Page 81 of Yearning

“I have to be,” said Mr. Darcy, shrugging. “I suppose if you don’t wish to see the babe—”

“My cousin,” broke in the colonel. “I should not mind a look at my newborn cousin, I suppose. And if it would be all right, I shall give her my well wishes. I suppose we must all figure out how to be in the same room together at some point.”

“Just so,” said Mr. Darcy.

ELIZABETH HAD GIVEN birth only two weeks ago, and she was still in her confinement, which meant that she was abed when the colonel came in to see her and little Edmund.

Her husband came in with Colonel Fitzwilliam but only as far as the doorway. After the colonel was inside, Mr. Darcy closed the door on the both of them in the room alone.

The colonel turned to look at the door and then back to look at Elizabeth with a consternation. “He has just shut us up here together?”

“He said he thought we might want a chance to speak alone,” said Elizabeth.

“No,” said the colonel. “No, absolutely not. There’s nothing that I wish to say to you that he cannot hear.” He turned to go back to the door.

“Richard,” she said. “Come see the babe.”

He turned back to her. His lips parted. Wordlessly, he nodded, and then he came to the bedside and looked down at little sleeping Edmund in her arms.

He tilted his head to one side and then the other, and a slow, wondering smile stole over his countenance. “Well, he’s rather perfect, is he not?”

“Quite perfect,” she said, smiling at him. “You will wish to hold him.” She made to move her arms, to transfer the babe, but he shook his head and made no attempt to take the little boy.

“No,” he said in a soft voice. “I think I ought not.”

She was surprised. “Are you quite certain?”

He only had eyes for Edmund, and his smile was overtaking his entire face. “No,” he said. “But I think that would be best. He is… just the most wondrous thing I may have ever seen.” He reached out and gently ran one of his big, male fingers over Edmund’s tiny head. “But he’s not mine.”

Perhaps she could see it from his perspective. No point in falling in love with a babe one could not properly be a father to, she supposed. She felt a pull of something bitter in her. “Oh, Richard,” she breathed. “I am sorry.”

“No, no,” he said. “No, it is my own fault that this happened. I wrought this.”

“There were two of us there.”

He touched Edmund’s little head again, his expression full of wonder. “My wife and I…” Now he looked at her. “Against all odds, we seem to have fallen in love.”

“But… her ‘friend’?”

“Gone,” said Richard.

“Oh,” she said.

“She is increasing, even now, and I should not have left her, but I did, because…” His gaze fell on Edmund again. “But she would not like to know this.”

“No, she would not,” said Elizabeth in understanding.

“It would devastate her,” he said softly. “I want it not to have happened in some ways. But he is so perfect, so I suppose I cannot want that.”

She reached out and touched his hand. “Thank you.”

“What are you thanking me for?”

“For him,” she said with a little smile. “And I do hope you and Marybeth are happy. I want your happiness badly, Richard. I hope you know that.”

“You are happy now?” he said to her, smiling a smile like the one he had for the babe for her as well. “Darcy is different and you are, too. This is the way it was always meant to be, you and him together.”

“Yes, the way it was always meant to be.”