by Wells, Linda
“Evans is the only one I have said a word to.” He drew himself up. “And he is not about to blather to a chambermaid. I have no doubt that you are talking to your sister about it, as thick as thieves you two are.”
“You are just jealous that we share a room.” His head shook and blushing, Judy set the iron back in the fire, and picked up Elizabeth’s gown. “I dislike being looked at.”
“As do, I.” They looked at each other and then away. “Judy …” Parker watched a footman go by and glance in at them. The look he received wiped the smile from his face and quickly he was gone. “We have done nothing but attend a fair together, and sit together when … when we can.” Going over to a chair where Darcy’s riding clothes lay, he picked up a brush and began vigorously working out the dried mud on the buckskin. Judy watched and knew that it was not dedication that was making quick work of it.
“Slow down, you will wear a hole in them.” Parker looked up and saw that she was smiling gently. His hand dropped and he smiled down to his shoes.
“That is hardly likely.”
“Still, you do not want Mr. Darcy putting those horrible muslin breeches back on, do you?”
“Not if it means they will be returned to me damp and smelling of the lake again.” Parker laughed.
“What do they do in there?” She wondered.
“That is not our business, but if their playfulness has begat Pemberley an heir, then I suppose that I can bear a pair of soggy drawers from time to time.”
“And a soggy gown.” Judy sighed and finished folding the gown in her hands before reaching for the next. “What are we to do?”
“About us?” Parker looked to her. “We have their blessing.”
“I could not leave them. I could not go on to my happy life when they have yet to begin theirs. Although without an income I do not know how we would live.”
Parker stayed her hand as she spread the gown over the board, “But you think that we would have a happy life together?”
“How could we not?” She smiled and then blushed when he squeezed her hand and kissed her cheek. “Mr. Parker!”
“I will leave you be, Miss Orchard.” Picking up his things, he went to the door. In his usual tones he announced, “I will just let Mrs. Johns know that we suspect the master and mistress to be taking dinner in their rooms tonight.”
“Oh, thank you, I had not thought of it.” Judy responded clearly.
“Well then. We will have the evening free. We will have to make good use of it.” He winked and left the doorway.
Judy’s blush renewed and she was glad that she could blame leaning over the fire in case anyone entered the room. “I can only imagine what he thinks that would be.”
“I HAD NOT THOUGHT OF VIOLENCE.” Elizabeth sat on the bed and watched Darcy pace. “It is only the home farm, and they certainly knew that the machine would be tried eventually. It has been sitting in that shed for how many months now?”
“Since March.” He ran his hand through his hair and stopped to look out over the lawn. “The speed with which the wheat was brought in cannot be ignored.” He sighed and turned, “Nor forgotten. Pemberley will not go backwards. I watched the future unfolding before my eyes. It was amazing how blades slicing through the wheat sound compared to the grunt of a man hefting a scythe. I know it is foolish, but I felt a way of life dying. I saw the fear in the workers’ eyes and it struck me to my core. What can I do?”
“You must embrace the obvious, of course. Just as you have done.”
“No matter whom it hurts?”
Elizabeth knew that he was asking her to speak sensibly, not emotionally, and that he was asking for her opinion because he valued it. She felt the honour and drawing herself up, clasped her hands. “How many times has Pemberley lost a season’s worth of crops due to a slow workforce and an unexpected turn in the weather?” She watched his eyes close. “I saw it on Longbourn, and the fields there are the tiniest percentage of yours. And now with your yields increasing, you have no choice but to employ the most efficient means to plant and reap them.”
“Despite the wonders of the contraption, it is hardly perfect, I assure you. It will be years before some bright man works out the problems, and I will not purchase the machinery in quantity until it is proven. But in the meantime I am faced by labourers who watch and worry. You would think they would welcome any relief from the backbreaking task.” Shaking his head he sighed. “We are increasing our yields at a time when we do not have an efficient method to take it all in. If anything, we will need more people. I suppose that sets them all up for a fall in the end. I will have more people dependent on me, and then less for them to do.”
“But there is time.” Elizabeth pointed out. “Time for them to grow used to the idea, and time for you to think of solutions.”
Darcy leaned against the window frame and folded his arms. “Time flies, my love. I must think five years ahead, not one.”
“Very well then. Think.”
Smiling a little, he tilted his head. “Parker urged me to seek your opinion, since you are so gifted with appeasing our servants. You are … Now do not be offended …”
“Oh dear.” Elizabeth laughed. “Are you going to speak before thinking, Will?”
“I am trying.” His smile grew a little and then seeing her waiting expectantly, he plunged forward, “You are better … able to … communicate with …”
“Will …” She stopped him. “I can understand them because I am friendly and open where you are more reserved. Is that what you are attempting to say before you botch it and I throw something?”
Looking relieved, he gestured to the bed. “Preferably a pillow aimed high, but yes. It was meant to compliment.”
“Then I will take it as such.” She smiled and watched him settle back into his favourite spot. “So we are looking for ideas to occupy the workers when they are eventually displaced by more efficient machinery.” Darcy nodded. “Cannot the labourers be put to work in other ways? The grain must still be threshed. If you continue with your plans, soon there will be triple the amount produced each year. More work will be available for the grist mill, could not another be built? A new bakery? New looms for making flour sacks, new wagons for transporting it to market … A larger brewery? That would require more barrels, more coopers, more oak … And you spoke of the livestock before and increasing the herds.” Elizabeth saw that he was focussed on her so she continued to propose solutions. “And you also spoke of educating the young. I think that is the most significant idea of all. It is your best; it is entirely unselfish and does the greatest good.”
“That is what I thought, but … I spoke of education to the men who came by today to watch. I am afraid that they did not see the value in reading.” He looked down at his hands. “They saw only what was directly before their noses, and that was the machine pulled by a team of horses, instead of a team of men at work in the fields. We are so far away from London. None of them have travelled more than … ten miles, twenty at the most from the place where they were born. They have not seen a city, let alone seen a town greater than Lambton. Even seeing York with the mills would give them a taste of the changing world.”
His hand waved in frustration. “How can I explain to them what is happening when their best news is whatever they pick up in taverns from travellers, and the few who read only see the fear mongering in the lesser tabloids? They do not even care about the war news, or maybe that is just wilful ignorance. I do not know.”
Again his hand ran through his hair. “What matters to them are the coins pressed into their hands each week. They can see their children and wives at work. That to them is security. The bread on their table is security. Dreams of education or marvellous machines that do the work of ten are … frightening, I think. We are so far from any concrete examples of industry. Here in the bucolic atmosphere of Derbyshire, we are sheltered from the world, so they think. It has always been thus and therefore nothing will change.”
“Yo
u cannot save them all, Will.” Elizabeth said gently. “And refusing to see past the end of their noses helps nobody. I think, if I may say, that they are listening to you, some are. And though they bluster and fuss, they are truly looking to you for guidance. They trust you.”
Darcy turned and looked at her helplessly. “And for the quiet majority who hopefully do want to change, what do I do with the vocal ones who want to destroy or fight the coming … apocalypse, to use their ridiculous words.”
“Prove them wrong. Be successful. Show the families that they can survive, but they must be flexible. As you have told me, times are changing, and we must embrace it or one day Pemberley will not be able to support itself and what will become of it?”
He looked around the bedchamber and noted a small crack in the plaster near the ceiling. “Mrs. Reynolds will be taking more than a tip for showing the house to tourists; she will be charging a fee so that we can afford to keep the walls standing at all.” Darcy closed his eyes and breathed out. “I read of the new looms being destroyed. I know of the violence with the farm machinery. I did not know what to expect today, and I wanted you to be safe, and away from it should violence have erupted.”
“Now I understand.” She nodded. “And to tell me of this, would worry me about your safety. So instead you remained silent to protect me.”
“Of course.” He smiled. “I am vain enough to hope that you would worry for me.”
“Just a little.” Their eyes held.
“I only hope to make their lot better, as well as ours, and our children’s.” His voice softened and his gaze dropped to her waist. When he raised his eyes, he saw that hers were cast down and she was clasping her hands. Darcy crossed the room and knelt beside her. Taking her hands and kissing them, he placed them over her stomach. “I believe that our first has begun his journey to us.”
“Shhhh.” She whispered.
“No. No, I will not accept that. You, my love, are not the same woman you were a month ago, or two months ago. I pride myself in knowing every inch of you. I can sit in my study and listen to you singing, and in my mind, I am caressing your body. I am feeling this skin.” Darcy tenderly traced her bare forearm. “My mouth …,” he licked his lips, “is tasting you. I know every contour, every dimple; I know the shade of your nipples and the softness of your hair. I know the scent that you wear to please me, and the scent of your pleasure when I love you.” Their eyes met and he raised his hand to caress her face and brush back her hair. “You are changing, love. You may not see it, you may be afraid to look upon yourself, perhaps you never have …” Elizabeth shook her head and his thumb wiped away the tear that rolled down her cheek. He held it up for her to see and smiled. “You have cried more in the last weeks than I daresay you have in a lifetime.” Elizabeth closed her hand over his and their fingers entwined. “Tell me what you believe.”
“I dare not speak it.” She whispered.
“Why?”
“Because I do not know, not for certain.”
“Neither can I, but I have faith, and hope, and … I believe it is true.”
“Do you?”
“Do you?”
“I want it more than nearly anything in the world.” She watched as Darcy rose and sat beside her. Tenderly, he kissed her and as their lips met, he slowly pushed her backwards onto the bed. He held her eyes and placed her hand over her stomach.
“Feel this.” He rubbed her hand over the small bulge he had discovered. “Is this different?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you afraid to even speak of your hopes? You can tell me anything; please do not hold back.” Darcy lay on his side, and kept his hand with hers.
“But you can?” She touched his face.
“Keeping you from the very real possibility of harm by unhappy tenants is not the same, love.” He said seriously. “And that includes riding without me.”
“That is a different subject entirely. I am not riding Daisy now. My feet are firmly on the floor … well they were a moment ago.”
“It is not a different subject, not if this bulge in your belly is proof of anything more than your fondness for shortbread.” He smiled when she closed her eyes and shook her head. He gently kissed her temple, but did not move his hand. “What else have I not told you? Let us bare all.”
Elizabeth caressed back the fringe of hair that hung over his eyes as he looked down upon her. “Where were you this time last year?”
Surprised, he stared at her for a moment and then towards the window. “London.” He looked back to their embraced hands. “Lost.” He smiled sadly, “And you?”
“I was in London, too. I was leaving for home about now. I remember driving past Hyde Park on our way and stopping in the traffic for quite some time. We saw the Horse Guards at work, practicing formations as they rode together, it was quite thrilling.”
“Richard was back with them at that time. He had taken as much leave as he could in the early days of Georgiana’s disappearance. I was on my own at that point.” He watched her and looked back down. “Well, Uncle was searching, too. Court was not in session.” A conflicted look flashed over his face and seeing her concern, he raised her hand to his mouth before setting it back in place. “So you saw Richard, little did you know that in a matter of weeks you would be battling a soldier in blue.”
“Battling is the word.” .
“If I had known in mid-August that in a mere … eight weeks, I would have the honour of refusing to dance with you …” Elizabeth started to laugh and his eyes brightened with the sound, “I would … I would … it would have made the time in between … tolerable.”
She sighed at his smile and caressed his jaw, “You have not spoken of that time, not really.”
“No.” He looked away to the window and said nothing for some time, just holding her hand and watching the sunshine dancing on the lake.
“I do not mean to press you …”
“I know.”
She could see him swallow down and his jaw working. “Will … Let us change the subject, you wanted to talk about the future and I am purposely avoiding …”
“I was preparing to tell the family that she was gone.” He said suddenly in a strangled voice. “I was … battling between giving up hope and holding on to it.” Blinking, he drew a steadying breath. “Ironic that it was Hope who was ultimately born.” He looked at her and was glad that her arms came around his waist and he rested his chin on her head. “I suppose that she was conceived about now.”
“I have thought that, too.” Elizabeth whispered and he kissed her hair. “What would the family have done if you had confessed?”
“Lord knows.” He sighed. “Uncle Harding was adamant that we not give up.”
“I do not believe that you would have, even without his urging.” Elizabeth looked up at him. “You might have harboured your private despair and would have, as is your typical behaviour, prepared for the day when you could not hide her absence from the family any longer, but I do not see you putting a death notice in the papers.”
“No?”
“No. Never.”
“Perhaps not.” Brushing her hair away from her forehead, he smiled a little. “I am glad that you left your hat behind in the copse this morning.”
She laughed. “I know how you hate them.”
“Well, sometimes they are quite becoming and frame your face very prettily, but … not this morning; I loved seeing you riding with your curls dancing around your shoulders, I love that your hair came down.”
Blushing, she rested her head against his chest. “The looks the boys at the stable gave me!”
Darcy smiled, knowing that it was not her hair they were staring at, but the glow that radiated from her after their encounter. “Point them out to me and I will have them whipped for looking at you.”
“Will!” She gasped and pulled away. “You are teasing me!”
“Not really.” His voice was serious but his eyes twinkled.
“You look
a little happier.” She traced over his whiskers.
Wrapping a curl around his finger, he held it up to his nose and kissed it. “Must one always be happy?”
“Well, my sister seems to think so. She told Mama of their decision to leave Netherfield and their search for an estate of their own, and she is inexplicably dismayed by Mama’s rather … expressive reaction.”
“It is the compounding of those expressive reactions that drive Bingley away from Mrs. Bennet’s presence, you know. He took Jane from Longbourn this summer specifically to accustom Mrs. Bennet to her absence and to convince Jane that Longbourn will survive without her.”
“I did not realize that.” Elizabeth said softly as he caressed his fingers through her hair. “I thought that it was to bring her relief after caring for Papa and … everything on her own.”
“She was not on her own.” He reminded her. “No matter how many times she spoke of her burdens and wondered … ever so politely … of your absence. She was not alone.”
Elizabeth became a little defensive, but her voice was strained all the same, “She was not trying to be mean; she simply did not understand why I stayed away, how could she?”
“If it were not for Georgiana, would you still have wished to be there? You had the opportunity to go and you declined. Do you regret that?”
Elizabeth looked into the gentle pool of blue that held her gaze. “No. But how could I ever explain that without sounding like an ungrateful daughter?”
“You could not, not clearly, and that is why she remains confused, and perhaps a bit bitter.”