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Their steps carried them through the breakfast room, an informal dining room, all orderly and still, and then down the silent corridor, one of many branching in every direction.

“And this is the library,” Mrs. Reynolds said. “The master’s literary retreat.”

The library was warm—not merely tolerable, but luxuriously so, with a fire blazing in a well-tended grate and afternoon light pouring through tall windows that overlooked the lake. Shelves climbed to the ceiling on three sides, crowded with books in the beautiful disorder of a collection loved and read, not merely displayed.

“The master spends most of his evenings here,” Mrs. Reynolds said, and her voice softened. “He cannot pass a bookseller without coming away with an armful. His father was the same.”

Elizabeth ran her fingers along a shelf. Herodotus sat beside Mrs. Radcliffe. She smiled, remembering what Darcy had said about them being neighbors.

“His mother was the great reader. She said a library should contain everything one might wish to read and nothing one felt obligated to.”

“She was wise,” Elizabeth said. “I do believe I shall pass many hours here.”

The tour continued—the large dining room, music room, and a small parlor Mrs. Reynolds described as “ideal for intimate family gatherings.” The pianoforte was dusty, and a sitting room was roped off entirely. “Repairs, ma’am. The plaster wants attention. Mr. Darcy has engaged a man, but these things take time.”

Elizabeth’s head swiveled, and she noted the lack of candles in the sconces in the disused rooms, and the sparse furniture, as if half of it had been sent to storage.

“Your chambers are this way, Mrs. Darcy.” Mrs. Reynolds led her up the grand staircase and along a corridor lined with family portraits. “Mrs. Darcy, the master’s mother, decorated them herself. She had an enduring fondness for blue.”

The door opened onto rooms that made Elizabeth gasp.

Pale blue walls, the softest shade she had ever seen, and windows overlooking the park and the lake where the daffodils still blazed against the fading afternoon. A fire crackled in the grate. The bed was dressed in white, and fresh pink and white hothouse roses stood in a crystal vase on the writing desk.

“Mr. Darcy gave the most scrupulous instructions concerning your apartments, ma’am,” Mrs. Reynolds said, smoothing a fold in the counterpane that needed no smoothing. “He wished everything to be entirely comfortable for your arrival.”

“I thank him.”

“Indeed, madam, he selected the linens himself. He insisted the standard cambric was far too coarse for you—he was quite absolute that you have the softest lawn.”

Elizabeth sat on the edge of the bed, weary from days of travel, yet beneath the fatigue, her chest felt inexplicably warm. “This is perfect. Everything is beautiful and thoughtful.”

“He is a good man, the master,” Mrs. Reynolds confirmed. “The best of landlords, the finest of brothers, and I have every confidence he will prove the best of husbands, too.”

“Well, since I have only the one,” Elizabeth said, her lips twitching with an irrepressible smile, “I suppose he will simply have to do.”

Mrs. Reynolds gave a short, startled bark of laughter, her eyes crinkling as a knock on the door interrupted her answer.

“That will be Hannah, ma’am,” Mrs. Reynolds said, moving to open it. “I must confess—we did not have time to engage a proper lady’s maid before your arrival. The position has been vacant since the late Mrs. Darcy passed, and the master’s letter gave us scarcely a fortnight’s notice. But Hannah will attend you until we find someone more suitable. She is a good girl—young, perhaps, and not trained in fine dressing, but willing and cheerful.”

The girl who entered was perhaps eighteen, with a round face that defaulted to brightness and a cap that sat slightly crooked atop reddish-brown curls. She carried a tea tray with a steaming pot of tea and cups and curtsied so enthusiastically that she nearly spilled the entire lot.

“Mrs. Darcy! I am Hannah. Mrs. Reynolds has asked me to attend to you during your stay—well, not your stay, because you live here now, don’t you? Which is ever so exciting, ma’am, truly it is. The whole household has been in such a flutter.”

“Hannah,” Mrs. Reynolds said gently, jingling her keys. “I shall leave you to rest, Mrs. Darcy. Please let Hannah take care of anything you might require. Your trunks have been brought up, and dinner is at seven.”

Hannah’s face flushed pink, and she pressed her lips together with visible effort as she set the tea tray on a side table. “I talk too much when I’m nervous, ma’am. Mrs. Reynolds says it’s my one fault. Well. She says it’s my most visible fault, which I suppose means I have others she’s being kind about.”

Elizabeth laughed before she could stop herself—the first true laugh since leaving Longbourn—and Hannah’s face brightened as if a candle had finally caught the flame. Her cap was plain white cotton, the unmistakable badge of a housemaid, not the finer muslin of a lady’s maid. Her hands were pink and chapped from mornings spent scrubbing grates and hauling coal, not dressing hair and pressing silk.

“I have never had a lady’s maid before,” Elizabeth said, accepting the teacup Hannah offered with only a slight rattle of china against saucer. “So we shall learn together, I suppose.”

Hannah’s face broke into a broad, disbelieving grin. “Do you mean it, ma’am? Truly?”

“Tis true. At Longbourn, my sisters and I dressed each other because poor Hill had her hands full with my mother’s nerves. This is rather a step up.”

“Oh.” Hannah’s voice had gone soft. “Oh, ma’am. I shall try ever so hard. I shall learn everything, I promise. Mrs. Reynolds says a good lady’s maid knows her mistress’s moods before her mistress does, and I am not there yet, but I am an excellent observer. Everyone says so. Well. Mrs. Reynolds says so. Sarah says I observe too much and talk about it besides, but I am working on the talking part.”

Hannah gazed at her with such transparent hope that Elizabeth smiled.