Neither of them said anything, because Mia chose that moment to wake and remind them that they should not have allowed her to fall asleep in the first place.
***
The happiness in the home continued through Christmas Eve which was spent at Thai restaurant on Smith Street.
Elizabeth took them to the table Charlotte preferred. Even the order was identical to what she always got.
Elizabeth put her hand over Mia's briefly as they ate. Mia turned her palm up and squeezed back. They sat like that for a moment and then let go and the conversation moved on.
Darcy paid.
Obviously.
Walking back to the car, Mia was ahead of them slightly, hands in her pockets, looking at the lights strung along the street, and Elizabeth and Darcy walked behind her at the pace of two people who were not in a hurry and had not decided to be walking this close together but had ended up that way without discussing it.
"She is doing well," Darcy said quietly.
"She is," Elizabeth agreed. "Better than I expected. Better than I think she knows."
"She knows," he said. "She is just deciding how much to show."
Elizabeth looked at him.
"You sound like you understand that," she said.
He looked back at her. "I might."
They walked.
Ahead of them, Mia had stopped at a window display and was looking at something, her breath making small clouds in the cold air.
"Thank you," Elizabeth said. Not quietly. Not loud. Just at the right volume for two people walking close together at night.
"For what."
"For this week. For being here every day. For the hot chocolate and the ice skating and the film and the cooking that was actually edible this time."
"You cleared the pot.” he said.
"I couldn’t let food go to waste"
He looked at her, their smile mutual. Just when a sweet sensation began bubbling in his tummy, she looked away. Darcy smile widened. He had seen that before. It was what Elizabeth Bennet did when she was blushing.
NINETEEN
DARCY's SISTER, Georgiana arrived on Christmas morning at ten o'clock with two large bags, a wreath she had made herself, and a smile that could melt the hardest of faces.
Mia had the door open before the knock finished.
"You are taller," Georgiana said, pulling her into a hug immediately. "You were not this tall when last I saw you."
"I grew four centimetres," Mia said into her shoulder. "Mr. Darcy measured me."
"He would."
The two cousins exchanged pleasantries, condolences and gist before Elizabeth came downstairs to join the party.
Elizabeth had been trying for minutes, not to stand at the foot of the stairs before Georgiana arrived. She had made cinnamon rolls, arranged the kitchen, and reorganised everything she thought needed reorganising. The truth was that she had heard about Georgiana Darcy for years — from Charlotte, from Bingley, from Darcy himself in the small ways he mentioned her without meaning to — and had never once been in the same room as her. Even at Charlotte’s wedding, she couldn’t remember being introduced to her.
