“Mine,” Thomas said, with the unshakeable certainty of a child who has made a cosmic decision. He clutched Harley closer, rubbing his wrinkled skin and then looked up at Elizabeth with an expression of profound seriousness. “Lizba, mine, too.”
The words floated straight into her heart.Lizba, mine, too.He had claimed her, this small, solemn boy, with the same directness he had claimed the puppy.
Prue, who had been observing from a tactful distance, caught Elizabeth’s eye with an expression of knowing amusement. “You have been in Derbyshire not even a month, and you have already acquired a husband, a stepson, a puppy, and—if I am notmistaken—the undying devotion of the household staff. That is rather efficient, even for a woman of your capabilities.”
“I am nothing if not thorough.”
“You are nothing if not surprising.” Prue’s voice dropped, soft enough that only Elizabeth could hear. “He watches you, you know. Mr. Darcy. As though he cannot quite believe you are real.”
Elizabeth did not have time to respond, because at that moment the sound of hoofbeats announced an arrival, and she looked up to find Darcy himself reining in his horse at the edge of the farmyard.
He dismounted, all composed masculinity, and handed the reins to a waiting farmhand. His boots crunched across the yard as he approached, and Elizabeth became acutely aware of her mud-spattered state, her bonnet askew, and Harley’s determined assault on her ribbons.
None of this seemed to diminish Darcy’s intense expression as he looked at her.
“Mrs. Darcy.” The corner of his mouth quirked upward. “I see the expedition has exceeded its original parameters.”
“We have acquired a dog,” Georgiana announced, apparently feeling that someone should state the obvious. “His name is Harley. Thomas chose him.”
“Did he.” Darcy crouched beside Thomas, bringing himself to the child’s level. His hand moved to pet the puppy, and Harley immediately abandoned Elizabeth’s ribbons to lick Darcy’s fingers with enthusiasm. “Harley. That is a dignified name for a hound.”
“Mine.” Thomas clutched the puppy closer, as though fearing it might be taken away. Then, with the generosity of a child who has decided to share his greatest treasure, he said, “Lizba, mine, too.”
Darcy’s expression altered with a softening in his eyes, the breath he forgot to take, and the way his entire bearing gentled, as if Thomas’s words had slipped past every guard he kept.
When he looked up at Elizabeth, his eyes had darkened with a depth she had not examined before.
“So I see,” he said, his voice pitched for her ears.
The farmyard faded. Prue’s voice became a distant murmur, and Georgiana’s exclamations over the mother dog receded into background noise. There was only this: Elizabeth and Darcy and Thomas and the adorable puppy between them, a small circle of belonging in the spring sunshine.
She had thought she understood this man. She had surveyed his reserve, measured his careful courtship, and accounted for his obvious devotion to Thomas. She had assembled the pieces into a picture that made sense—a grieving guardian, a practical husband, a man doing his duty with more tenderness than duty required.
But watching him now—watching the way his hand rested on Thomas’s dark curls, the way his eyes kept returning to her face as though drawn by a force he could not resist—she realized that her picture was incomplete. There were depths here she had not fathomed, chambers she had not entered, a capacity for feeling that his reserve had concealed rather than revealed.
She had underestimated him. She, who prided herself on reading people correctly, had looked at Fitzwilliam Darcy and seen only the surface. The truth of him was larger, vaster, expanding with every moment she spent in his company, and it made her previous assessments seem laughably shallow.
There was more to discover, more to learn, more to love. The thought arrived unbidden and settled with the quiet assurance of truth.
“I believe,” Darcy said, rising to his feet at Mrs. Maitland’s approach, “that I am in the market for a basset hound.”
The farmer’s wife’s weathered face creased into a knowing smile. “I thought you might be, sir. That particular pup has been waiting for the right family. Seems he’s found them.”
The transaction was conducted with efficient courtesy—Darcy pressing coins into Mrs. Maitland’s hands while offering Hartley a wage increase to account for the care and feeding of a newly acquired ward. Elizabeth watched him manage it all, this man who ran an estate of ten thousand a year, giving the purchase of a puppy the same focused consideration he might give a land negotiation.
He did nothing by accident. She was beginning to see it: every action deliberate and every decision considered. Even his silences were not emptiness, but the overflow of feeling too abundant for words.
Through it all, Thomas remained on the ground with Harley, apparently unaware that his entire world had just rearranged itself around this small, baggy-skinned, long-eared creature. The puppy had fallen asleep against his chest, its ears pooling around it like melted velvet, and Thomas’s small hand rested protectively on its back.
I could be happy here.The thought rose unbidden, surprising in its simplicity.I could make a life here, with these people, in this place.
Darcy appeared at her elbow, having concluded his negotiations. His shoulder brushed hers—deliberately, she thought, though she could not be certain—and he did not step away.
“You have corrupted my household,” he said, but his voice was warm, threaded with something that might have been wonder. “First, a snail. Now a hound. I shudder to imagine what creature you will introduce next.”
“I was thinking perhaps a hedgehog. Thomas seems the sort of child who would appreciate a hedgehog.”
“A tortoise would be easier to care for.”
