Love Lasts Longest: Alternate Short Tales of Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen Reimaginings Book 4) by Rose Fairbanks

Author:Rose Fairbanks [Fairbanks, Rose]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Rose Fairbanks
Published: 2015-09-24T00:00:00+00:00

The End

Presenting Miss Darcy

I wrote this for my daughter’s first birthday. She is called Annie after her paternal grandmother, so it seemed fitting to imagine her as a Darcy child.

May 30, 1840

Pemberley, Derbyshire

A hush fell over the drawing room as the couple entered. Elizabeth Darcy’s conversation ceased as she glanced across the room and made eye contact with her husband. He gave her a soft smile, but it did not reach his eyes, which clearly belied his sadness to her.

As the room watched, mother and father of the bride walked across the room to the newlyweds. Fitzwilliam Darcy took his eldest daughter’s hand, not the one with the ring on it that symbolised she was now under another’s care, and raised it to his lips. Finally, his daughter’s eyes were drawn away from her spouse’s and met his own. She gave him a full, radiant smile. Elizabeth’s smile. It offered him a modicum of cheer.

Having gained the notice of the lovers, Darcy turned to face the crowd and make his announcement. “May I present…” In the short pause, three and twenty years of memories flashed. “Mr. and Mrs. Edward Moore.”

Applause rang through the room. Elizabeth placed her arm on Darcy’s, and they began to lead the assembled crowd to the dining-parlour for the wedding breakfast. Darcy said little during the breakfast, and on the occasions he met Elizabeth’s eyes from across the table, he smiled a little at the memories he knew they shared of their daughter.

*****

May 26, 1818

Elizabeth’s labour with her second child was very short but intense. She had been ill much of the pregnancy. She was never very weak, but she had frequent bouts of fever, nausea, and back pain. The midwife assured the nervous parents that all was well, that Elizabeth’s complaints were not unusual at all, but it did little to ease the anxiety they felt but did not verbalise. Perhaps it was because she was the second child herself that Elizabeth worried excessively over the transition from one child to two. Between her illness, the usual pains, and her nerves, Elizabeth slept little of the pregnancy and had never been so thankful for Pemberley’s library than during those months.

The pains felt differently than they had with her firstborn, Teddy. At first she was certain it was just the onset of her illness again, but before too many hours, it was clear that she was in labour—and something was not quite right.

Neither Darcy nor Elizabeth could truly remember much of that day, only that it ended in joy. Elizabeth’s maid had alerted the housekeeper when the pains began, and eventually Darcy was retrieved from his estate affairs. While they awaited the midwife, Elizabeth’s illness attacked. In an instant, she was shivering with a high fever, and her belly was cramping acutely. Darcy refused to leave his ill wife and acknowledged that he had never prayed so fervently in his life. When the midwife finally arrived, Elizabeth could only register the look of terror in her eyes as the entire room was silent with a palpable sense of fear and dread.

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