An odd, unexpected jump in Darcy’s stomach. Miss Elizabeth Bennet smiled brightly at him. The woman had very bright eyes, full of light and life.
He ignored that sensation, knowing that it meant nothing but that he was attracted to the young woman, but as he would not remarry, that was a sensation that he did not need to worry about in any important way. He had enjoyed speaking with her once, and he hoped to do so again.
“The delight of my life — Emily, would you like to meet Miss Bennet?”
Miss Bennet cheerfully said, “Hello, Miss Emily.”
The girl looked up, took one look at the smiling woman standing next to Darcy, and then burst out crying.
“Oh my.” Miss Bennet’s eyes danced as Darcy picked Emily up and bounced her until she calmed again. “It does not seem that she likes me.”
Darcy felt a slight flush.
Ridiculously he would have liked to see Emily take to Miss Bennet immediately. Their previous conversation — beginning with his terrible awkwardness — during the ball had made a larger impact on him than he could have anticipated.
“It is quite ordinary for children of her age,” Darcy replied seriously. “They are generally shy with new persons, or those who they do not see frequently, though she does not usually cry, when—”
“Aha-ha,” Miss Bennet said grinning. “She does hold a special antipathy towards me. Sensible child. It is my face, I must assume. Maybe my smile — if my sister Jane were here, she could smile in a way that would reassure a child. Is it a problem with my face?”
Miss Bennet turned to him with that mischievous smile playing over her face, offering for him to study her face.
Darcy could not resist the temptation of studying her closely.
There were small freckles on her nose and around the base of her neck. She had a dimple. There was a small beauty spot around where the chin met her neck on the right side. Her mouth was a shade too wide for fashion, but her lips were elegant. She had slightly flushed cheeks, and lovely thick eyebrows.
He swallowed. Their eyes met. Darcy was too aware of her as a woman. He suspected she was too aware of him as a man for his own comfort.
Emily took the opportunity to peek out from his shoulder, but when Miss Bennet looked at her with a smile, she immediately pressed her face back into the lapel of Darcy’s coat.
“My little cousins were the same at that age,” Miss Bennet said. “Every time they visited Christmas, or when I stayed in London with my uncle, they hid for twenty minutes. Once they were comfortable with me, they spent the next two hoursdemanding that I toss the ball again and again, describe the name of each of their animals seven times for every wooden tiger they possessed, toss the ball once more, and then spin them round and round in fast circles.”
“Emily is much like that — you want to be let down, darling?”
The girl flopped over his arm while reaching downwards. Soon as she was put down, Emily immediately returned to her study of the couch’s fabric, whilst taking care to keep her face angled in such a way that she could see where Miss Bennet was without directly facing the terrifying woman.
“She is very small, that might be the explanation, I suppose. You are not a tall woman,” Darcy said, “but compared to my daughter you are a giantess.”
“Like in Gulliver’s Travels,” Miss Bennet replied. “And if the children could organize, like as not, they would tie all of us down to the ground and shoot cannonballs at us. I jest, of course. There is no doubt on the matter. I have seen older children do exactly that when the opportunity comes.”
Darcy could not resist a bubble of laughter.
Emily looked up at hearing him laugh, and she smiled with that grin that charmed him completely the first time, when she was two months old, that she had looked up, found his face, and smiled at him.
“You present far too perfect a picture of domestic bliss.” Miss Bennet gave a smiling sigh. “I shall grow too impressed with it.”
“That is my chief purpose — to impress young misses with my paternal excellence.”
Miss Bennet grinned at him. It was impossible to not smile back at her.
“I hardly know what I am doing,” he said. “For example, when she does something dangerous, or that might damage anitem of value, she will often repeatedly try to do a thing I have forbidden. Ought I strictly punish her?” He shrugged. “I do not know. I do not — but perhaps I should. There is a theory that children are intrinsically disobedient, and I shall establish a bad pattern of future morals by not fiercely disciplining her, and only preventing her, again and again, from doing the thing.”
“That seems amply sufficient to make the point.”
“Amongst my friends with older children, there is a great deal of variety in their characters, even within one family. Perhaps what I do has very little influence upon who she shall become. That is the view of my uncle. Or perhaps some small unmarked error I make now shall lead her to elope with a disgraceful fortune hunter the day she turns sixteen.”
Miss Bennet’s eyes danced. “The many worries of the father.”
“So, I do what seems to make most sense to me, and — dear, do not try to eat that.” He picked Emily up, and then immediately flipped her upside down so that the skirt nearly hung around her head. “Pray tell, for what purpose have you inverted yourself? Pray tell. Why are you hanging upside down? Why do you enjoy it so?”
