She bent her head back to look up at his handsome face as he leaned over her. “It is a beaded macramé item for the child of someone I love very dearly. Would you care to lend a hand?” Elizabeth passed him a ball of cream-coloured yarn and demonstrated the particular knots she was using.

Darcy took a seat across from her and smirked as he tossed the ball from one hand to the other. “You are exceptionally skilled at macramé, Lizzy. I very much enjoy engaging in the knotty thing with you and look forward to filling our own home with the fruits of our labour produced by such joint efforts.”

“I am not entirely naïve, you know, sir.” Elizabeth said primly. “Therefore, I do not, for a moment, believe you are speaking of creating knotty macramé projects at all but are just being plain naughty. As such, any labour of love involved will be mine alone; and our first creation should, in fact, be produced, or should I say reproduced, in about six and a half months.”

Darcy instantly dropped his smirk along with the ball of yarn. He gaped in wonder at the incredible woman who had been his wife for a mere two and a half months. Elizabeth giggled at the shocked expression on her beloved husband’s face and tossed another ball of yarn at him to bring the poor fellow out of his stupor. It bounced off his forehead, and she said, “Well, that was quite a pregnant pause, Fitzwilliam. Is this all the reply I am to have the honour of expecting? Have you nothing to say?”

Darcy’s astonishment was beyond expression. He stared, coloured, doubted, and was silent. Finally he gulped and stuttered, “Are you … are you … spinning another yarn, Lizzy? Your mother once told me she does not believe everything your father says, and she also informed me you take after him. Truthfully, are you … are you … ?”

“Spinning another yarn in the Bennet family way?”

“Elizabeth!”

“Darling, I shall not tease you any longer over such an important issue since you are expecting an answer. Prolonging your anticipation would just be breeding contempt. Hmm, I wonder whether our excellent cook has finished baking rolls, or if there might still be a bun in the oven.”

“Elizabeth!!!”

It was already established Mr. and Mrs. George Wickham did not produce offspring; and their relationship was certainly unequal to the grand passions of the Darcys, the Fitzwilliams, the Flemings, or even Mr. and Mrs. Charles Bingley. Caroline and her wickedly handsome husband got along tolerably well; and Wickham was kept under the watchful eye of his godfather and namesake, George Darcy.

Upon the demise of the elderly Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett Piers, who both succumbed to a virulent influenza, their only male relative, Charles Bingley, inherited their Staffordshire estate. So Charles and Anne sold their London townhouse and settled within a three-quarter-hour ride to Pemberley. George Wickham then also had to contend with and answer to his wife’s brother, which was a rather awkward situation since the two young men had been friends for some years. The Bingley brother and sister, whose family had made their fortune in footwear, often made George feel like a heel; and it is a known fact that time wounds all heels. For her part, Caroline realized she was fortunate not to have fallen on hard tines after having fallen for a rake. She was content to say she lived at Pemberley, and Caroline always accompanied her husband when he had business at the grand house. Mrs. Wickham enjoyed walking the grounds, and she particularly liked to spend time in the orangery.

Like her Darcy nephew, Lady Catherine de Bourgh eventually learned to lighten up; and after ten years in mourning clothes, she finally shed her black widow attire and began to wear shades of charcoal, silver, lilac, and mauve, which looked quite fetching with her grey … er, platinum hair. Lady Catherine’s time was either spent in the dower house at Rosings near Richard and Jane Fitzwilliam or with her dear Annie and Mr. Bing in Staffordshire, and the gutter-mouthed gentlewoman spent as little time as possible in society and in sobriety. For a while her greatest joy in life (beside fruitcake, plumes, and laudanum-laced sherry) was when she became a great-aunt, time and time again, to the Fitzwilliam brood, who were always on their pest behaviour in great Aunt Catherine’s presence.