Eleven
The fish question began before breakfast.
Darcy, from the corridor, heard Anne’s voice, pitched at the register she reserved for matters of philosophical urgency, which was most matters, most mornings.
“But do theyfeelit, Miss Bennet? When they are in the water. Do they feel wet?”
He paused at the nursery door. Elizabeth was seated at the table, her sleeves pushed to her elbows, buttering toast. She had probably fielded six impossible questions before nine o’clock and expected a seventh.
“That is an excellent question, Miss Darcy. Consider it this way. Do you feel the air around you?”
Anne frowned. She held Muffin aloft, as though consulting him. “No.”
“And yet you are surrounded by it. You breathe it, you move through it, it touches every part of you. But you do not notice, because you have never been without it.”
“So fish do not feel wet because they have never been dry?”
“Precisely.”
Anne absorbed this. Her brow furrowed deeper, and Darcy recognised the expression—the dangerous one, the one that preceded the follow-up no adult had anticipated.
“But Miss Bennet. Fishdocome out of the water. When they are caught. And then they flop about and gasp.” She demonstrated, slapping Muffin against the table in a credible impression of a landed trout. “So, theyhavebeen dry. Which means when they go back in the water, they must feel wet. Which means—” She straightened in her chair, triumphant. “Fish have feelings.”
Elizabeth set the butter knife down. She regarded Anne for a long moment, her lips pressed together, her eyes bright.
“Miss Darcy, I concede. Your logic is flawless. Fish have feelings, and I have been bested by a six-year-old.”
Darcy laughed.
It came out of him before he could catch it—full, startled, a sound that belonged to a younger version of himself, one who had not spent his life rationing joy. Anne whipped her head towards the door and beamed. Elizabeth turned, her mouth curved, and then she was laughing too. It was not the careful, measured amusement she permitted herself at dinner, but real laughter, unguarded, creasing her eyes and shaking her shoulders.
The three of them laughed at the philosophical implications of wet fish, and it was the finest moment of his week. Of his month. Possibly of his year, though the year was young and he was not prepared to commit.
Anne seized the advantage. “Papa, did you hear? Fish have feelings. Miss Bennet admitted it.”
“I heard, sweetheart. You have made a significant contribution to natural philosophy.” He crossed the room and kissed the top of her head. Her curls smelled of soap, sleep, and the particular sweetness that clung to children in the morning, before the day got hold of them. “I shall write to the Royal Society on your behalf.”
“What is the Royal Society?”
“A collection of very clever gentlemen who would benefit enormously from your counsel.”
Anne nodded, satisfied. She returned to her toast, Muffin propped against the milk jug in his customary supervisory position.
Darcy straightened. Elizabeth had composed herself, the laughter fading to a residual brightness in her eyes. She met his gaze briefly, and the warmth sat in his chest refusing to dissipate.
He needed to leave. He had been standing in this nursery for four minutes, and each minute made departure harder.
“Good morning, Miss Bennet.”
“Good morning, Mr Darcy.”
He turned on his heel, walked the corridor to the stairs, descended to the first floor, and entered his study. He closed the door and stood for a moment, his hand still on the handle, the laughter still echoing somewhere behind his ribs.
The correspondence was stacked on his desk where Barton had placed it. Three letters from his steward at Pemberley. An invoice from Madame Delacroix that made him blink twice. And at the bottom of the pile, a letter in a hand he recognised before he turned it over.
His aunt’s penmanship was as she was—upright, emphatic, and entirely certain of its own importance. The seal was the de Bourgh crest, pressed deep into crimson wax.
He broke the seal.