She was Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy, deigning to condescend so far as to reaffirm the family connection with her lesser relations.
Elizabeth had not mentioned her decided plan to visit her aunt when Mr. Darcy asked her about what she intended to do today because she had half a fear that he’d tell her to not call so quickly upon the tradesmen.
Damn him.
That extra rush of resentment burned through her chest as the door opened, and the familiar face of one of Mrs. Gardiner’s housemaids greeted her.
“Miss Lizzy! I mean Mrs. Darcy. Congratulations. We all have heard of your recent marriage, and Mr. Gardiner gave us all a half crown, and shared out a cake to celebrate yesterday.”
“Thank you. Has my uncle already gone to his business?”
“Yes, but Mrs. Gardiner is present.”
“In the drawing room? — no need to show me the way.”
The maid smiled and bobbed a little bow to Elizabeth andoffered refreshments to the Darcy footman and Mary as they trailed into the house behind her.
Children shouted and laughed in the drawing room as she came up the hall, and Mrs. Gardiner laughingly told Johnny — the youngest — to put the book back.
Smiling wider than she had in weeks, Elizabeth opened the door and snuck in.
“Lizzy!” Betsy, Mrs. Gardiner’s oldest child, exclaimed. “Cousin Lizzy!”
All of the children ran up to her for hugs and smiles. That is except for Johnny, who was still at that age where he was scared for twenty minutes whenever he met a person he did not see every week or so. Elizabeth handed out from her bag leftover lemon tarts she’d stolen from the Darcy kitchens, or perhaps more accurately, rightfully taken from them. Following that she also gave over ribbons and a book that Betsy had mentioned she wanted to read last time Elizabeth visited the family.
“Calling on us very early in the morning.” Mrs. Gardiner smiled. “But you do look well. Should I give you congratulations?”
In her letter to her aunt Elizabeth had given all of the details of the situation that had led to her engagement, and most of the details of the argument that had followed with her father. There were things he had said, things her father had called her that she was unwilling to share in any detail with anyone.
But Mrs. Gardiner was better informed upon the whole of the story than anyone else, including Jane.
Elizabeth shrugged at the question of whether she was to be congratulated. She was married, and that was the settled fresh thing. She sat down, surrounded by the children who all asked about Mr. Darcy, about things that she might give them, and about how long she would be in London.
“Only a week,” was Elizabeth’s reply. “But I promise tovisit at least every other day and take you all out to Hyde Park in the big carriage. Even if the weather does not permit you to play, we can promenade back and forth on Rotten Row.”
“Oooooh. Is it a very big carriage?” That question was from Emma, one of the twins.
“Far too big for all sense,” Elizabeth promised.
Thomas, the other twin, gave Elizabeth a big hug, and then asked if he could ride in the box with the coachman.
“Of course you might.”
She had been forced to marry a disagreeable man who despised her and her family at least as much as he desired her. But hewaswealthy, and shecouldhonestly enjoy being able to entertain her little cousins with some of that wealth.
“So, you are only here for a week. And you came directly to us.”
“Of course,” Elizabeth replied to Mrs. Gardiner. “Where else would I want to come first in London?”
“A bookstore,” was Betsy’s immediate reply.
Elizabeth laughed. “That was in fact my first notion, but I shall need your aid to decide which books to purchase. Mr. Darcy already owns agreatmany books both here and in Pemberley, and I am deathly afraid that anything I buy will be a third copy. Betsy, I shall depend upon you to make certain that anything I acquire can profitably be given over to your family if it develops that there is no call for me to keep a copy.”
“How many books does he have?” Betsy asked.
“Very, very many,” Elizabeth replied confidently, though she had in fact not even seen the library in Darcy House here in London — let alone the very large promised one in Pemberley.
Mrs. Gardiner had a worried look as she studied her.
