“There is nothing amiss in that. Men and women were made by the Almighty to look towards each other. She should feel no guilt in liking that I like the look of her.”
“I know that there is nothing I can do. But know that I do not approve. I know that you do not wish to have my blessing. But I will recognize Miss Bennet as Mrs. Darcy, and I will visit after she is married. The world will see that there is no breach.”
“I thank you,” Darcy replied.
Some part of him had hoped that Lady Catherine would break off relations, but he suspected that was unlikely, since it was clear that as frustrating as Darcy found it to protect Emily from her grandmother’s orders and complaints, Lady Catherine was, in her own way, delighted to have Emily nearby. And Darcy was not a man who could wholly prevent a grandmother from seeing her only living descendent without strict necessity.
“I was never disappointed inyou,” Lady Catherine said then. “A little now. If you determined that you must marry, you could have done better by far than Miss Bennet.”
“I could have found no one who suited me better.”
“Young lovers, always speaking nonsense. Foolishness. I thought you were made of sterner stuff. But no man can ever resist the charm of a too pretty woman.”
That was unfair, Darcy thought, he had certainly resisted the charms of a great many women. Though perhaps none of them had been “too pretty” whatever that might mean.
“It is Anne who disappointed me. She could not survive one birth. Almost every woman survives at leastone. I survived three! She could not present you with a son — she could not ensure that Pemberley would stay with the Fitzwilliam family, she could not—”
“You may have forgotten,” Darcy replied, “that I am also a Fitzwilliam.”
“Half of Emily’s blood is from my parents. What children you have with Miss Bennet will only have a quarter of it.”
There was really nothing that Darcy had to say to that, beyond the simple point that it was not a thing which madehimunhappy.
“I did everything I ought to have,” Lady Catherine said. “Everything in life. I always performed my duties. Yet the Almighty cursed me with such a girl. I deserved a better daughter.”
“No, Anne deserved a better mother.” Darcy stood to walk from the room. He had no interest in anything further Lady Catherine might say.
But despite that, ingrained politeness and the long taught belief that he ought to show respect to his family members made Darcy stop for a brief moment when Lady Catherine exclaimed, “Wait! Fitzwilliam!”
Darcy turned to look at her.
“I pray you’ll never need to know in my grandchild, or in any child that you have with Miss Bennet, the deepdisappointment I have known. No parent deserves to know that their child was wholly unworthy of their care.”
“Nothing. Nothing,” Darcy snarled at his aunt, “Nothing Emily could ever do would make her deserve such an attitude as you hold towards Anne. I loved Anne, I admired her, and she was kind, good and sweet. You were a tyrant, and by God. By God, I shall ensure that Emily is never in your presence without myself or Elizabeth to shield her from what viciousness you might teach her. Good day.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Do you by any chance still have the Shakespeare?”
“I am afraid not.” Mr. Morris shook his head apologetically at Elizabeth’s question. “It was from a famous edition, and I sold it at a good profit to a collector in London who believed he could resell it more easily.”
“Oh, well,” Elizabeth said with some sadness. “Papa was always proud that he had it. I remember paging through it once I’d become old enough that Papa did not worry about me hurting the book.”
Hearing that, Darcy turned from leafing through a book while keeping half an eye on Emily to say, “Give us the man’s address. I’ll have my man of business see if he can chase the tome down, and if whoever presently owns it is willing to sell.”
“I think,” Mr. Morris gestured at a pile of about thirty books neatly stacked on the counter, “that this is all that is left in my stock of your father’s library.”
Emily started screeching and shouting, “Run! Run!” as she ran around the tables in the circulating library. She waved a piece of bread like a war banner.
Putting down his book Darcy chased after her, going intentionally just slow enough that his daughter could stay ahead of him and shouting, “Me eat you, me eat you!”
When Emily turned to face Darcy with a sparkling and heart stopping smile, he picked her up and gnawed at her belly as she giggled.
“Could you,” Mr. Morris said to Elizabeth in a low voice, “I cannot bring myself to ask him, but the bread! Must she eat it here?”
Elizabeth laughed. “I forgot — Emily, give me your bread. You shall have it again once we are done.”
The bread was stuck in Elizabeth’s hand. Emily said, “Lizzy. Bread.”
