Page 92 of The Widower of Pemberley

“No! You wipe my nose. I’m a baby lion. Roar.”

Darcy smiled at her and wiped her nose.

Elizabeth looked at him warmly; her face had been prepared, and she was smiling. “It is hard to refuse her when she does that, is it not?”

“One must set some limits with a child,” Darcy replied. Then he kissed Emily’s hot forehead and handed her to Rose. “I imagine you will be asleep by the time dinner is over.”

“I wanted to go! Ill! Want to sleep with Lizzy.”

“All reasonable plans,” Darcy agreed, “but I shall tell you everything that happened tomorrow.”

This set Emily off into a flurry of tears, but Darcy only smiled at her, feeling a deep warmth in his heart towards his daughter.

They walked Emily to the nursery and put her down in her bed with Rose to watch over her. Tea with a great deal of honey hadbeen brought up for her to drink, and the girl was able to sit with her various cloth toys.

“I shall come and look in on you later,” Darcy said after kissing her forehead once more.

He then took Elizabeth’s arm and led her out of the door.

As soon as they came out into the corridor, that familiar anxiety rose within him that something was amiss with his wife.

She sighed and frowned a little.

She had been crying.

What had it really been about? Was it about him?

There was no time to think about the matter, though, and as soon as they descended the stairs, Elizabeth transformed, turning into the smiling and glowing young mistress of a great estate.

She was warm and friendly but in a manner that maintained the necessary distance with the tenants.

Her quick words made everyone laugh, and Darcy’s heart glowed to watch her.

But he noticed that she was tired.

When she was not actively speaking with someone, Elizabeth slumped and sometimes closed her eyes. There was more quietness to her, and she refused to drink the wine and had little appetite in general.

Was she really just tired?

Jove, why must he guess at what was in the mind of a woman? Why could they not simply tell him what they thought?

Of course, Mary had often told him directly what was on her mind, and that had not been to his taste either.

The plan was for the party and dancing to continue until after midnight, but Darcy thought that as the night wore on, Elizabeth looked worse and worse. A little after ten o’clock he suggested to her that she go upstairs if she wished to.

She looked at him with blinking eyes and then nodded. It took her half an hour to say her farewells as she continued to perform as the mistress of Pemberley for the whole time that she was in the room.

Darcy felt a sort of virtuous sense of taking care of her by sending her up early.

She would be asleep when he finally retired, and he would not wake her just so that he could take his pleasure with her. They had been together every night since the first at the inn, but his hunger to touch her, to kiss her, and to be deep inside her seemed to grow more desperate the more often he satisfied it.

But what he truly wanted was for her to be happy.

When midnight had struck, and they all wished each other a Merry Christmas, Darcy went up to first look in on Emily in the nursery.

He found Elizabeth there, asleep on Emily’s bed, with her arms around the child.

She looked uncomfortably curled up since the bed was not of a size for an adult form.