“It was enjoyable! Just not the food part.”
He smiled vaguely but did not seem much cheered.
“Ihaveoffended you.”
“Are we to argue on our first evening at home, Mrs Darcy?”
“No. Not if you admit what is upsetting you.”
Darcy tucked a curl behind her ear and stroked her cheek. “I have waited a long time to bring you to Pemberley as my wife. Yet the servants are indisposed, half the house is packed into crates, the other half is freezing cold, and you have eaten three slices of potato and a carrot for your dinner. Not even you can convince me this is a perfect beginning.”
“You are forgetting all my previous visits, which, if you include being framed as an interloper by your guests, reprimanded by your butler, and shut out in the rain by your housekeeper, serve as an invaluable contrast.” She reached for his hands, entwining her fingers with his. “Whereas this time, I am here with you. You have made me your wife, and I have never felt as though I belonged anywhere as much as I do here. In my humble opinion, that makes it perfect.”
Elizabeth wished she had known sooner in their acquaintance that when Darcy stared at her as piercingly as he was at present, it was a good thing. It would have saved a significant number of misunderstandings and afforded her a great deal more pleasure.
“Have I mentioned how dearly I love you?” he asked.
“Not for at least an hour. You are slipping.”
They forewent the coffee in favour of giving Darcy the opportunity to catch up with his endearments and Elizabeth the chance to prove that she could, indeed, keep Darcy more than adequately warm.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-EIGHT
AN UNEXPECTED ALLY
Darcy glanced at Elizabeth, hunched pitiably at his side. “You look frozen.”
She regarded him sheepishly. “I did not realise how much colder it would be with the wind blowing in our faces.”
He did not point out that he had warned her, though he did not attempt to hide his smirk. “Should you like to turn back?”
“Is there any point? We must be at least halfway by now. It would surely be as quick to keep going.”
“The park is ten miles around. We have gone about two and a half.”
She grimaced. “Maybe, then. Would you be terribly cross?”
Darcy tugged gently on the reins, for this was a better place to turn the curricle than any other for the next mile. As to being angry with his wife—the very notion was ridiculous. It seemed as though everything that could go awry at Pemberley was doing so, and were it not for her, he was sure he would presently be in the bleakest of spirits, but despondency was impossible in Elizabeth’s company. It mattered not what calamity beset them, she never failed to find some way of solving, or evading, or laughing at it. She was simply not formed for ill humour.
It was at her insistence that they had ventured out to drive around the park this morning. He did not doubt that she wished to see it, but neither did he doubt she would have preferred a warm, sunny day for the excursion to this blustery autumn morning. She had done it, he knew, to get him away from the house, where it had been discovered that the mouse that prompted the Derwent room to be repurposed as a warehouse had comewiththe crates and subsequently chewed a hole in the portrait of his great grandmother, and the task of unpacking every crate to check for more mice was under way. Elizabeth had been entirely right: a blast of fresh air and the pleasure of her radiant, windswept complexion had done wonders for his equanimity.
Once the horses had walked the curricle a full one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, he pulled them to a halt. Holding the reins in one hand, he slid his other around the back of Elizabeth’s neck to cradle her head and kissed her soundly. “There is nothing you could do or say that would make me cross with you.”
It was true, although a few minutes after they set off again, he regretted arming her with the information.
“I have had a letter from my aunt Wallis,” she said in altogether too airy a tone. “She made a suggestion, which I dismissed as silly at first, but after a bit more thought, I have begun to see its merit. She thinks I ought to seek a rapprochement with Lady Catherine.”
“No.” He was not joking, though he supposed it was a good thing that Elizabeth was diverted rather than offended by his brevity.
“I have not told you why yet,” she objected, laughing.
“It does not matter why. Her behaviour to both of us has been unpardonable.”
“I shall not argue that she has been difficult, but—”
“Difficult?”
She grinned. “It is a word with a broad gamut of meaning—but that is not the point. My aunt thinks that Lady Catherine would be the ideal person to help me find a replacement for Mrs Reynolds.”
