“Just hold your tongue, Cunningham,” Darcy said in a low voice. “This has been ghastly for both of us. We shall tell people when we are good and ready, and not before.”
“Have it your way. I shall not tell anyone. Else.”
Darcy gritted his teeth. “Who have you told?”
“Oh, only my father. He, uh…he is waiting on you in your saloon.”
Darcy was entirely unsurprised that Elizabeth had Lord Matlock wrapped around her little finger within about ten minutes of meeting him. His uncle was something of a recluse these days, his wardrobe and opinions both stuck somewhere in the last century. That he had ventured out of his house to meet her was a condescension for which Darcy was exceedinglygrateful—and for which Lord Matlock himself was thoroughly rewarded by Elizabeth’s indefatigable charm.
The breakfast, with its increased numbers and joyous air, lasted for well over an hour. Only after much cheer and many congratulations, farewells, expressions of good luck, and promises of forthcoming visits, did Darcy eventually find himself alone with his new wife.
“I am so proud of you,” he said, pulling her into his arms. “But a few months ago, I could never have conceived of such a gathering—my uncle, sitting at table with yours and conducting himself with humility and good grace.”
“I thought he was lovely.”
“That is becauseyouare lovely. He is as proud and conceited as I ever was. My whole family are, yet you have won them over to a piece.” He kissed her, chastely, in thanks.
“Did you not win my mother over for me?” she replied. “And keep Jane from humiliating herself over Mr Bingley? Oh, and save my whole family from ruin?” She kissed him, much less chastely. “It is you who is in every way lovely. I am so very proud to be your wife.”
What happened next was not at all what Darcy had intended. His plan had been to treat her like a queen; to see her settled into Berkeley Square and shown all the affection and tenderness she required to begin to feel at home. But his restraint was not proof against her allurements, and as sure as the devil could not withstand her will, so it was that he treated her like the glorious siren she was. In this, as in all things, she was passionate and fearless, no more intimidated by her own innocence than by any other obstacle he had seen her face—though he was oh so reverent in his attentions.
They were, in his admittedly somewhat partial opinion, sublime together. It was simply not possible that he should ever love her more than when he lay, afterwards, with her headresting on his chest and her lithe legs entwined around his, as he toyed with her unbound hair. The late afternoon sun coming through the window danced over her bared skin, accentuating her every curve and turning every shadowed contour into the promise of paradise.
Elizabeth ran roughshod over his complacency when she started quietly giggling and asked, “Is that what you walked in on my mother doing?”
“Good Lord, Elizabeth! Why would you make me think ofthatat such a time?”
She only laughed harder. “I am sorry.”
“You do not sound very sorry.”
“I am, truly—” It did not stop her laughing. “But your going to talk to her is even more remarkable now! What mortification you have borne for my sake!”
He resorted to tickling to make her cease; tickling led to other impositions, and before long, the unpleasant memory had been banished and some exceedingly fine new ones made.
“Let us not go to the ball,” he murmured a while later, only half joking. “Let us stay here.”
“If you knew how much trouble I have taken to secure a gown without society discovering my purpose, you would not ask that of me.”
He chuckled. “Very well. We shall go to the ball and teach the admiring multitude what connubial felicity really is.”
“Just how multitudinous should I expect this multitude to be?”
“There were close to four hundred in attendance last year.”
“Four hundred?” she cried, propping herself on one elbow to look down at him incredulously. “That is not a ball, that is a small town!”
“You are not nervous?”
She shook her head. “I am too happy to be nervous of anything.”
There were closer to five hundred, in fact, or so his friend Tomlinson energetically informed him later that evening. To Darcy, however, the Duchess of Gracemont’s palatial house might as well have been empty but for one person; he had eyes only for Elizabeth. He was exceedingly glad she had gone to such lengths to secure her gown, for she looked extraordinarily well in it. Certainly nobody could think anything wanting when he led her to the head of the line to open the first set, as Her Grace had invited them to do. The whole room quieted and stared. It would have been enough to make his skin crawl at any other time, but nothing could dent Darcy’s happiness that evening. He paid not one iota of notice to any of them and fixed his eyes on Elizabeth. She gave him a small expressive smile and called a waltz. The corner of his mouth lifted in appreciation. Let them speculate on that!
Elizabeth danced every dance from that moment on. He danced more than he was wont to do, but by no means every one; he preferred to wait for Elizabeth, marvelling at how effortlessly she amazed her every partner, and resonating with pride to see her radiant, smiling, and his.
Perhaps because nobody was expecting it, and because Elizabeth’s gloves concealed her wedding ring, the matter of their marriage did not arise. The duchess remarked only that she was pleased they had honoured her invitation and that they made a handsome couple before abandoning them to her other guests. They were once or twice asked whether they would admit at last to being engaged, to which they answered, honestly, that they were not—though Elizabeth did not scruple to confess that she was in love with him to anyone who asked, and since one of those who asked was Lord Stewart, that news got around rather quickly.
Only Lord and Lady Rothersea, who had more reason to suspect than anyone else, guessed their news. They were profuse in their congratulations and delighted to accept an invitation to Pemberley that summer. Other than them, the multitude remained benighted—and Darcy remained entirely indifferent to the lot of them. These people who had governed his moral compass—ineptly—for the past eight-and-twenty years no longer represented what was important to him. At one o’clock in the morning, he decided he and Elizabeth had entertained thetonfor long enough, and he took his beloved wife home.
