Darcy wasn’t the only stubborn member of his family. Elizabeth quite approved.
“I still say that you didn’t need to sink your money into the estate trust,” Darcy said. “It was a risky step.” He turned to Elizabeth. “The taxes are a constant source of concern. It’s why our grandfather put the estate in a trust. The taxes are a good deal lower, and having most of the land tied upin agricultural uses helps a good deal, but every ten years there’s a rather substantial bill to pay.”
“I suppose that’s why you studied finance?” Elizabeth asked him.
“I do enjoy it, but yes, that’s the primary reason.” He smiled a little bashfully at her. “I always knew I’d need to run Pemberley as a business to keep it in the family.”
“But with your head for numbers and mine for event planning, we have both reaped the rewards that feed my present-giving habits.”
Darcy shook his head before changing the topic a little. “Georgie studied both music and business at university. She’s been in charge of all the major events we hold here for two years now, and she’s started a classical music festival that brings in musicians from all over the world. Last year it made us enough to run the house for the next twelve months. And it’s not the only large event she’s planned.”
“Iloveit,” Georgiana said. “I don’t think I could have found a better job for me.”
“I couldn’t do it without you,” Darcy said.
His sister waggled her eyebrows. “Don’t I know it.”
Elizabeth's laugh was soft. “I love everything about this story. Do you do smaller events too, like weddings? It’s so beautiful here.”
“In the shoulder months,” Darcy said. “We make too much on the larger events from May to August to tie up the property for smaller ones.”
Elizabeth found this all rather fascinating. “And in the winter?”
Georgiana answered this one. “We allow the Kympton and Lambton communities to hold a few tours and holiday fundraisers for free, provided they carry their own insurance, but we don’t run any events ourselves. It’s our time to enjoy the property.”
Elizabeth smiled at that, picturing Pemberley’s great house quiet at last, its rooms belonging only to the family after months of visitors.
They had made a life after the loss of their parents, stitching routine to tradition, generosity to good sense, until the house itself seemed to rest on their habit of looking after things: music and ledgers, dogs and dinners, each other. She didn’t know what she would do without her own family to catch her when she slipped; the thought of standing up after loss and stubbornly carrying on felt like lifting a weight she wasn’t sure she could bear. But they had borne it.
“More coffee, Elizabeth?” Georgiana asked, and filled the cup that Elizabeth held out. “The secret to running Pemberley, I’ve learned, is excellent coffee and refusing to let your brother take himself too seriously.”
Darcy gave his sister a look of mock-offense. “I’m sitting right here.”
She smiled at him. “I know,” she said.
Chapter Twelve
Mrs. Reynolds had outdone herself, Aga or no Aga: there were sausages, eggs, grilled tomatoes, and toast, far more than they could eat. At Georgiana’s urging she sat with them and, as if it were part of the service, related the perennial story of the years he had spent as his sister’s horse. Darcy endured it with his usual embarrassment. Georgiana contributed gossip from her friend group, Waffles stole an entire sausage and was promptly banished, and Athena sat up and eyed them, waiting for something, anything, to fall to the floor. She was, of course, above petty theft.
The plates were carried into the kitchen. Mrs. Reynolds shooed them all out to do the washing up before leaving for her sister’s, and Elizabeth thanked her warmly. “I hope we see you again soon, Ms. Bennet,” Mrs. Reynolds said.
“Elizabeth,” she corrected, and the housekeeper’s answering smile struck Darcy as promising: an entry properly made.
Georgiana pled a food coma and went upstairs. His sister was proving to possess a generous instinct for when to leave him alone with Elizabeth. The room felt altered with only the two of them in it, the space intimatefor all its height. Darcy stood by the tall windows, hands clasped behind his back, thinking was easier that way.
Elizabeth was herself and yet not. She had smiled during the stories at the table but not offered any of her own. Her laughter arrived a heartbeat late, and the corners of her eyes did not crease in that adorable way he was used to. It concerned him. Elizabeth adored swapping stories.
Pemberley’s rhythms could be a lot at first, even over a quiet Christmas. He had felt off-balance at her family dinner with so much affection, so many simultaneous conversations held up and down the table, he had required the quiet drive home afterwards to sort his impressions. Perhaps that’s what this was. After all, adjustment ran both ways.
He let the moment pass, filing the thought away to revisit later when there were fewer variables—no guests, no holiday. For now, he took her at her word. It just required patience.
Darcy cleared his throat, which was ridiculous, because there was nothing to clear but nerves. “The frost’s lifting,” he said, annoyingly formal to his own ears. “You can see the edges of the lawn again.”
Elizabeth gave him that sideways look of hers, keen and warm, a little teasing. “You say that as if the lawn has been missing and left a note.”
“It has,” he replied, feeling the corner of his mouth twist upward. “It says, ‘Gone to ground under inclement circumstances. Kindly send tea.’”
Her soft laugh lit up the room in a way the high windows failed to manage. “You’re determined to be droll before midday. God help Derbyshire.”
