JANE’S WEDDING CAMEand went.
Elizabeth attended. She saw the Bennet family for the first time, and she was surprised at how much it felt like returning home, after everything that had occurred.
Mr. Darcy was there, too, because he was close to Mr. Bingley, and though his sister Miss Darcy had been invited, Mr. Darcy said she was in hysterics when she had discovered that Neithern was marrying someone else.I said to her that she did not wish to marry him, and she said that did not matter and I do not understand girls who are sixteen,he said ruefully to Elizabeth. Apparently, Mr. Bingley also counted as a lover who had jilted her, though Mr. Bingley had never truly intended to marry Georgiana, Caroline’s schemes to the contrary, and it was simply one more man who had rejected her. Georgiana could not bear it and therefore would not come to the wedding.
She and Mr. Darcy were still communicating in letters, but they were not seeing each other in person often.
He would visit her here and there, always in the broad light of afternoon, always with the door to her sitting room open, and if they were tempted, they refused to acknowledge it between themselves.
Another few months passed away in this fashion, and then she was suddenly in half-mourning, which meant she could go toballs or social functions if she wished, and that she could dress in a few muted colors other than black.
But she didn’t have any invitations, and she had no one to call upon, so nothing much changed.
Mr. Darcy’s letters began to take on a different tone, she thought, for he dwelt long and often on wishing she were with him, detailing activities they might have done together, and she also realized that he had stayed in London through all of the summer and the fall, instead of going to Pemberley as he likely usually did. He had no reason to do this except to be close enough to have servants bear letters daily to and from her.
She began to wonder at herself, really. Yes, she wished to wait and do things properly, but what did it truly matter at this point? She had been widowed long enough that everyone must be certain she was not carrying the colonel’s child, and she and Mr. Darcy missed each other terribly.
She had delayed so much of her own happiness for so long, why was she insisting upon doing this now?
Instead of writing to Mr. Darcy and telling him to come and see her, however, she sent word to the dowager duchess. She took a trip to her London townhouse and looked at the portraits of her ancestors, of the long line of Neithern dukes, all of them who did have chins like hers and brows like hers. The duchess told her that she could see her own family in Elizabeth, too.
Elizabeth had thought she needed it, to know where she came from, that it was necessary to have an identity. But now she saw that Jane had been right, that her father had been right, that this wasn’t actually the case.
This was her blood, but it wasn’t who she was.
It was strange, though, because she’d had to find her blood, find her past, find her history, to realize this.
“Can we see each other again?” said the dowager duchess.
Elizabeth didn’t say no. She was motherless, but perhaps she didn’t have to be grandmotherless.
ELIZABETH OPENED THEdoor to Mr. Darcy herself, because she’d been expecting him. She’d dismissed all the servants, wanting some privacy.
“Lizzy,” he said when he saw her there.
“Fitz,” she said, taking him by the hand and pulling him inside. “I’ve been thinking about something. It’s a bit shocking.”
“You? Shocking? How entirely unlike you,” he said, very droll.
She gave him a disapproving look over her shoulder, even as she led him up the stairs in Weythorn.
“Where are you taking me?” he said. “Where are the servants? What is happening?”
“Well, it occurs to me that you’ve been staying in London through the hottest months of the year, all to be close to me, and then we have been swearing off touching each other—”
“Yes, but that is only because it is prudent,” he said.
“Well, it is only prudent because you said that you cannot marry me yet.”
“I actually offered to elope with you some months ago,” he said. “You said no.”
“I think we might manage it,” she said. “The proper marriage, at the proper time. But I also think there would be only one thing that would force it, and that would be if you get me with child.” She shrugged. “It may not be that easy to get a woman with child. Sometimes, it seems, people get married and then it takes them months and months. A year, even.”
“True,” he said, his voice changing as he came up closer behind her on the stairs.
“So, I thought, we might as well… it is six months we have to wait, and we—”
He pressed into her, wrapping an arm around her waist, and her voice cut off as he kissed her, just below her ear lobe. “You’re right, this is a very shocking and somewhat wicked idea, and it is exactly why I am so drawn to you.”
