“Then allow me to settle Mr. Waffles in for the night. I’ll be back shortly.”
He knew this meant she would take him outside to do his business, then settle him in the utility room with his bed, a dozen toys, and his special blanket, not to mention the soft music playing in the background, so he stood to retrieve the box of ornaments from the cupboard in the hall where Maggie told him they were waiting.
Darcy picked up the battered wooden box and carried it back to where his sister was waiting. Inside lay a collection of glass baubles and paper stars that had graced Pemberley Christmas trees for generations. Some dated back to his great-great-grandmother’s time, others were more recent additions from his own childhood. They were old, fragile, many of them chipped or faded, but all quite beloved.
The house had several trees, and they’d all been decorated for the few tours they did this time of year, but the smaller tree here in the parlour was always left undecorated until Christmas Eve.
He and his sister talked a bit about booking the groups for next summer's music festival on the grounds—Georgiana worked in music production and ran the Pemberley events now—until Elizabeth returned, a little flushed from the cold.
“Oh, you didn’t have to wait for me,” she said, peering into the box. “These are beautiful!”
“Of course we waited for you,” Darcy said. It was the point of having her here, to include her in their traditions.
Georgiana lifted a delicate felt figure with a bent wing and faded golden braiding. “This angel was our mother’s absolute favourite. She always insisted it go right at the very top of the tree, even though Father used to tease her that it was too small to be seen from below.”
Elizabeth accepted the angel with reverence, cradling it in her palms. “She’s gorgeous,” she said. She passed it to Darcy, their fingers brushing in the exchange, and he climbed the step stool to place it among the uppermost fir branches. When he stepped back down, Elizabeth was watching him with such warmth that he felt his pulse quicken.
They worked their way through the rest of the box together, Georgiana narrating the history of each piece while Elizabeth listened with genuine interest. There was the paper star Darcy had made at school when he wasseven, rather flattened but considered precious enough to preserve. The set of tiny glass horses that had belonged to his grandmother. The collection of wooden snowflakes that Georgiana had painted herself during her first Christmas at Pemberley after their mother’s death, each one inscribed with the year.
After the ornaments came more carols, all three of them gathered around his father’s old music book. Georgiana’s bright soprano blended with Elizabeth’s warm tones and Darcy’s deeper voice in harmony as they stumbled over the Latin verses of “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” laughed through “The Holly and the Ivy,” and when they reached “Silent Night,” Elizabeth’s voice became soft and contemplative in a way that made Darcy’s heart swell.
Elizabeth’s voice found the melody, low and warm; Darcy came in a breath late on the third line, matching her under the tune. At the edge of the music book their fingers met, his hand brushing hers.
On “love’s pure light,” he caught the harmony clean. She didn’t look over; she just gave his finger the smallest squeeze on the word, and he answered with one of his own. Georgiana smiled without turning her head, and the chord faded, quiet as snow.
When the last notes faded away, Georgiana stood and yawned. “I feel positively ancient. I’m for bed.” She hugged Elizabeth first, then him, and said her goodnights.
Left alone, the house settled into that special Christmas Eve hush that Darcy remembered from childhood.
“This is so peaceful,” Elizabeth said, curling her legs beneath her in the chair and looking entirely at home in his family’s parlour. “My family’s Christmases are rather different, I’m afraid.”
“Different how?” Darcy asked, though he suspected he could guess. Elizabeth’s smile was both fond and rueful.
“Take your dinner with my family, then double it, and that’s what it’s like from dawn until well past dusk. My mother flapping about the turkey and convinced she’s forgotten something crucial, Lydia shrieking over presents and generally creating mayhem, Kitty sprawling in any number of odd positions to take artistic photographs of everything, Mary lecturing us all about the commercialisation of religious holidays, Jane calming us all down, and my father disappearing with a glass of wine or something stronger whenever it all gets too much for him. Nothing elegant about it, but—” She shrugged, her expression warm with affection. “Well, it’s ours.”
Darcy found himself smiling at the image. “It sounds wonderful.”
“Well, I’m not sure Athena would approve of the noise levels. Waffles, on the other hand, is in his element.” Elizabeth laughed, soft and genuine, and for a moment Darcy forgot everything else. There was just Elizabeth, firelight painting her skin gold, looking at him like he was just where she wanted him to be.
Athena chose that moment to heave a dramatic sigh and flop against Darcy’s legs.
“I suppose it’s your turn to put the dog to bed,” she said with a little laugh. “I’ll just head on up.”
As he so often did when his mind was too busy for sleep, Darcy wound up in the library.
The scarf Elizabeth had made him lay draped across the arm of his chair where he’d left it earlier. Darcy picked it up, running his fingers over the uneven stitches and crooked edges. It was ridiculous—lumpy and lopsided and quite obviously the work of someone who had no business working on handicrafts. It was also unquestionably the best thing he’d received.
She had spent weeks learning to knit for him.Weeks.
“The earphones were a good present. Practical. Thoughtful,” he told himself as he pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and leanedback in the chair. He draped Elizabeth’s scarf around his neck and tried to work out where he’d gone wrong. Because something was definitely wrong, even if he couldn’t put his finger on what. For a man who prided himself on analysing problems and finding solutions, he had never felt quite so thoroughly at sea.
He was just contemplating whether a glass of his father’s Macallan might help when he heard soft footsteps in the corridor.
“Darcy?” Elizabeth whispered as she peered around the doorframe. “Sorry, I saw the light on. Couldn’t sleep either?”
“Not particularly, no.” He straightened in his chair, conscious of how he must look—hair dishevelled, still wearing Elizabeth’s scarf like a lovesick fool. “Is everything all right? The bed’s comfortable enough?”
“Oh yes, perfectly comfortable.” She padded into the room, barefoot and wrapped in what appeared to be his old Cambridge hoodie over her pyjamas. The sight of her drowning in his clothes did something alarming to his heart rate. “Just too many thoughts rattling about, you know?”
