“Allow me to bring Edward back to his nurse, as it is his naptime. If you wish to expedite the conversation, you might pick up his blocks for me before I trip over them.”
Since Edward had redecorated her entire sitting roomwith every single block he possessed, Elizabeth hoped this would occupy her daughter for a good while.
“Perhaps Rosie would prefer to put them away?” Mary Beth asked hopefully.
Elizabeth only looked at her daughter; she knew better than to shuffle off chores she had been assigned onto servants, who already had plenty to do without adding Edward’s obsession with extravagant building displays.
“You dragged them all in here for him, you can take them all down.”
Edward helpfully demolished the tallest tower with a kick of his little booted foot, scattering blocks everywhere.
“Edward!” Mary Beth groaned. “You just made it a hundred times harder!”
The baby laughed gleefully.
“Naptime,” Elizabeth said, scooping him up before he could flatten another one. “Let us take you to Mrs Roberts before you raze the entire city.”
Mary Beth grumbled but in the resigned manner that meant she would obey. Elizabeth headed for the nursery; Edward laid his curly head upon her shoulder. Darcy met her at the landing and held out his arms for his son.
“I will take him on up,” he said, transferring the weight of his sleepy son from her arms. “Frost is giving Thomas another riding lesson.”
“Thank you,” Elizabeth sighed. “That child is growing so heavy, I wonder if I will be moving the nursery downstairs to accommodate him soon. He will be as tall as you before his second birthday, at this rate.”
Her husband smiled. “Where is our little Miss Inquisitive? I received a note, delivered to my study, that she ‘begs my attention to an important matter’.”
“At this moment, she is cleaning up the mess she helped Edward make in my sitting room, but I, too, have been warned that she has ‘important things to discuss’.”
“Did she give you any clue as to which important things?”
“No. But I fear she is going to bring up the idea of making the rounds to all my sisters again. Edward is not a good traveller, and the idea makes me weary.”
Darcy looked at her with some concern. The woman who had eagerly accompanied him to Venice and Switzerland would never have said it. But Edward’s birth had been difficult, the recovery more so; she was only recently finding her energy again, and travelling with a toddler, a five-year-old, a nurse, extra servants and trunks and carriages wasnother idea of amusement, even if Mary Beth was ripe for the adventure. “All is well,” she reassured him, touching his cheek. “It is only that with Georgiana and Lord Darnleigh in Suffolk, Lydia with Colonel Denny in Scotland, Jane and Mr Collins at Longbourn, and Mary and Milton in Kent…well, they are scattered too far apart to see them all. How I wish they were all coming to Pemberley again this summer. The house is so alive, with everyone here!”
“I believe the word you meant to use was ‘overrun’,” he teased. “Who told all of your sisters to be with child at once, restricting their travel this summer? But think of how much fun you will have when they are all safely delivered and you have four new nieces or nephews invading…er, visiting next summer?”
“Hush, or I shall just invite Mama,” she warned with an impish grin.
“My lips are sealed,” he said good-naturedly, bending to give her a kiss. “I shall come to you both shortly, and do mybest to distract our daughter from the Grand Tour of her dreams.”
Darcy approached his wife’s sitting room, hearing his daughter’s chattering through the slightly open door. For a moment he simply watched them both, marvelling at how quickly Mary Beth had grown so tall. The second the midwife had placed her in his arms, he had fallen in love for the second time in his life. He adored all his children, and would not say that he loved her best; but he had loved her the longest, and she held a special piece of his heart.
“Papa!” she cried, jumping up when she caught sight of him and grabbing his hands to lead him into the chamber. “You are just in time! We must talk!”
“Must we?” he said with a feigned impatience. “I am certain that Mr Andrews requires my attention.”
“Oh, please?” she said, looking up at him with her big brown eyes, so like her mother’s.
“Well, I suppose,” he said, seating himself beside his wife and placing an arm about her shoulders, pulling her in close.
Mary Beth stood before them, her hands steepled as if in prayer. “As you know, I am seven years old now,” she said gravely.
“Surely not!” he exclaimed, turning to his wife. “She jests. Clearly she is no more than six. Perhaps even five.”
“Papa! You know I had my birthday only last week! You bought me a pony!”
“Oh, oh, that. I suppose I do recall, after all. Now, then, what is it that isso important?”
She lifted her chin. “I believe that I am now old enough to read Cousin Anne’s stories.”
