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Elizabeth reached for Jane’s letter again. “There is news of Caroline too.”

Frederick Pye had married Caroline Bingley four years ago, thereby accomplishing something Darcy would once have considered beyond the reach of an ordinary man. He had made Miss Bingley content.

“What of your aunt and uncle?” he asked, for exchanging these bits of news seemed to distract her from her aches.

“All well,” she said with a smile. “Busy.”

“With four children, that seems inevitable.”

“Margaret is fifteen now.”

Darcy stared at her. “How is that possible?”

“I know,” Elizabeth said.

He distinctly remembered Margaret at ten, attempting to maintain her dignity while Henry laughed about Richard splitting his breeches.

“Eleanor is thirteen,” Elizabeth continued. “Edward eleven. Henry is nine.”

“Henry is nine?”

“And keeps everyone occupied keeping him alive and the house standing. Aunt writes that Margaret requires dresses, Eleanor requires books, Edward requires feeding at every hour of the day, and Henry requires constant supervision.”

Darcy smiled as he thought of Gracechurch Street. He could summon a vision of the house as it had been—small children underfoot, Bingley putting his sleeve into gravy, Miss Bingley complaining, Mr. Pye provoking her, Mrs. Gardiner somehow managing all of them, and Mr. Gardiner issuing the orders when it was required.

Five years ago, Darcy would have described the Gardiners as Elizabeth’s relations in trade. The words seemed absurd now. “They ought to come in the summer,” he said.

“They mean to, if I am well.”

“They must.”

“Must they?”

Darcy corrected himself. “I hope they will.” He placed one hand over her swollen stomach. “I owe them everything.”

“Well,” Elizabeth said, “Charlotte and the Gardiners.”

He had insisted upon sending Mrs. Collins the funds for several new bonnets to replace the one she had sacrificed to Lydia, for without her scheme it was possible that his wife would not have been sent to London that December.

Had the Gardiners not opened their home to Jane and Elizabeth, they would not have visited the former Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst. And if Miss Bingley, as was, had not felt obliged to return the call and fallen upon the pavement, had Bingley not required Darcy’s carriage . . .

The Gardiners had given him a place at their table. And Elizabeth—she had given him understanding. Not all at once. Certainly not easily.

But he understood now that Bingley could make his own choices, that Georgiana could build a life which did not require her brother to be at the centre of it, and that Richard would have to determine for himself what came after the army.

He understood that children did not become reasonable merely because one explained matters.

And most important of all, he understood his wife. Not perfectly, of course, for that was never possible. But well enough to know, eventually, when an argument about oranges was not about oranges at all.

Elizabeth gasped, and one hand moved to her abdomen.

His attention sharpened immediately. “What is it?”

“The baby.”

He moved his hand to where hers rested.

“Fitzwilliam, you need not look so alarmed.”