Page 134 of What Change Entails

Georgiana agreed. “Yes. Loudly.”

Lydia took the ribbon with both hands, and for a rare moment her expression held no jest ready to leap out.

“Thank you,” she said. The words came smaller than usual.

Georgiana sat on the bed and beckoned Lydia to join her. “You are welcome.”

Lydia recovered quickly, or pretended to. She lifted the ribbon and draped it across her hair. “Now, if I wear this while assisting Jane and Mr. Bingley, it shall become my matchmaking ribbon.”

“Does matchmaking require special costume?”

“Everything important requires special costume.”

“I was not aware.” She struggled to suppress her amusement.

“That is because you have lived a sheltered life.”

Georgiana could not disagree.

Lydia flopped back across the bed with the ribbon still across her hair. “It is settled. First Lizzy and Mr. Darcy. Then Jane and Mr. Bingley. After that, perhaps Kitty may marry someone rich enough to buy feathers without taste, and Mary may marry a clergyman who owns many sermons and never asks anyone to sing.”

“Lydia!”

“What? I am thinking of everyone.”

“You are impossible.”

“I know.” Lydia folded the ribbon over her nose, then removed it when it made speech difficult. “Do you know something, Georgiana?”

“What?”

“Matchmaking is ever so much more fun than husband hunting.”

Georgiana stared at her for half a second. Then laughter overtook them both. Lydia snorted loudly and without restraint, and Georgiana followed until she had to press a hand against her side. The sound filled the room, escaped under the door, and very likely disturbed anyone passing in the corridor.

For once, Georgiana did not care. She dropped back beside Lydia upon the coverlet, still laughing, while the green ribbon lay between them like a banner for all future mischief.

Chapter Fifteen

Pemberley hosted a picnic for the tenants every summer, traditionally just before harvest began in earnest. Once the cutting started, the estate settled into weeks of exhausting labor and long hours ruled entirely by weather. August therefore offered the last easy interval before autumn’s demands overtook everyone. Mrs. Reynolds oversaw the preparations with military precision each year, while the stewards arranged the work, so no household or farm was neglected. Stable boys rotated through the afternoon tending horses, dairymaids traded duties in shifts, and even the field hands came and went in turns so that every family connected to the estate might spend at least part of the day in the meadow. Darcy had attended since boyhood. His father before him had treated the gathering not as display, but gratitude. There would also be a much larger harvest celebration later in the autumn.

The picnic began in disorder because Lydia Bennet discovered the baskets before anyone else.

Darcy came downstairs prepared for a reasonably organized departure and instead found Miss Lydia kneeling upon the entrance hall floor beside three uncovered hampers while Horace investigated a cold pigeon pie with criminal concentration.

“Do not let him eat that,” Mrs. Reynolds warned from the doorway.

“He has excellent judgment in pastry,” Lydia replied without looking up. “I trust him completely.”

“You should not,” Georgiana informed her.

She descended the stairs beside Darcy carrying her bonnet ribbons in one hand and laughing already. That alone improved the morning for him. Georgiana had once entered crowded rooms with visible caution, particularly when Miss Bingley lingered nearby. Now she crossed the hall eagerly, pausing halfway down the staircase because Lydia had apparently begun balancing oranges atop Horace’s head.

Miss Bingley entered at that moment.

The sight of her expression nearly compensated for the indignity inflicted upon the oranges.

“Must the dog attend?” she asked.