marquess of Birchington. After the Marquess’s birth there were two more sons, and Amy was with child again. They were hoping for another daughter to add to their growing brood.

After her marriage to Mark Creighton, Kitty joined her sisters and brother living in the north.

Mark’s estate, Chatsworth, was less than thirty miles from Pemberley and even closer to Brookfield and Matlock.

The Earl of Derby was not well, and the family prayed that he would hold on for some more years but was not hopeful.

Mary and Wes, when not in Town at Westmore House or visiting family, were to be found at their estate of Westmore in the northern part of Essex.

They had a very passionate relationship that had produced five children so far, four daughters and then a son and heir, and Mary was again with child.

Loretta and Harrison lived at Oakmont Court, which Harrison’s father had deeded to his son as a wedding present.

Loretta had not become with child until her fourth year of marriage when she gifted her husband with a son and heir followed three years later by a daughter.

As Lady Anne reminisced about the past years, she was melancholy thinking that she was the last of her siblings to still be in the land of the living, but she was aware at the gift she had received from God to still be alive, hale, and healthy.

She could not help but leave her maudlin thoughts behind as she watched her son and daughter-in-law, still very deeply in love with one another, and their six children.

She thought back to the retired housekeeper’s wish that the halls of Pemberley once more ring with the sound of children, and how that wish had been fulfilled over and over again.