“I’ll take you somewhere that has one this autumn, when we can be alone.”
She stretched on her toes to kiss him, then got a text. She looked at her watch, expecting a reply from Charlotte, but it was Jane. “It’s my sister getting back to me from June. She says, ‘Hey, how’re you?’”
He gave her a flat look before saying, “In 1812, I could have written to New York and had an answer before now. I might have had a letter from Spain whilst Napoleon’s forces occupied them.”
She dismissed the notification and hugged her husband. “I’m not answering her now. My family is here.”
Elizabeth had been running nonstopsince their return from their August trip to the Lake District. She worked with the event coordinator planning the Historical Dance Society’s program while Darcy managed their tenants and all the “outside” estate matters she never fully understood. She was more comfortable with gown conservation and visitor stats than horses and farming. After two weeks back at Pemberley, she was already eager for another holiday alone with Darcy.
A private getaway after Georgiana left would help Darcy too. He was happier now, they were back in accord, but she sensed lingering tension. Sometimes he hugged her a little long, stared a little too hard at his sister playing with Sandra. He never withdrew from them like he had before and acted like himself, but Darcy occasionally seemed worried to her.
It must be because Georgiana would leave on the twenty-second—and Darcy would endure another final goodbye. She supposed it had to be a little like suffering the psychological impact of a divorce, a complete breakdown of the bedrock on which you founded your life. There must still be a sense of loss no matter how happy he was about his life here in the twenty-first century.
“Is this the gown to leave aside?” a curatorial associate asked, wheeling a mounted gown toward her.
“Yes, I’ll take that one,” she said, her attention dragged back. “Thank you.”
The house would close for a long weekend for the Historical Dance Society conference. The staff moved gowns into storage and cleared some of the furniture for programs to take place. The attendees were staying at the inns in Lambton and Bakewell—spending their money in the area—and having their activities here at Pemberley with a ball on Saturday night.
An arm snaked around her waist. “Is that the gown Georgiana will wear to the ball?” Darcy had come in to survey the work.
“The textile conservator argued against it since ‘it’s from 1824 and irreplaceable.’”
Darcy shrugged. “We have one like it from the year before and another from the year after. We have so many that I loaned half of the collection to other museums, and a quarter is in storage upstairs.”
To the textile staff, the gown was a part of history, but to Georgiana and Darcy it was an old dress. Elizabeth supposed they were both right. But they all agreed the gown was sturdy enough to be worn if Georgiana was careful.
“It isn’t culturally significant and its seams are in good condition, so I chose to make Georgiana happy. Besides, it’s not like it won’t fit her perfectly or she won’t know how to move in it.”
“You don’t have to justify yourself. The way I set our bylaws, we can do whatever we damn well please with our house and anything in it,” Darcy said.
His gaze drifted up to the chandelier as employees bustled around them. “The lighting was converted to electricity about a hundred years ago. And a hundred years before that, it would have been splendidly lit up with candles. How will the room be illuminated in another hundred?” he asked in a tone of wonder. “In a way neither of us can imagine.”
She loved how curious he was about the world and the accomplishments people were capable of. “That will be your great-grandchild’s problem. Don’t worry about future modernisations when we’re setting a ball in the past. Look, they’re chalking the floor like you suggested.”
“For all their internet sources, I should not have been the one to tell them about that.”
There was elaborate white chalk drawing all over the ballroom floor to prevent dancers from slipping. They had gone with a heavenly bodies motif after their discussion of the number of planets, with a friendly dispute over how many planets would be depicted. Sandra would “help” colour it in when she returned from school. And after an evening of dancing, the decorations would all be worn away.
While watching everyone at work, she leant in and asked, “Is it close enough to what you remember about preparing for a ball?”
He took a moment to answer. “These events give me a strange sense of going backward in time, even if it is not quite right.”
“It’s not strange to remember.”
“It is strange for a time traveller who readily went forward two hundred years to suddenly feel like he’s fallen back,” he murmured, lowering his voice and moving a little farther from the activity. “I dislike it. Too many things are just slightly off. And the clothes, the dancing, it feels too much like a costume, like make-believe.” He looked across the ballroom. “But then there is a moment or two where I am dancing or listening to the music, and I am transported back to when that was my real life.”
“How does that feel?” she asked quietly.
“Jolting, frightening even, like I am not where I belong. And then I feel guilty for letting my mind wander to the past.” He smiled at her. “Then I am back in the present, critiquing the clothes that are entirely wrong, or the dancing that is incorrect.”
“Exactly where you belong, then.” He nodded, watching the activity. What was on his mind? “Will you attend the ball?”
“Yes,” he said wearily. “I have to dance with my sister, and make the participants feel welcome.”
“Will you wear a suit and stand to the side like the owner, or will you dress in the breeches I like?”
He stood very still, but his gaze slid to look at her. “The breeches, but not the boots,” he murmured. “Never boots in a ballroom, dearest.”
