They were children of England, yes.
But more than that, they were Darcys.
By the time the hearth was restored, dawn was breaking.
Edward stood alone in the library, soot still under his fingernails, a faint line of plaster dust on his collar. The fire had been relit. No one entering would see anything but a tidy room—books, maps, the dull sheen of polished oak.
Butheknew. As did God.
Behind the fire, a silence waited.
A holy silence.
And it gave him strength so that when the soldiers came riding past later that week, he was not afraid.
A patrol from the north, two men on horseback. One bore a halberd and the other wore a battered helmet, but they did not turn through the gates. They paused, looked up the long drive, and moved on.
Edward stood in the upstairs window and watched them go.
He did not flinch.
That evening, the family gathered for supper. Roast goose, boiled apples, bread thick with lard. The children squabbled quietly over the best portions, and Anne dropped a spoon, which clattered loudly before silence returned.
Afterward, as the servants cleared the table, Edward beckoned them all into the library.
He shut the door.
Then, his hands trembling with anticipation, he knelt by the hearth and pressed a hidden latch beneath the andiron. The wall gave way—just slightly.
The children crowded close.
“Is that where the priest will go?” Thomas whispered.
Edward nodded. “Only if needed.”
“Will we go there, too?”
“No. You will be safe upstairs.”
“But he will not,” William said, staring at the narrow dark.
“No,” Edward agreed, “but God will be with him.”
He paused, and then knelt fully, beckoning them closer.
“Now. Say it with me, as we practiced.”`
And in a nation where prayers could cost a man his life, the children of Pemberley lifted their voices in the barest of whispers:
Credo in Deum Patrem omnipoténtem…
∞∞∞
1651 — Court of Whitehall
The hall stank of sweat, wax, and slow betrayal.
Twenty-year-old Peter Darcy stood near the back of the room, his fine cloak itching at his neck, his jaw clenched so tightly he feared it might crack. The court was packed with landowners—old families, most of them, summoned by writ to hear His Majesty's latest offer of clemency. Or, more precisely, submission.
