Anne had asked twice already. She was not whining—Anne did not whine, she negotiated. There was an earnestness in the repeated request that suggested she had identified a weakness in her governess’s defences and was pressing the advantage.
Elizabeth did not answer immediately. Her fingers shifted in her lap, a small, restless movement, the only sign that the question had landed somewhere deeper than a simple yes or no. She was still for a moment. Then a shadowcrossed her face—not pain exactly, though he could not name it.
“I am rather out of practice, Miss Darcy. You must promise to be kind.”
“I am always kind,” Anne said, which was not strictly true but was delivered with such conviction that arguing the point would have been futile.
Elizabeth drew a breath and sang.
It was a nursery rhyme. Simple, old, a melody that existed in every household where children slept. A tune carried in kitchens and hummed over cradles, nothing grand, nothing that required training or skill. Just a song.
Her voice was rougher than he remembered. The years had stripped the polish from it. The easy, confident instrument that had filled the drawing room at Rosings, her chin lifted, daring him to find fault, was gone. What remained was thinner, less certain, catching on the higher notes the way a foot catches on uneven ground. She had not used it in a long time and the neglect showed.
But beneath the rust, the beauty was there. Not the trained, presentable beauty of an accomplished young lady performing for company. It was raw and lived in the grain of the voice rather than the technique. She sang the way she did everything now—carefully, without flourish, stripped to the essential. The absence of ornament made the melody more honest than any concert piece he had ever heard.
Anne was transfixed. She had stopped drawing, her chalk hovering above the paper, forgotten. Her face wore the expression children held for things that were genuinelymarvellous, such as a candle flame, a butterfly, the precise moment snow began to fall.
Elizabeth reached the second verse. Her voice steadied, finding its footing, warmed, grew surer. A fragment of the old confidence surfaced, like colour returning to a faded painting. She was remembering. Not just the words, not just the notes, but the act itself, the pleasure of it, the freedom of giving sound to air and letting it fill a room. Her eyes were bright.
Darcy’s hand tightened on the doorframe.
He had fallen in love with her at Meryton. He had not known it then, had not had the vocabulary for it. He had called it admiration, fascination, the grudging respect of a man confronted with a woman who refused to perform for his approval. At Rosings, she had played imperfectly and without apology, and she was perfect.
The thought came as a confirmation of what he already suspected but avoided admitting. He was in love with her. Still. Again. The years did not matter. It was the same fist in his chest, squeezing, and the absolute certainty that he would stand in this corridor and listen to her sing nursery rhymes for the rest of his natural life if she would let him.
She would not let him, why would she? She had never wanted him. She was merely singing for a child, not for him. The fact that her voice could cross the distance between them and undo him so completely was not her problem. It was his.
The song ended and Anne clapped. “Again! Do the one about the blackbird.”
Elizabeth laughed and began again.
Darcy released the doorframe. His fingers ached where they had gripped the wood. He was white-knuckled, he realised, though he did not remember tightening his hold. He stepped back from the door. Carefully, quietly, the way one retreated from a room where something sacred was happening and he had not been invited.
He did not go to his study. He went downstairs, through the entrance hall, past Barton—who raised an eyebrow at the master’s unscheduled departure but said nothing—and out through the garden door.
The air was sharp. March had no warmth to offer, and the wind cut through his coat. He was grateful for it. He needed the cold. He needed something external, something physical, to match what was inside his chest, not cold at all but burning.
He stood at the far wall, where the garden met the mews, and pressed his palms flat against the brick. The stone was rough and damp beneath his hands. He breathed. In. Out. The mechanical process of drawing air into lungs that did not care to cooperate.
From the open window two floors above, faint but unmistakable, the melody drifted down. The blackbird song. Anne’s clear voice joining in on the chorus, slightly off-key, entirely joyful.
He closed his eyes, and did not return to the schoolroom that afternoon.
The next day brought rain, and with it the garden was lost.
Anne bore this injustice with the stoicism of a prisoner denied exercise. She stood at the nursery window, her forehead pressed to the glass, Muffin clutched to her chest. She delivered a comprehensive critique of the weather that would have impressed the most seasoned meteorologist. The rain was wrong. It was unnecessary. God should be written to about it.
Elizabeth, seated behind her with a book of fables open on the table, suggested that perhaps they might write the letter together after arithmetic. Anne considered this. The prospect of combining two activities she disliked (arithmetic and patience) with one she enjoyed (complaining) proved sufficiently appealing. She returned to the table and picked up her chalk.
Darcy observed this negotiation from the corridor and added it to his growing catalogue of evidence that Elizabeth Bennet was considerably more skilled at managing his daughter than he was. She neither bribed nor threatened. She redirected, quietly, with a logic that met the child on her own terms. He had watched three governesses attempt to impose order on Anne through authority. Elizabeth imposed nothing. She offered, and Anne chose, which made all the difference.
He retreated to his study. He had correspondence to attend to, but lately it had been thoroughly neglected.
The rain cleared by afternoon. From his desk, where he was pretending to read a report on the Pemberley tenancies, he heard them leave through the garden door. Anne’s voice carried up through the window, interrogating Elizabeth about the purpose of worms.
He remained at his desk for a full seven minutes, which was, he felt, a respectable showing. Then he went to the window.
They were on the gravel path that circled the garden. Anne was three paces ahead, as she always was, propelled by the urgency to investigate every corner. Her boots were muddy and her bonnet had slipped to a rakish angle. She was crouching to examine a puddle like a natural philosopher on the brink of discovery.