“That is precisely why we shall not be going. We neither of us have anything to prove.”
“Do you not think it might be rather fun?”
Darcy looked at Elizabeth incredulously. “Fun?”
She laughed lightly and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “You are perfectly right, of course, we have nothing to prove. But we have endured an inordinate amount of speculation. It might be amusing to turn the tables.”
“What do you mean?” he asked dubiously.
“Well, they want us to admit to being a couple. Let us go, as a couple. A married one.”
Mr Collins promptly spat wine everywhere, then descended into a pantomime of apologies and admonishments. “Your ladyship, I apologise profusely! But Cousin Elizabeth, you forget yourself! Forgive me—unpardonable disarray. Mr Darcy, pray, forgive my cousin. She must be ill—she cannot know what she is saying. Yes, there, look, it is dripping off the side. A thousand apologies?—”
Darcy turned to Elizabeth and said quietly, “Are you in earnest?”
She smiled shyly. “It is only an idea. But…I am not averse to it.”
“I would have to go to London tomorrow to procure a licence.”
“We shall have to go at some point. We cannot stay here forever.”
“We would have to wait a week from its issue before we could marry. We would be cutting it fine to wed before the ball.” He regretted trying to be practical when she looked away, obviously disheartened.
“It was only a suggestion,” she whispered. “And probably a daft one.”
“On the contrary, I think it is the most sensible thing you have ever said. And if you think I am going to let you back out of it now, you are sorely mistaken.”
Darcy could not later remember how the matter of Mr Collins’s contretemps was resolved. His mind had, from that moment on, been wholly engaged in committing to memory Elizabeth’s beatific smile and keeping his own anticipation for his now imminent wedding under some semblance of regulation.
They still told no one who did not absolutely need to know. It had become something of a habit to conceal their personal affairs from the world, and neither was in any haste to break the pattern—though it was very much a tacit agreement. Elizabeth did not ask him to conceal it from anyone, and he certainly would never demand it of her. Nevertheless, the pleasure he derived from knowing she trusted him alone with all her greatest secrets would never diminish.
Of less pleasure to him was that, by the time everything was organised, the earliest they were able to wed was the day of the ball itself. Elizabeth suggested postponing the service by a few days, but he would not hear of it. As it was, their return to London had brought a decidedly unpleasant hiatus to their courting. They went from spending almost every daylight hour together to the span of one morning call per day in each other’s company as Elizabeth was drawn into hectic preparations for the wedding, the ball, and her new life. There was no uninhibited laughter, no leisurely walks, and absolutely no kissing. It was the longest week of Darcy’s life.
At long last, the day arrived that Darcy made Elizabeth Bennet his wife. With Georgiana, Fitzwilliam, Jane, and Mr and Mrs Gardiner as their witnesses, he pledged his world to her. It was one of the rare occasions that he consciously missed his parents. He wished they could have known her—known how wrong they were to teach him those principles which almost lost her to him; known how perfect she was for him, for Georgiana, for Pemberley; known how transcendently happy she had made him.
Elizabeth’s uncle gave her away. She had informed none of her Hertfordshire relations of her nuptials, her mother and father included, and after recent events, neither she nor Darcy considered it an injustice. They would learn of it soon enough, but their knowing would not have changed anything, for there was no danger that the marriage would be contested, and Mr Gardiner saw to all the necessary legalities. Besides, the attendance of any one of them at the wedding would have been prohibitive to the small, discreet service Elizabeth and he desired. Which was why he had not informed Cunningham either.
The wily devil still found out. When their party arrived back at Berkeley Square for a celebratory breakfast, he was waiting in the entrance hall. He came hastily to his feet when they entered.
“Pray, tell me, Darcy, why my poxy brother was invited to your wedding but not me? It was I who convinced you marry her, after all!”
“I do apologise for my brother,” Fitzwilliam said to the others. “He is always cantankerous at this time of day.”
“I am afraid you cannot have the credit for that, Cunningham,” Darcy said as he calmly helped Elizabeth from her travelling cloak and handed it to Bellamy. “That honour has already been claimed by our aunt—and about half theton. AndI did not tell you because I did not want the whole world to find out.”
“Why not? Miss Elizabeth is?—”
“Mrs Darcy now,” Elizabeth interrupted, smiling prettily.
Cunningham started as though only then realising anyone else was there. “Yes—yes I do apologise.” He kissed her hand and bowed over it. “You look very well, my dear. Welcome to the family.” He cut a quick bow to the others, then returned to haranguing Darcy. “And given that she is such a welcome addition, I ask you again why you wish to keep her a secret?”
“It is no secret, Cunningham. It is simply nobody else’s business.”
“Come, Darcy! I have money on this!”
Elizabeth placed a mollifying hand on Cunningham’s forearm. “It might serve you well to keep it quiet, my lord, for your money would be better placed on a marriage that only you know about than an engagement that everybody suspects. Would you not agree?”
His eyes widened. “Wise words, oh cousin of mine.”
