The Portnoys and Barringtons would all meet in Hertfordshire soon after Jane and Andrew’s wedding. The two families would be joined by the Lucases, Philipses, Longs, and Gouldings returning to Hertfordshire as they would be in Derbyshire to witness Jane marry her viscount. The Darcys and four sisters would arrive a few days before the Lucas-Portnoy wedding.
The residents of Castlemere visited Pemberley and Snowhaven as much as the Darcys and Fitzwilliams visited them at Elizabeth’s estate.
Anna, who was counted a very close friend by the three youngest Bennets was being hosted at Elizabeth’s estate. After Jane’s wedding, the four girls would be at Pemberley until everyone travelled to Meryton for the Lucas-Portnoy wedding.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
With Biggs and Johns ten yards behind them, Elizabeth and William were walking at Castlemere along the shore of the lake in mid-May when she stopped suddenly, and her hands shot down to the growing bulge in her belly.
“Are you well, Elizabeth? Do we need to return to the house?” William asked concernedly.
“No all is well, William,” Elizabeth averred her face wreathed in smiles. “I just felt the quickening. It was just like Mrs. Medford, Mama, and other ladies told me it would be, like a butterfly fluttering in my belly.”
The two walkers and their escorts crossed the bridges on the southern, narrow end of the lake and continued walking on the eastern shore. Soon enough, they reached the boulder where William had first encountered Elizabeth and promptly inserted his hessian into his mouth.
The couple stopped, looked at the boulder, then one another, and began to smile widely. Soon the smiles changed to giggles and chortles, and finally to a tinkling laugh and a full-throated belly guffaw.
Both had tears of mirth running down their cheeks as their first meeting and their subsequent behaviour towards one another was conjured in their minds.
“We have come so very far since that day, have we not?” Elizabeth stated once she had ceased her giggles and dried her eyes.
“We most certainly have,” William agreed. All mirth disappeared from his deep blue eyes and was replaced by a look which conveyed love and passion. “Elizabeth, there is a question I would very much like to ask you, but if you are not ready for me to ask that now, let me know, and I will remain silent until you are prepared for me to articulate what is in my heart.”
“If it is the question I am hoping it is, then I am more than willing to hear it, and in my opinion, this is the perfect place to ask it,” Elizabeth replied her eyes telling William of her deep and abiding love for him.
William inclined his head to the spot Elizabeth had been sitting the fateful day they had met. Elizabeth took a seat on the edge of the rock. William sunk down onto one knee in the sand in front of her taking her small hands into his large ones.
“Elizabeth Rose Gardiner, until I met you, I never knew it was possible to love someone the way I do you, with the power of a thousand suns. You not only have my love but my total and complete respect as well. Had I tried, never would I have been able to imagine a woman who is more perfect for me than you are. You are brave, selfless, compassionate, caring, intelligent, witty, and the strongest woman I have ever met.
“I know you come to me with a child growing inside of you and I swear,” William released her one hand and after silently seeking and receiving permission to do so, placed his hand gently over where her son or daughter was growing, “I will be a father to this babe as I would if he or she was of my own blood.
“There is nothing I can do to erase the past, but I can offer you a life where we will be partners and you will never have your choices taken away from you.”
William retook her other hand in the one which had rested over her—soon-to-be their—child. “Elizabeth, will you make me the happiest man in the world and agree to be my wife?”
“When I first met you at this spot, I thought you an arrogant horse’s hind quarters. However, it did not take me long to see you were the best of men and one who, if I had been free, would be an ideal husband for me.
“There is no doubt in me that you are my perfect match in every way. I love and respect you in a way I never knew was possible. Therefore, I could never regret, even in the smallest measure, accepting your proposal of marriage. Yes, William, I will absolutely marry you…the sooner the better.”
He wanted nothing more than to kiss his fiancée, but William was aware her two guards were not far off and were, as usual watching over her intently.
Elizabeth read the desire in William’s eyes, a desire which matched her own. Now she was engaged to a man she loved; she was impatient to experience her first kiss.
She turned and signalled her two guards who understood what she wanted from the way she was making a circle in the air with her one finger. Elizabeth was well pleased when she saw John and Brian turn their backs on her and William.
In the meantime, William had stood up. As soon as he saw the guards turn, he gently pulled Elizabeth up off her perch on the boulder until they were standing with no more than an inch or two between them. With their eyes locked onto eachother, William lowered his head slowly until his lips brushed against hers.
Even though the kiss had been brief and chaste, Elizabeth felt a bolt of electricity travelling throughout the whole of her body from the crown of her head to the very tips of her toes.
William drew his head back a little to make sure Elizabeth was well. What he saw was not concern in her eyes but instead, he saw a roiling passion. He lowered his head again, capturing her lips with his own. This time it was no brush of their lips, but a hungry demanding kiss, followed by more and more kisses.
Her arms snaked around William’s neck while his went around her waist as they deepened the kisses. At some point, Elizabeth felt his tongue licking her lips. She instinctively opened her mouth to allow him entry. As their tongues danced, tasting one another, Elizabeth felt her heart racing as her breathing became rapid as well.
The bliss Elizabeth was experiencing with this man she loved beyond all reason had been worth the wait.
For his part, not even in his imagination had William been able to conjure up just how sweet her lips were. They had never discussed her past in so many words, but William believed from what Elizabeth had related she was experiencing her first kisses with him.
As they pressed together, he could feel her taut nipples pressing against his chest through her thin, summer walking dress and his waistcoat and shirt. His jacket had been left at the house.
