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"No, please, Mama, please do not. Please do not say anything. I am so embarrassed, and I just want the whole thing to go away. Really."

"And how will you feel when he leaves Pemberley?"

This caused a fresh wave of tears, and for a long time Elizabeth simply rocked her daughter and stroked her hair.

Her instincts had been right. There was something amiss, but the terrible thing about being a parent was that when your children were grown, you could no longer solve all their problems with an embrace. "Get some sleep, my darling," she said at last, kissing Kate on the forehead and pulling the large book from her hands. "All will seem brighter in the morning. It always does. And I am here, my dear, if you ever want to talk about it."

"Thank you, Mama," said Kate in a shaky voice, snuggling down into the bedclothes, in the same manner as when she was small.

"Would you like me to extinguish the candle?"

"Yes, please," said Kate, her voice already starting to thicken with sleep.

Elizabeth put out the candle and closed the door quietly behind her, her heavy feet taking her towards the chambers she shared with her husband. This was a conversation she was not looking forward to.

✽✽✽

Elizabeth found her husband sitting beside the fire, his coat and waistcoat thrown roughly over the arm of a chair and a snifter of brandy in his hand. He sat very straight, staring into the flames with an expression of such unhappiness that it seemed as if the flames themselves had displeased him.

Pegasus was curled up on the rug beside his master's feet, his copper-coloured ears spread across the carpet and one eye half-open, as though keeping watch over the proceedings. He lifted his head at Elizabeth's entrance and gave a hopeful thump of his tail.

"William," she said softly, causing her husband to break from his reverie and look around at her.

"Elizabeth, my love," he said distantly, as she placed a hand on his shoulder. He patted it with his own.

"This will not do, William," she said plainly.

"What will not do?" he asked, a hint of annoyance in his voice.

"You cannot go stomping about the house like a wild boar, glaring at all and sundry because you are worried about Kate."

"I am not stomping about the house like a wild boar. I am sitting quietly, enjoying a glass of brandy and thinking about ways I could murder Nathaniel Briar."

"There will be no murder, dearest," she said sternly. "I am already juggling quite enough, and I do not have time to travel to the assizes and see you sentenced to hang."

"Do not be flippant, Elizabeth," he said. "He has done something to her. Did you see her face at dinner? Did you see the way he looked at her? I could wring his neck."

"You could, my love," she agreed placidly, "but it would do no good. I have spoken to Kate."

"What did she say? Is she well? What has he done?" Her husband turned towards her, giving her his full attention, his eyes scanning her face wildly as though he might discover what had transpired without her having to say a word.

"Nothing very much has occurred, from what I can understand. It seems they have suffered some sort of misunderstanding. I suspect that they both like each other very well and are unsure how to manage or express those feelings. We both know that the course of true love never did run smooth. I do not know if you remember our own courtship, or perhaps I should more rightly call it a comedy of errors."

"True love?" he said with a disbelieving laugh. "What do you mean, true love? Kate has no interest in true love, and they barely know each other."

"And how long did you know me, Fitzwilliam Darcy, before you knew that I had captured your heart?"

"About three-quarters of an hour," he said with a sigh, "although I railed against it for months."

He took both her hands in his and pulled her gently down to sit beside him. "It is a painful thing to have one's heart ripped out of one's chest."

Elizabeth rested a hand on his cheek. "More painful still when it is ripped out by an impertinent country miss from an insignificant part of Hertfordshire."

"I would not have had it any other way, my love," he said gently, the lines of concern on his forehead beginning to soften.

"And neither would I. And I do not know if it is true love between young Mr Briar and our Kate. I do not even know if it is liking or just a passing fancy, or a shared love of learning about the world. But I do not think there is any real harm in it. We shall observe them both closely, and he will leave in the not-too-distant future. If there is something between them, it will surely come to light, and if there is nothing, then it will fizzle out. What is it Papa always says? 'A girl likes to be crossed a little in love now and then. It is something to think of, and it gives her a sort of distinction among her companions.'"

"I always thought that was a stupid utterance," said her husband.