Lydia, who had been deliberately practicing her newfound crawling skills for her mother's benefit, suppressed a smile. The morning had started typically enough - breakfast with her sisters in the nursery, supervised by Mrs. Crow - until she had decided to show off a bit. Now, her mother's excitement had drawn not only Mr. Bennet but all her sisters back to the nursery as well.

"And what, pray tell, is so remarkable about our youngest that requires my immediate presence?" Mr. Bennet's dry voice preceded his unhurried entrance. He had his book tucked under his arm, suggesting he'd been pulled from his library sanctuary.

"She's crawling, Mr. Bennet! At not even six months! Oh, what clever children we have!" Mrs. Bennet fluttered around the room, her nerves manifesting in constant movement. "Though perhaps too clever," she added with a worried glance. "Men don't like wives who are too clever, you know."

"Indeed, my dear. How fortunate then that our Lydia is merely an infant and not yet in want of a husband." Mr. Bennet's sardonic reply drew a giggle from Elizabeth, who had positioned herself near her father's side.

Three-year-old Mary, not wanting to be left out of the attention, tugged at her mother's skirts. "Mama, I can count to three!"

"Not now, Mary," Mrs. Bennet dismissed, still focused on Lydia. "Oh, Mr. Bennet, what are we to do? Five daughters! Five! And now this one showing signs of being as headstrong as Lizzy!"

Lydia observed the scene from her position on the carpet, noting how two-year-old Kitty immediately mimicked Mary's action, tugging at their mother's dress from the other side. Jane, sweet Jane, immediately moved to distract the younger girls, drawing them toward the window to watch for birds.

"I fail to see how our youngest daughter's early mobility signals impending ruin, Mrs. Bennet," Mr. Bennet remarked, settling into Mrs. Crow's vacated chair. His eyes, however, watched Lydia with unexpected interest.

Lydia met his gaze steadily - perhaps too steadily for an infant - before deliberately looking away to maintain her facade. In her previous life, she had always enjoyed Pride and Prejudice's Mr. Bennet's wit, but now she could see both its charm and its cruelty. His detachment, amusing to readers, wasn't so fun for his family.

"But Mr. Bennet, you must think of their futures! What is to become of them all?" Mrs. Bennet collapsed dramatically into another chair. "When you are dead, they may all be turned out of this house before she is even old enough to walk!"

Elizabeth rolled her eyes at her mother's familiar lament, but Lydia noted how Jane's shoulders tensed slightly at the mention of their precarious future. Even at her young age, Jane was already absorbing their mother's anxieties.

"Perhaps Lydia will learn to run before I meet my untimely end," Mr. Bennet mused, "and she can carry her sisters to safety."

"Oh! Nobody can speak to you when you take on such a strain! You take delight in vexing me!" Mrs. Bennet exclaimed, but her outburst was interrupted by Lydia choosing that moment to demonstrate her crawling again, this time making her way determinedly toward Mr. Bennet's chair.

"Look!" Elizabeth exclaimed. "She's doing it again!"

As the family's attention turned back to her performance, Lydia allowed herself a small smile. Her first task was clear: she needed to understand exactly how the entail worked. Perhaps there was a loophole that even Mr. Bennet hadn't considered. After all, she had two centuries of legal precedent in her memories - surely some of that knowledge could be useful. Okay, she didn't know that much about the legislation in the 19th century, after all she studied engineering not law, but she had time, she could learn.