“You would not,” Lord Matlock replied. “Dicky, I know you too well.”
“I thank you for your efforts on my behalf,” Darcy began in a firm voice, “However, I — yes, yes, darling, that is a tiger.”
Emily replied, “Didadadi!”
Darcy echoed back, “Didedidi — dearest, go play with the ark again.”
She plastered her arms around Darcy’s legs, which was the girl’s habitual signal to be picked up.
So, Darcy did as requested, and he picked her up. Then he turned back to his uncle and said firmly, “I shall not marry again. I determined this immediately upon Anne’s death.”
“Not marry again!” Lord Matlock thundered. “You were not in love with the girl. Anne was sweet, but I could see how you looked at her. As a woman, you weren’t—”
“I beg you not to speak on that topic,” Darcy said coldly. “And I beg you to burn your list. I shall not marry again. I have ignored your previous hints upon the matter, but now that you have been clear upon the subject, I have been clear in turn.”
Lord Matlock and Richard looked between each other.
Emily settled in Darcy’s arms, and by what had by now become a long habit, he continuously put a small bounce in the way he held her. This did less to keep her entertained and quiet than it had in the early months before she could crawl.
“Whenheis so certain in his course, I knowIcan’t change his mind,” Richard said solemnly. “I hardly know a fellow whohas a greater pleasure in refusing to let his mind be changed than Darcy.”
“Yes,” Matlock replied, “but one might still evince curiosity upon the source of such a resolution.”
Darcy thought about Anne.
Anne had been too good for this world. Anne, who he had never loved as he ought to have, who he had never protected as he ought to have. He should have protected her from her desire to do her duty.
And he remembered those occasional horrifying thoughts that had risen to his consciousness before the birth — if she died, he might marry a woman whose person he could really admire. A woman who he married because he wished to, and not because his mother had begged him to marry her on her own deathbed.
And he thought of Anne as she bled to death. He remembered Anne’s voice when she asked him to promise her that he would marry again, this time to please himself.
He’d known then that he would never let himself marry once more. He did not deserve to be happy in that way.
And caring for Emily was all the joy and happiness he would ever need.
“One might inquire,” Darcy replied, putting all the dignity and hauteur he had learned from watching his father, into his tone, “but I shall make no reply.”
“Oh! And now I am curious,” Richard replied, hopping up, his eyes alight. “Oh, yes, very curious. Do not look atmethat way. I am not my father. I can wrestle you down and dunk your head in a pond.”
“You could not.”
“I’ve already done it at least a dozen times.”
“The two years you have on me no longer give you a physical advantage.”
“Children,” Lord Matlock said. “We are in London, I believe the nearest large pond is Hyde Park. Much too great of a walk.”
“There is a small puddle, barely deserving the name ‘pond’ in the square a few blocks towards St. Peters,” Richard replied. “It would do splendidly to — Oh! I have a theory.”
Darcy looked at his cousin. Who looked back at him.
The two gentlemen stared at each other for a long second, until Emily squirmed to be let down once again.
“Jove and Jupiter,” Richard said, “Darcy, you are a fool, but you shall not listen to me — no Papa, I’ll not tell you. You must convince Darcy to explain his reasoning himself if you wish to hear it, and I doubt he shall.”
Lord Matlock shrugged. “And you have no thought that it might benefit Emily to have a mother? Or that does not stand against your reasons.”
“I have given this great thought,” Darcy said. “There is nothing that a woman can do which a man cannot do also. Better likely. Did you not read Plato? And furthermore—”
