Darcy opened his mouth to object, but Elizabeth spoke first.
“I appreciate the counsel. Though I confess I had not considered that managing a two-year-old and managing a husband might require the same skills.”
“They do,” Mrs. Bickford nodded firmly, her eyes twinkling. “Feed them regular, give them room enough to stomp about when they’re riled, and above all—don’t let them keep the accounts to themselves. And I’m not talking about mere numbers. Mark my words.”
“I shall engrave it on my heart.” She spoke with a hint of dry humor in her smile.
Darcy was uncertain whether to feel faintly amused or thoroughly alarmed by this unsolicited marital advice. He opted for a swift change of subject. “And the new roof, Mrs. Bickford? Is it serving its purpose?”
“Does the job better than the last one, leaked like a sieve every time the wind took notion.” She rose, brushing imaginary crumbs from her apron. “You’ll want to be seeing the rest of the farms, I suppose. Don’t keep her out too long now. She’s not built for all-day riding, whatever she tells you.”
A faint flush colored Elizabeth’s cheeks, but she rose with her customary dignity. “It was a genuine pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Bickford.”
“Likewise, my dear. Come back once you’ve got your bearings. I’ll tell you tales about this one,” she gestured at Darcy, “that he’d rather you never heard.”
“I look forward to it enormously,” Elizabeth replied, meeting the old woman’s sparkling gaze with equal amusement.
They departed with Mrs. Bickford’s voice following them down the path, issuing final instructions about the proper care of new brides that Darcy chose not to hear. Elizabeth walked beside him, her hand light on his arm and her face thoughtful.
“Mrs. Bickford is… formidable,” she said when they were safely out of earshot.
“She has earned the right. She has outlived two masters of Pemberley and intends, I believe, to outlive me as well.”
“I suspect she will manage it through sheer force of will.” Elizabeth was quiet for a moment, then: “She knew your mother?”
“She did. I believe my father brought her by when she was a new bride, and Mrs. Bickford took her under her wing. She was one of the few people my mother confided in, I think. They understood each other.”
“What was she like? Your mother?”
The question surprised him. He had expected questions about Lady Amelia, about Thomas, and the secrets Prue had spilled, but he wasn’t prepared to speak about his mother.
“Lady Anne was…” He searched for words. “Warm and clever. She had a gift for making people feel seen—servants, tenants, visitors, everyone. My father adored her. When she died, something in him…” He stopped, aware he was saying more than he intended.
“Something in him, what?”
“Went out.” The words came roughly. “Like a candle. He lived another four years, but he was never the same.”
“That is a great love,” she observed.
“Yes.” His throat felt tight. “It was.”
And then the thought hit him as he watched her explore his estate, that her gait resembled his mother’s, and she was kind and clever with a gift of seeing people as they were and not as they tried to appear. This was the reason he could not forget her, and that the practical arrangement he had constructed was becoming rather more desirable.
They rode through Lambton at a sedate pace, the village bustling with market-day activity. Darcy felt the stares before he saw them: the shopkeeper’s wife pausing mid-sweep, the blacksmith setting down his hammer, and the cluster of youngwomen by the well falling into whispers that were not quite quiet enough to escape hearing.
“…London this whole time, they say…”
“…carried a torch for years, imagine…”
“…the most romantic thing…”
Elizabeth’s expression remained serene, but Darcy saw her mouth twitch.
“I had not realized,” she said, when they were safely past, “that I was the heroine of a Gothic romance. I ought to have dressed more dramatically.”
“The county is easily entertained, and their speculations are usually wrong.”
“There must be a grain of truth somewhere,” Elizabeth’s voice lilted in a teasing manner. “Though I confess to some curiosity about this legendary passion of yours. How long precisely have you been pining for me? And how did they suppose we had secretly met? Or did we correspond?”
