Mrs. Bennet was already smoothing her hair, straightening couch cushions that didn’t need straightening. “Please, make yourself comfortable! Would you like tea? Coffee? Stock options? We’ve got oat milk!”
Kitty nearly choked, and even Elizabeth cracked a smile.
Mr. Bennet peered in from the kitchen. “Mr. Darcy, you just missed our finest offering—last night’s reheated casserole.”
“Dad,” Elizabeth muttered.
Darcy smiled faintly, clearly amused. “Thank you, Mr. Bennet. You have a lovely home.”
“Well, we like to call it a farm,” Mr. Bennet said dryly. “In the sense that the grass grows faster than anyone can mow it, and the Wi-Fi signal dies once you step outside.”
Mrs. Bennet, meanwhile, was still fawning. “You must be tired from the drive.”
Mr. Darcy insisted they were not.
Elizabeth watched him sit there—watched him laugh lightly at something her father said, watched him ease into the room like he belonged in it. It didn’t feel real.
For a month, she had lived with the ache of regret. Lived with the slow, unsettling truth that he had been both—Mr. F, the person she’d grown to like, and Mr. Darcy, the one she’d judged too quickly and too harshly, only to discover he was a good man after all.
She missed everything more than she let herself admit—their conversations, the way he listened, and their meetings in strange little cafés that had started to feel like a rhythm of their own. But she had accepted it was over. She had ruined it. And the moment he walked out of her apartment after his apology, she knew she had lost someone who mattered. Someone rare. Someone good.
And yet here he was. In her father’s living room. As if he had always been meant to be there.
She barely heard anything he said, caught in the way he smiled at her father like they’d known each other forever. She managed to answer Georgiana, who asked a few gentle questions about growing up in the house, and watched Kitty jump in to help when her voice faltered.
“The country life is better,” Darcy said. “I should see the rest of your compound, sir.”
Somehow, Elizabeth heard that. But what caught her even more off guard was her father’s response.
“Lizzy, darling, why don’t you show Mr. Darcy the grounds? A quick walk will help him stretch his legs—and perhaps give you privacy to talk, since I know he’s here to see you.”
Elizabeth caught the smirk behind his teacup. A setup. A loud, obvious one.
It took her far too long to rise, aware of every eye in the room—Georgiana’s, Kitty’s, Mary’s, her parents’.
Still… she nodded. “Sure. This way.”
Outside, Elizabeth led Darcy down a stone path flanked by hedges, the early morning sun washing the garden in gold. The crunch of gravel underfoot was the only sound for a moment, but her mind was racing.
He was here. In Shelburne. In her home. And somehow, it didn’t feel like a breach, but a homecoming.
She stopped beside a low stone wall that overlooked the back stretch of the Bennet property—what her father jokingly called "the farm." Chickens clucked in the distance. A tire swing creaked.
Darcy stood beside her, hands in his pockets. "You have a beautiful home."
Elizabeth smiled faintly. "It’s chaos most days, but yes. It’s real."
A simple pause followed, one that gave Elizabeth just enough space to gather her thoughts and steady her breathing, which was becoming increasingly laboured.
Then Darcy said, "You must be wondering how I found you.”
“I assumed Jane told you where I was. Judging by Father’s smile, I’d guess she told him you were coming or something.”
Darcy shook his head. "Remember you told me once about your dad’s grocery store chain? And that he used to do stand-up comedy?”
“Yes…”
“Well, combine those two bits of information about a retired comedian, grocery store owner in Shelburne, Vermont, and you’ll find your dad’s website. I reached out to him, explained everything, and he gave me his blessing to come.”
