Page 94 of The Widower of Pemberley

“No!” Emily refused to take the cloth, putting her hands dramatically behind her back. “I’m a baby lion.”

“Emily, you must learn to wipe your own nose.”

“But I’m a baby lion.”

Elizabeth sighed and started shaking herself awake. “Let me.”

“No.” Darcy shook his head. “She must learn some independence.”

“Don’t want independence. I’m a baby lion.” Emily made her adorable little roar again.

“Just do it,” Darcy said.

“No! No! Mama Lizzy wipe my nose.”

Elizabeth took the handkerchief from Darcy’s hand and reached towards Emily’s nose.

Darcy stopped her and said, “No. She must do it herself.”

This of course set off sobbing. “A baby lion. A baby lion. I’m a baby lion.”

As Darcy picked up Emily, Elizabeth groaned and threw herself back onto the bed.

She stared at the ceiling. “Is it a general rule then that I should not wipe her nose? Must she manage always on her own now?”

“You also should not let her wake you up in the morning.”

“I thought,” Elizabeth replied sharply, “that I was supposed to be her mother, and to always be present. I have done that. But I am sorry that I did not realise baby lions must wipe their own noses.”

“She is not a baby lion.”

“Yes, she is,” Elizabeth replied, almost angrily. “She has declared it solemnly.”

“That does not mean anything,” Darcy said. And then he frowned. “Why are you arguing on this point? Would it not be easier for you if Emily would wipe her own nose?”

“I do not want to do things the easy way! I want to do them right. I have been trying so hard, and I have…I have…and now you tell me that I have done it all wrong. That I am a poor mother because I am permitting her to develop bad habits, spoiling her, and because I…I cannot even guess at why you are unhappy that I have let her wake me in the mornings.”

Elizabeth suddenly leapt from the bed.

She was crying too.

Emily ran over to her and wrapped her arms around Elizabeth’s legs. “Mama Lizzy, what’s wrong?”

Darcy fought an impulse to snap at Elizabeth angrily and to sarcastically apologise for not being the sort of husband that she had hoped he would be.

But the memory of the way he would argue with Mary stopped him, and he really looked at his wife.

She was so unlike Mary had been.

She was trembling, and she looked so alone, despite the child clutching at her legs. She was tired, with big dark circles under her eyes.

He remembered once more that she was a fragile creature under his care, and one whom he could harm.

He had not done a good enough job of caring for her.

Darcy went to Elizabeth, following an instinct that told him to do the opposite of what his habits with Mary had become, and he embraced her.

She desperately turned to him and buried her face against his shirt.