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or damaged the dormant lawns. Afraid you just need to be tough."
    "We can share a flask of brandy while we fish. That should help."
    George shuddered, sighing in resignation. "Thank you, Mr. Bennet, but I think I shall bring my own flask, just to be on the safe side."
    "You men enjoy yourselves. I, for one, am beginning to freeze already. Lizzy, Rose, care for a few hands of cards? You can bring Alexander for us to gush over and take turns holding."
    Lizzy smiled at her aunt, eyes glowing happily. "Sounds wonderful. William, do you yet intend to go for a ride with Colonel Fitzwilliam?"
    Darcy nodded. "As soon as he is done cavorting as a juvenile."
    "I seem to remember a certain mature gentleman engaging in a fair amount of juvenile cavorting at the pond last year at this time, or so I was told," Mrs. Gardiner remarked with a grin to Mr. Darcy, who flushed slightly and coughed.
    "Well, yes, but it was all the doings of my devious wife who claimed to be a novice skater in dire need of assistance and rescue."
    "Lizzy a novice?" Mrs. Bennet exclaimed. "Why she has been on skates since she was three, although the winters are not as harsh as here and the skating opportunities fewer. Shame, Lizzy, deceiving your husband! What must you think of her, Mr. Darcy?"
    "I assure you, madam, I have only the highest regard for your daughter. Her ruse was only in jest and thinly veiled. I knew she could skate all along, plying my own arts of deception. It was a friendly game with a pleasurably outcome." He smirked at his blushing bride, knowing full well she was recalling their interlude in her bathtub afterwards.
    The afternoon waned into evening. The gentlemen, including Mr. Daniels and George, were invigorated by their brisk jaunt on horseback. Varied entertainments prevailed both before the excellent Christmas Eve dinner and after. Georgiana and Mary delighted with duets on the pianoforte, Kitty lifting her voice a time or two, as did Lizzy and Violet Gardiner. The guests differed from the prior year, but the revelry was in the same vein. Alexander joined the group for a time, alternating between wakefulness and slumber, but in good humor throughout and horribly spoilt by all.
    Past Christmas reminiscences were shared as they sat in the cozy parlor with fire crackling. The rowdy Bennet celebrations differed hugely from the sedate festivities at Pemberley, but everyone delighted in the story telling. With his customary flair, George related the long ago holiday memories, clear from his dramatizing that the Darcy children of his generation possessed few of the strict manners of later generations.
    "It was the only night of the year that we did not argue about retiring in our anxiousness to greet the dawn and open presents. And the only night we did not sneak into Estella's room after we were supposed to be asleep." George chuckled. "Our parents were ignorant of how late we often extended our ordered curfew, romping and mischief making until nearly midnight upon occasion."
    "I doubt if they were as ignorant as you surmise," Darcy interjected with a smile, continuing at his uncle's questioning look. "Grandfather once said to me, when I was seven or so and upon the occasion of a visit from my cousin Anne with Richard and Jonathan here as well, that now I could, 'disobey as children ought, by pretending to be abed before traipsing the darkened halls to cavort with your siblings.'"
    Richard was laughing. "Oh yes, I remember that! And I also remember how surprised you were, William, and Anne as well. Poor souls with no conspirators about on a regular basis! You two were scandalized at the idea of disobeying a parent."
    "And you managed to break me sufficiently of that ridiculous notion. Bursting into my room with Anne being pulled along by Jonathan. I nearly screamed in fright. Dear Anne looked ready to collapse. This one"--he indicated Richard while glancing about at the grinning faces of his audience--"had gone so far as to steal food from the