Darcy held Elizabeth tightly. “You are correct, of course. I should have known better than to question your logic. However better I may feel, though, it still does not help knowing that someday my baby girl will leave me, even if it is for the love and admiration of the second best of men,” he said with a slight curve of his lip.

Elizabeth laughed. “I doubt Eleanor is ready to leave you just yet, especially after the way you have taken to spoiling her.”

“Then I believe I shall have to use this information to my advantage and endeavor to continue with my current course of action. Perhaps tomorrow I shall purchase a pony.”

“You may purchase twenty ponies if you like, Fitzwilliam, but I am sorry to inform you that such generosity shall not ensure your daughter’s continued residence at Pemberley any longer than it takes the man of her dreams to find her and sweep her off her feet. As you know, your time would be far better spent showing Eleanor the many remarkable things you can offer her as her father, such as your wealth of knowledge and strength of character, not the material objects your money can purchase for her. In any case, that is one lesson you have learnt well since the day you met me, so I am convinced you shall do an equally admirable job with our daughter.”

Darcy struggled to repress a smile at her teasing words. She was right; he knew she was. Though Elizabeth had been unaware of it at the time, she had made him work hard to earn her admiration and, ultimately, her love, but in the end, the reward was well worth every bit of the initial suffering he had endured. This woman was, beyond a doubt, his most cherished treasure, and she had been generous enough to give him two others as well: their son and their daughter.

“Indeed,” he said, his voice holding a hint of a teasing inflection, “it is a lesson I found forced upon me very early in our acquaintance, Mrs. Darcy. However, it only continued to prove to me your full value as a woman worthy of being pleased. Of course, I remember well that you were often impertinent to me throughout the whole business and on far too many occasions for me to recall with any degree of accuracy.”

“You are incorrigible, Mr. Darcy,” she replied, then ran the tip of her tongue over his smiling lips. “I believe, sir, in cases such as these, a good memory is unpardonable. Tell me, husband, why must you forever make mention of my faults?”

Darcy captured her lips in a slow, teasing kiss before he turned his attention to the curve of her neck. When his lips reached her ear and upon hearing her sigh of pleasure, he murmured, “In my opinion it is hardly a fault, you minx, as you are well aware. Though it was the teasing look in your eyes that first drew my notice, it was your impertinence and liveliness of spirit that soon captivated me. The combination, madam, and only in you, I might add, is one I have always found irresistible.”

Elizabeth smiled as he took her lobe between his teeth. His hands wandered over her curves in agonizing slowness; all the while, he drew her body closer. She allowed herself to melt into his embrace, their bodies pressed together. Her voice was hardly more than a whisper when she said, “All this time I had thought it was my intelligent discourse.”

“Hardly,” Darcy growled, “but that was a most pleasant inducement, as well, as was your light and pleasing figure.”

“Incorrigible,” she whispered again as his hands slid down her back to caress her hips.

“Lizzy,” he whispered roughly. His hot breath, coupled with the name he always reserved for those moments of deepest intimacy, sent shivers of longing through her body. “Let us see if we cannot make another impertinent daughter.”

Nine months later, and over the course of the ten years that followed, Elizabeth presented Darcy with three such daughters. Though each was exclaimed over and pronounced to be a local beauty, much in the same manner that their mother and aunts had been, to the astonishment of their elder brother, none of his teasing sisters was ever proclaimed by their father to possess even half so much of their mother’s celebrated impertinence. In light of such a declaration, young Charles, who had inherited much of Darcy’s serious mien, could not help thinking his proud father must have had very little sense in his head at the time to have so easily fallen under the spell of a pretty young woman those many years ago…even if the pretty young woman was his mother. Darcy took great pleasure in enlightening him.

About the Author

Susan Adriani has been a fan of Jane Austen’s work and her beloved characters for as long as she can remember. In addition to writing, she is a freelance graphic designer and illustrator. In 2007, after contemplating the unexplored possibilities in one of Miss Austen’s most celebrated novels, Pride and Prejudice, she began to write her first story. With encouragement from fellow Austen enthusiasts, she continued and is currently at work on her second and third books. She lives with her husband and young daughter in Connecticut.