“No, Gigi, I am not. I willalwaysbe your cousin, that I can promise you,” Elizabeth assured her young cousin, glancing around to make sure all knew she was not to be gainsaid in this promise, and her eyes stilled when she saw Perry and Miss Bennet together.“Wait a minute,” Elizabeth watched them, noticing how Perry stayed close to her and how solicitous he was being.“Perry, is there some news that you mayhap need to share with the rest of us?”
“It is not the time yet, Lady Eliz…” Jane was cut off by her younger sister.
“My name is Elizabeth and family and friends address me as Lizzy,‘aney!” she used the last name by which she had addressed Jane Bennet. As usual, Elizabeth helped to lighten the mood.
“Alright,Lizzy, our news can keep until the morrow,” Jane tried to insist, her smile at hearing her name said by her sister a wonderous thing to hear.
“Fiddlesticks, Jane! If ever there was a day when good news was welcome, it would be today. It is not every day that one is reunited with one’s birth family after so many years. I can guess what yours and my brother-in-law’s news is, but mayhap one of you wants to tell us before I guess outloud,” she teased them.
“Has she always been so impertinent?” Bennet asked of no one in particular.
“Worse!” Richard interjected with a grin.
“Itch, I would mind what I say if you do not want your secrets revealed,” Elizabeth threatened playfully.
“Itch?” Perry asked.
“When Lizzy first came to us,” Elaine explained,“she could not say Richard or Rich, so he became Itch, and it has stuck over the years. Is that not so, my Itch?”
“Yes, Mother,” Richard replied, with a‘just you wait’look directed at his younger sister.
“Like she called me‘aney instead of Jane or Janey,” Jane added.
“There was one name she remembered fully; is there a John in your family?” Richard asked.
“I am John, John Manning,” John came forward. Tammy explained how he was her son from her first marriage, who had been accepted as her husband’s son in every way that matters, and why she chose that he kept his birth father’s last name.
“John and Lizzy used to have their little beds next to each other, and they used to love to play together,” Tammy added.“Talking about sons, William,” she called her oldest son forward,“was my husband’s sister’s boy, and when he was orphaned, we adopted him. He is eighteen and at the School of Divinity at Cambridge. James here,” she pointed to the boy standing near his father,“is twelve and will start at Eton next year. He was the first child that Thomas and I were gifted after we married. The twins, Kitty and Tom, are in the nursery.”
“Kitty?” Anne Darcy asked?
“Her full name is Catherine,” Tammy explained.
“Kitty is good,” Andrew and Richard said together.
“Wait, Mrs Bennet, your first name is Tammy correct,” Elaine asked, remembering another name Lizzy had uttered when she arrived at Snowhaven.
“‘ammy!” Richard and Andrew said as one.
“She mentioned my name as well?” Tammy Bennet was gratified that she had made an impression on her charge at the time.
Elizabeth looked at Perry expectantly,“The floor is yours, Perry.”
“Well, per a demand from my impertinent sister-in-law, it is my great pleasure to let you all know that I requested Jane’s hand in marriage today, and she did me the great honour of accepting me,” Perry announced proudly as he looked at his betrothed lovingly.
“When I think of all the times that we came close to meeting Lizzy over the years, and not asking questions that we should have,” Tammy Bennet mused.
“I believe that things happen for a reason,” Lady Rose opined.“It was the right time. With my Perry marrying Jane, it was inevitable that Lizzy would meet her birth family, and one way or another, they were destined to be sisters again.”
“You see Thomas, if you liked the town more you would have heard that the Fitzwilliams had adopted a girl that they recovered in Sherwood, and that would have led you to make inquiries,” Tammy surmised.
“One thing that I have learnt, Aunt Tammy, is that we can‘what if’until the end of days, but it will not change anything. All we can do is move forward now,” Elizabeth said philosophically.
“Wise girl, that one,” Uncle George said with a grin, and his statement earned him a round of laughter.
“I apologize if I am the one who interjects some reality into our reunion, but what are we going to announce and when?” Andrew asked.
“Nothing to apologize for, my Lord;” Bennet responded,“that is a very salient question.”
