The nursery door stood ajar. Elizabeth pushed it open and found Hartley seated by the window, mending a torn seam on one of Thomas’s breeches. The nursemaid rose immediately. “Mrs. Darcy! I did not expect—is everything quite well, ma’am?”
“I am Thomas’s mother.” The words came out too sharp, defensive in a way that made her wince. She softened her voice with effort. “I wished to see him before he sleeps. There is no need to stand on ceremony.”
Hartley’s eyes surveyed her demeanor, but she was too well-trained to comment. “Of course, ma’am. I was just about to fetch biscuits from the kitchen. Master Thomas has been asking for them for the past quarter hour.”
“Then by all means, fetch them.” Elizabeth moved further into the room. “I shall manage perfectly well in your absence.”
Hartley curtsied and slipped away, the door closing with a hush. Elizabeth lingered in the nursery’s entry, drawing in the mingled scents of lavender, milk, and that elusive sweetness peculiar to small children, granting herself three precious seconds of stillness before the inevitable storm.
“Lizba!”
Thomas hurtled toward her from the corner where he had been playing, his small legs pumping with the unsteady determination of a cavalry charge. Harley bounded alongside him, ears flapping, tongue lolling, utterly convinced this was a game and he was winning it. They both collided with Elizabeth—Thomas wrapping himself around her knees, Harley leaping at her skirts—and the force of their combined enthusiasm staggered her backward a full step.
“Goodness.” She reached down to steady the boy while fending off Harley’s enthusiastic tongue. “What a welcome. Have you been waiting for me?”
“Lizba, play!” Thomas tugged at her hand, attempting to drag her toward the corner. “Come see! Come see!”
She let herself be led. The nursery’s corner was a battlefield: tin soldiers sprawled in ignoble defeat, a menagerie of carved beasts presiding over the carnage, and a precarious edifice of painted blocks that, with charity, might be termed architectural.
“Wall,” Thomas announced. “Big wall. Strong.”
“I see.” Elizabeth lowered herself to the floor. “It is indeed a very impressive wall. What is it keeping out?”
Thomas pointed at Harley, who chewed on a rag cat made of old socks. “Harley bad. Eat boot.”
“Did he? A serious offense indeed.”
“Wall, keep him out!” Thomas seized a block and hurled it at his own creation. It collapsed, scattering blocks in every direction.
“Boom. Boom.” He shrieked with delight, already gathering the blocks to begin again.
“How about we build a tower for a bigger boom?” Elizabeth helped him stack the colorful blocks, only to have Thomas swat them down before she had three.
“Wall!” He proclaimed, lining the blocks in a row. Harley shook his ears, and the wall came tumbling down.
“I do bigger boom,” Elizabeth said, gathering up five blocks. “Make bigger tower.”
Thomas stuck his thumb in his mouth and watched as she piled three, then four, then five blocks into a wobbling tower.
“Big boom!” His thumb popped from his mouth, and he knocked it down, squealing with laughter.
Elizabeth’s smile escaped her control as Thomas declared, “Tower. More tall.”
He started the stack, putting one block, and then two.
Elizabeth placed a block carefully atop his stack. It wobbled but held. Thomas clapped his hands. “Lizba make big.”
She added another. And another. The tower grew—six blocks, seven, swaying with each addition. Thomas bounced on his heels with anticipation, his eyes fixed on the precarious structure.
“Big tower,” he breathed. “Biggest?—”
He seized a block and hurled it at the tower’s base. The entire structure collapsed, blocks clattering across the rug, and Thomas threw his head back with a crow of triumph.
“Boom! All fall down! All fall down!”
Elizabeth surveyed the cheerful wreckage, blocks strewn in bright disarray, while Thomas, undaunted, was already marshaling them for another campaign.
All fall down. Like her marriage and her life.
