First Christmas at Pemberley

by Grace Sellers

  First Christmas at Pemberley

  Grace Sellers

  Copyright © 2019 by Grace Sellers

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  For Tim, because he’s my Darcy.

  And my mother, who gave me the greatest gift by modeling a voracious love of reading historical novels and wisely used the library as a babysitter. Thanks!

  Contents

  First Christmas at Pemberley by Grace Sellers

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  About the Author

  Also by Grace Sellers

  First Christmas at Pemberley by Grace Sellers

  Chapter 1

  A small, white snowflake fell from brooding gray clouds and spiraled to the ground at Pemberley.

  It was followed by another. And another.

  Soon a flurry of white flakes shook down from the skies.

  Fitzwilliam Darcy pulled back the plush green curtain from the window to see the legion of flakes drift to Pemberley’s faded lawn. It wasn’t unusual to snow—it was, after all, Christmas Eve—but he hoped it wouldn’t disrupt roads and affect their dinner guests tonight. He let the curtain fall back into place and stood at the window, so that for a moment, he saw his image reflected back to him—that of a serious, frowning man.

  “It’s snowing,” he said to no one in particular.

  “Mark my words, it will be the worst this century,” his mother-in-law, Mrs. Bennet, clucked her tongue and said from her comfortable chair next to the blazing fireplace.

  “Yes, well, my dear, as we are only eleven years in, that may not be saying much,” her husband, Mr. Bennet, said from behind his newspaper on the other side of the fireplace.

  “Oh!” Mrs. Bennet exclaimed and waved at him with her hand.

  Darcy heard each of his in-laws, but said nothing.

  He wasn’t terribly worried about his guests. What struck him cold with fear was the fact that his new bride of less than a year, Elizabeth, was eight and a half months pregnant with their first child. He watched her stomach grow fuller each week, secretly afraid she would go into labor when a doctor couldn’t get to her for any number of reasons: poor weather, the holidays. And now both happened at once.

  He needed to relax. That’s what everyone told him. But then, for the most part, everyone was a fool, and the holidays were the least relaxing time of the year.

  He pardoned himself, crossed the cognac-wooded hall and went to the marble stairs in the entryway, where his wife, Elizabeth, and his sister, Georgiana, were twining garlands along the stairs in the great entryway. He frowned when he saw that Elizabeth stood on the steps.

  “I thought you were supposed to be seated,” he blurted before he had time to think better of it. He was trying to be less overt in his worry, but failing miserably.

  Elizabeth turned when she heard him approach, revealing her increasing figure covered in a dress with an apron pulled tight over her swollen belly. Despite his incessant worry, her lovely face smiled to see him and her eyes sparkled.

  He was a lucky man.

  “Do not tell me you mean to keep me from hanging greens for my first Pemberley Christmas, husband?”

  Darcy hesitated. He didn’t want to be the typical worrying father-to-be, and the physician insisted Elizabeth could engage in any behavior she felt comfortable doing. But then she was also more than eight months along, and, although she had slightly shortened her daily walks so as not to go into the woods, she still took them, along with managing nearly all the housekeeping at Pemberley. He promised to stop needling her about it, but was finding it more difficult than he expected. He wondered if he was turning into a masculine version of his mother-in-law, who foresaw and spoke every possible danger when it suited her agenda.

  He forced himself to smile. “Of course not, I just thought Georgiana was doing more of the actual hanging.”

  Georgiana’s head of loose blonde hair turned when she heard her name and laughed.

  “Oh, pish posh, William. I have told her to let me do it three times, and she insists on hanging things herself. But look how well she is.”

  Indeed, she did look very well. Her eyes and skin glowed with light, and her dark hair was glossier and bouncier than ever. Even her lips appeared to naturally flush a deeper red. Her condition had a surprising effect on him. He had been told both her physical condition and disposition may change during this time, and others warned him that she may not always be the delightful wife he had married. To his surprise, he found himself more deeply aroused by her quickening figure. She looked more womanly and desirable, and they both found their desire for one another increasing rather than dissipating.

  As a matter of fact, seeing her standing even now in the natural light of the hall had a stirring effect on him. He had to shift his attention to the decorations to avoid thinking too much about her lush body. He eyed the evergreen boughs and holly laced with ivy and Christmas rose she had wound around the banisters.

  Elizabeth moved toward him, smiling, and touched his sleeve. “You are sweet to be concerned, but I feel perfectly well. And moving helps ease any discomfort.” Her touch seared through him, warming his blood, and he reminded himself that they would have time together alone later tonight.

  “Does it look festive?” Georgiana said.

  “Yes, very,” Darcy said. He inhaled the pleasant pine scent. “It smells good too. Have you seen it’s snowing more?”

  Georgiana looked out the window and sighed happily. “It’s so pretty.”

  “Hopefully our guests will not be inconvenienced,” Darcy said and looked at Elizabeth. “Although, considering the lot we’ve invited, it may be better if some stayed home.”

  Elizabeth met his gaze and gave him a tender smile. “Nonsense. Besides, my parents are already here, and we are trapped with them regardless.”

  “Do you think the snow will hinder our guests?” Georgiana asked, turning to look at her brother.

  “Is there someone are you worried about specifically?” Darcy asked, peering at her. “Anyone I should be worried about?” Georgiana was seventeen and nearly an age to have suitors, which, frankly, made him perspire a great deal.

  Georgiana rolled her eyes and ignored him, continuing to lay green boughs. Elizabeth set down the garland on the stairs and walked to him and kissed his cheek. “William, do not pry.”

  “I wasn’t prying…” Darcy said as his wife moved back to view the stairs. Obviously, he was not the focus of their attention. He turned to climb up the stairs.

  “Sir Broods-a-lot is leaving,” Georgiana said as he walked upstairs.

  “Georgiana, you shouldn’t tease him,” Elizabeth said as the door behind him swung closed. Apparently they were having more fun without him. Darcy went to his office to watch the snow come down and fret in private.

  Elizabeth watched her husband’s back retreat upstairs.

  Poor man.

  He was completely out of his element with her condition. She’d never seen him so nervous and distracted. At least twice in the last month, she’d woken up in the middle of the night and found him staring at her as she slept. The first time, she’d nearly screamed. The second, she hit him with her pillow. He’d said it reassured him to watch her breathe. “Compared to the alternative?” she’d asked. She knew he was used to controlling circumstan
ces in his life, and her condition was one he couldn’t.

  At the same time, she’d never been happier. Her condition was progressing well, and she felt little discomfort, but instead felt a peaceful contentment at the upcoming birth. For once, she believed nature would take its course.

  But moments of her peace seemed to cost Darcy anxiety. The business of growing a baby was mysterious and outside his expertise. He asked her how she was feeling each morning and evening, but he couldn’t share her certainty everything would be well. Darcy, never the most carefree of men, seemed only to focus on what could go wrong, rejecting carriages he deemed too old, and even avoiding whole roads he feared too bumpy.

  Elizabeth watched Georgiana lean forward and place another wreath above the entry hall below, envying her body’s ability to do so without toppling over. She was quickly growing into a lovely young woman.

  “Is there anyone you’re hoping to see this evening?” Elizabeth said casually as she picked up a plaid ribbon and tied it to the garland.

  “Oh, Lizzie!” Georgiana said, laughing. “You are even more transparent than William in your questions.”

  Elizabeth smiled at her sister-in-law’s comments. Georgiana was correct, neither she nor Darcy hid their concerns for her future well.

  “We just want you to be as happy as we are.”

  Georgiana stepped back to view her handiwork. “I know. But you and my brother seem to have an unparalleled match in each other.” She smiled, but sadness tinged her eyes.

  Elizabeth stepped to her and placed her hands on her sister-in-law’s shoulders.

  “You shall be as happy, for the man who will love you will be wonderful.”

  Georgiana exhaled and squared her shoulders. Neither of them need mention Wickham and how he scandalously eloped with Elizabeth’s sister Lydia this year, or how before that he had pursued and nearly eloped with Georgiana herself. It had almost broken her heart. Elizabeth worried the girl was more wounded than she showed. Wickham and Lydia’s hasty elopement was the reason her other sisters were with Jane and Bingley in Hertfordshire.

  “You will find a man who endeavors to deserve you,” Elizabeth said softly.

  Georgiana smiled tightly and went back to the basket of decorations.

  “I know you mean well, Lizzie, but I want to live my life for myself, not just my brother.”

  Elizabeth nodded, impressed by how wise she sounded.

  “I know what you mean, my dear.”

  An hour later, the snow still came, completely covering the grounds in white and blowing drifts into corners. But Georgiana was distracted by more important matters. Such as seating arrangements and name cards.

  She stood in the dining room with a footman, pretending to arrange an ivy centerpiece in the middle of the table. She waited until the footman disappeared back through the kitchen door and then, when no one was looking, plucked the place card with her name on it off the long, finely set dinner table.

  She wasn’t supposed to move the cards. She knew Elizabeth worked very carefully on the seating arrangements in the last week leading up to tonight’s Christmas Eve dinner, but she was desperate. And desperate times called for desperate measures.

  She bit her lip and scanned the table for the name: Hugh Devereaux. Her heart pounded when she finally found his name card. As soon as she grabbed it, images of his handsome green eyes and wavy brown hair filled her head. Georgiana decided he was the most excellent young man in Derbyshire.

  But now she had to hurry. The footman, who was setting out silverware for tonight’s dinner, would be back any moment and she needed to place her card next to Hugh’s so they would be seated together at Christmas Eve dinner. But she also couldn’t upset the overall arrangements or Elizabeth would notice, and it would all be undone.

  She felt a bit lightheaded just thinking about Hugh. This dinner was perhaps her last chance to get him to fall in love with her. Afterwards, he would go back to London for the remainder of Twelfth Night, where she knew there were plenty of other young ladies vying for his attention. Hugh was quite handsome.

  She lay awake at night and plotted for ways for Hugh to notice her, even imagining him without his shirt. She needed an opportunity for him to fall in love with her.

  A thud came from just behind the kitchen door. She had to act quickly. She scanned Hugh’s original seatmates: Isabel Shire-Smith on one side and Fiona Scanlon on the other.

  Ugh. Both were determined flirts; they would hang on his every word as if it were golden honey and they were bears. Besides, Fiona was tolerably pretty, while Isabel—though a dreary know-it-all—was rich, worth some five thousand pounds a year, enough to turn any young man’s head, particularly a land-poor aristocrat like Hugh.

  She needed to move them both if she were to have a chance.

  Another noise sounded from the kitchen. She grabbed Isabel’s card and set her much further down the table, next to Elizabeth’s mother, Mrs. Bennet.

  Now, where to put Fiona?

  She set her name card in place of Fiona’s and, glancing down the other side of the table, looked for the empty place from which she had taken her name card. The kitchen door opened, and the footman entered, back first, carrying a silver tray of folded napkins. At the last moment, she half-threw Fiona’s card into her card’s now empty spot. It sailed for a moment and then landed, sideways but mostly in the right place.

  Brilliant.

  There, that was far enough away that Hugh and Fiona would barely be able to hear each other, let alone speak. She smiled to herself and looked innocently at the footman’s annoyed face.

  “I was just looking for Mrs. Darcy,” Georgiana said, pretending to look around before she walked back through the door to the hallway.

  There. That was done. Now she would have Hugh to herself.

  Two hours later, her hair styled with ribbons and wearing her plaid Christmas dress, Georgiana entered the dining room again, this time behind a group of chattering guests following Elizabeth and Darcy. Georgiana walked through the door held open by Adam Merriweather, son of a new Pemberley neighbor. She smiled at him pleasantly tonight, although she usually found him a bit gnat-like in his attentions.

  Hugh was in the front part of the group, and knowing that they’d be sitting together, she allowed him space as guests laughed and stepped around each other, trying to find their name cards on the table.

  “You’re over there, Papa,” Isabel called to her father. Lord Tinsley, who stood in the center, unable to locate his name card. More laughter as he spun around.

  “Over here, sir,” Hugh said and pointed to a seat.

  “Thank you, my boy,” Lord Tinsley said.

  “This is like musical chairs,” someone exclaimed.

  Hugh smiled, looking positively delicious in his superfine greatcoat and billowy cravat. The woven fabric of his coat brought out the flecks in his dazzling eyes. She moved to where he stood, pretending to search for her name but knowing it was next to his.

  Elizabeth walked by on Darcy’s arm, one hand protectively on her stomach. Georgiana felt a flash of guilt about moving the name cards, which Elizabeth would no doubt notice. She glanced from small, petite Isabel to pretty, red-haired Fiona and decided her actions, though extreme, were justified.

  Georgiana was almost to the chair on Hugh’s side, when Fiona stepped in front of her, blocking her, and sank into what was supposed to be Georgiana’s seat.

  “La, here I am,” Fiona said.

  No, she wasn’t.

  Georgiana’s face flushed hotly at Fiona’s error.

  But then Fiona picked up a card with her name in the spot Georgiana had placed her name card.

  What the devil was going on?

  “Miss Darcy, you are over here,” Adam called from the other side of the table, gesturing toward an empty seat at his side.

  Georgiana swallowed bitterly.

  Someone else had moved the cards! After she had moved them herself. She blinked.

  Blast.

>   Darcy stood at his seat at the head of the table, waiting for Georgiana to find hers.

  “Are you all right, G.?”

  Georgiana flushed warmly at being singled out as the last person standing. It was like a humiliating game of musical chairs, which she’d lost.

  “Yes,” she mumbled and sank down on Adam’s side at the far end of the table.

  Across from her was her Mrs. Bennet, who smiled and nodded at her.

  “You found your seat,” Adam said pleasantly, and Georgiana eyed at him. Had someone moved the name cards after she had?

  Georgiana glanced down the table to Hugh, who chatted with Fiona.

  Double blast.

  While saying grace, everyone at the table took their neighbor’s hands, and Georgiana tried not to think about the fact that she should have been touching Hugh. After a moment, Darcy intoned grace from the front of the table.

  “Are you having a Merry Christmas, Miss Darcy?” Adam asked after grace ended.

  She had to stop herself from answering, Not yet.

  “As it is Christmas Eve, it is too early to say,” she said more sharply than she meant to. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his smile fade a bit. She needed to be kinder. It was Christmas, after all. And he was their guest.

  “How is your Christmas, Mr. Merriweather?”

  She saw the light spark back in his eyes. “Very well, thank you. My father and I are quite happy to join with such excellent company at Pemberley.”

  Georgiana smiled and tried to think of what else to say. She knew very little about the Merriweather household, only that his mother had been American and died last year and his father was in trade, and that many older families in society used that as a reason to exclude them from social invitation. Elizabeth, of course, had insisted they be invited. They were rumored to be rich as Hades.