“Thank you for making a joke about such a matter — though it is too serious to joke about such things…”
“If a matter is too serious to joke about, perhaps then it also is too serious to take seriously.”
“It is very like to what Anne of Boleyn said while she laughed afore she was executed, ‘I hear the executioner is very good, and I have a little neck.’”
“They will not execute you.”
“Did you know, King Henry had a swordsman who was obtained in France to execute his wife?Perhaps it would have been some sort ofLese Majesteif one of hisEnglishsubjects were to do that to his queen.”
Darcy squeezed Elizabeth’s hand.
Thankfully, he refrained from insisting once more they would not execute her.Sheknewthey would not.Elizabeth loved her life too much to return to England whilst that was a hanging chance.She was not one of those sad foolish men, on the run from the law, who returned in disguise just so that they could see their mother one last time before she died, and who were then seized by the law and hung for loving their parent too well.And also, presumably, murder.
No, she was one of those just as sad, and perhaps not wiser, persons who would stay in unhappy foreign climes though her mother begged to see her daughter one last time before she expired.
“I would not be in any particular hurry to return to England, if only I knew that Icouldreturn.It is theinabilitythat makes me long for it.”
“That,” Darcy said, “is a reaction in no way out of the ordinary.”
Elizabeth laughed, deciding once more that she would never permit herself to descend into moroseness.“A perverse reaction, despite its popularity.But I have no taste forperversion, though we are now in France, and we all know what they say about France, I shall endeavor to enjoy my time in this country though I know not for what extent the duration of my stay shall be.”
“Whatdothey say about France?”Darcy asked as he and Elizabeth stood to walk back down the pier.
“Youknow.”Elizabeth waved her hand and replied with a smile.She bit her lip and looked up at him from under her eye lashes.
Darcy swallowed.
The wind had kicked up.Clouds rushed towards them worrisomely fast.
Oh!But the view of the city was one of the grandest Elizabeth had ever seen.Lines of tall houses along the pier, and the brown wood of the pier for hundreds of feet, and the tall masts of the ships in the harbor, and birds circled high in the sky, their lonely cawing distantly audible, and the bell tower of the cathedral rang an hour, and the water lapped and slapped the pier.
Oh, so, so lovely.
The walk took the best part of ten minutes from the end of the pier all the way to the safe stone of the city.The clouds, which had not been present at all when they started their walk down the pier, opened up with soft sprinkles and Elizabeth was cold, and also terribly tired from the wandering of the morning.
There was a cafe next to the pier, which looked quite warm — the people, more women than men inside, had mostly put aside their coats as they sat at their coffee.
“Let’s go in,” Elizabeth said eagerly.“A real one of France’s famous cafes!”
Darcy’s face screwed up at the suggestion — Elizabeth knew that he did not consider this establishment, with some peeling paint and a sign proclaiming the prices in chalk, as meeting the fine standards to which a member of the Darcy clan, and those under his protection, were entitled to.
“It’ll be ever such a lark.Look at how many people are reading — and they are all dressed quite fashionably in the French way.”Elizabeth grinned widely at Darcy.
Darcy shrugged, and he then smiled with that brilliant familiar, heart turning smile of his, that he reserved mainly for her.“This location seems very much the sort of venueyouwish to patronize.”
“Exactly.”Elizabeth shivered violently as a gust of wind blew.“Oh, I am so cold, and I need to sit down.”
“Oh, Elizabeth—” Darcy looked slightly miserable, as though he considered it his chief employment to keep the winds and rains from bothering her — or at least to ensure she stayed safely indoors if there was a chance of such rains coming down to bother her.
He rushed her into the cafe.
The air in the room felt like a blast from an oven upon their entrance, and they quickly closed the door behind them.
“I should have paid better attention,” Darcy said frowningly, “and made us to return from the pier faster.Are you tired also?— You need a great deal of rest.Mr.Goldman insisted you must rest for at least two weeks the last time he examined you.”
“You care for me excellently — even without Lord Lachglass’s interference, there is no chance I would have remained abed for longer than necessary.It is my conviction that the principal cause of ill health is enforced inactivity prescribed by doctors.”
Darcy smiled as he helped her to a collection of winged chairs around a low table.“I sound like a worried mother hen.But I do worry — your eyes rolling up when you fainted is an image which shall stick in my brain forever.”
