Page 67 of Yearning

“Is Mr. Darcy my real papa?” said Lily. “Is that why Papa did not like him?”

“No, heavens, no! Who would put an idea like that in your head?” Elizabeth was freshly incensed at her husband for any of the things he had said in front of their daughter.

“Some things I overheard in the kitchens, I think,” said Lily, looking grave. “But you promise? You would not keep it from me just because you think it would make me illegitimate, would you?”

“Lily, you are never going to be illegitimate, you were born into a marriage, and your father is your father, and anyway, you should not even know that word. You are but four years old.” Elizabeth shot up from the table, off to look for the nanny, who needed to keep a better eye on her daughter.

“Do not be cross with Nanny!” cried Lily. “I do sneak away from her rather often. It is my fault.”

Elizabeth put her hands on her hips. “They are saying this in the kitchens?”

“Well… I did not understand all of it,” said Lily. “What is a eunuch?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “Something you cannot understand until you are older.”

“But I remember them in the bible,” said Lily. “There is one who is baptized on the road, is there not? I know there’s a story like that.”

Elizabeth threw up her hands. “You are too curious for your own good. And far too intelligent. And… and… eat your chicken and forget all about this.”

She could not speak of any of it while she was having dinner with Mr. Darcy, because the servants were lingering to fill their plates, so she waited until afterwards, when they were seated together in the sitting room.

She got up and went over to the piano, running her fingers over the keys experimentally. She said, “I may be wrong about how much of a scandal this will be.”

“I do not think so,” he said. “Tongues may wag at first, but I think that people will grow accustomed to seeing us together, and they will grow bored with talking of it in time.”

“They are talking of it in my kitchens, and my daughter has heard, and she asked me if you were her father.”

Mr. Darcy’s eyes widened.

“I told her you were not, of course,” she said. “But that is the rumor going about.”

“I did see her today,” he said with a small smile. “She is quite wonderful, Elizabeth.”

She smiled back. “She is a terror. She is far too smart for her age. She speaks like a girl years older. She is always getting in mischief. She is… wonderful, yes. I am biased, of course, but I think she is just perfect.”

“Oh, yes,” he said.

She trilled her fingers over the piano keys. “I am going to have another babe, and everyone is going to think it is yours.”

He held her gaze.

“You like that idea,” she said in realization.

He looked away, embarrassed. “No, it does not matter.”

“Men are so odd about it,” she said. “They always turn a shade of white.”

He laughed. “So they do.”

It was quiet for a moment.

He spoke again. “Why do you not wish to marry me, Elizabeth?”

She turned to look at him. She was surprised. He truly wanted to marry her, did he? “If we married, you would claim the babe? And you would like that, I suppose?” She thought about it. “Is Pemberley entailed?”

“No, my father and I broke it,” said Darcy. “He wished to be able to break things up to make sure that Georgiana was well looked after, and I agreed that the entail was a draconian remnant of an ancient age. Look what it had done to your family, after all.”

She nodded. “True. So, there is no distant Darcy cousin waiting in the wings for the property.”