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Bingley grinned. “I should like to hear this.”

“You were occupied,” Darcy said.

Miss Bennet blushed, and Bingley immediately forgot Darcy again.

Darcy returned his attention to the children. “My cousin also split his breeches.”

The hilarity this produced was enough that Master Henry nearly fell out of his chair. Miss Eleanor dissolved into giggles while Miss Margaret attempted to maintain the dignity expected of a girl of ten, failed, and covered her mouth with both hands. Master Edward shouted, “His breeches?”

“Must they make quite so much noise?” Miss Bingley asked.

Darcy had seen her wince at the noise and had been attempting to turn the talk elsewhere. Sadly, Miss Bingley did not seem to understand this enough to participate in her own rescue “They are children, Caro,” Bingley said. It was the sort of voice one uses when memorising Latin, all rote. “You have a bedchamber if it is too loud here for you.”

Mrs. Gardiner said nothing, but Darcy thought she was grateful for Bingley’s intervention.

“I do apologise if my story had reduced the children to unwonted levels of gaiety,” he said, careful to keep his own voice as serious as possible.

Bingley found this rather comical and laughed louder than the children had.

Master Edward and Master Henry were already attempting to determine where his cousin had split his breeches.

“The back,” Darcy said before the question could be put to him.

Miss Elizabeth shook her head at him, but there was no condemnation in it.

“I should like to return to my chamber now,” Miss Bingley announced.

Bingley stood. He and Miss Bennet helped Miss Bingley to her feet, then walked with her as she made her way out of the room.

At the door Miss Bingley stopped and looked back. Master Henry was on the carpet, the girls were at the side table, the tea was going round. An expression of longing crossed her face for an instant. Then she caught Darcy’s eye, and two red spots appeared in her cheeks.

Miss Bingley said something sharp to Bingley, and they carried on.

Master Henry rested his chin upon the table. “What did your mother say?”

The question brought Darcy back to his story. “She laughed.”

He could almost hear it. Not clearly, of course. Twenty years had blurred his memory of the sound, but he remembered his father gazing at her and laughing too.

“She then informed Richard that the greenery was already where she wished it and therefore he need not attempt another correction.”

“Did your father punish him?” Master Edward asked.

“He did not. My cousin had bruised his dignity and ruined a pair of breeches. My father considered the matter settled, though Richard’s father sent him back up to his bedchamber.”

“Your father sounds like a forgiving man,” Miss Elizabeth said. “I have heard he was generous to everyone in his care.”

She said it pleasantly, with her eyes on the stocking in her hands, but Darcy knew whose account of his father she was referencing. He could not answer her with four children hanging on his every word. Indeed, he could not answer her at all.

“He was,” Darcy said at last. “To a fault, on occasion.”

Miss Elizabeth’s needle paused before she took a breath and asked, “What about you?”

“I had done nothing other than break Richard’s fall. I had their sympathy.”

Miss Elizabeth studied him, and he thought she appeared rather impish. “You steadied the chair.”

“I was preventing⁠—”