That earned him a broad smile. “Then you must take my word for it. Jane looked beautiful, as Jane always does, and Bingley was the happiest I have ever seen him.”
Darcy ran the knuckle of one finger along her jaw to her chin, then ran his thumb along her lower lip. “Youlooked beautiful, Elizabeth. Asyoualways do.” He kissed her again, half marvelling, half ruing how far she must have gone to find help after the accident, for he was more than ready to arrive at their destination.
“Are we almost there, do you think?” Elizabeth enquired.
Her thoughts so closely mirrored his own that he laughed, though the suddenness caught in his throat, as it often did still, and he coughed. “You tell me, you are the only one to have walked it.”
Her expression lost its urgency and softened into one of concern. “You are losing your voice again.”
“Hardly surprising. I have done much talking today.”
Elizabeth rummaged in her reticule for the hip flask she had charmed off her uncle in London and taken to carrying with honeyed water for Darcy to drink whenever his voice grew hoarse. “Thank you for talking to my mother for so long,” she said as she passed it to him. “I believe she is a little in awe of you, else she might have gone on even longer, but still, you bore it with extraordinary civility.”
“She may thank you for that. You taught me to appreciate her good qualities.” He dabbed his lips dry with his cuff and passed the flask back. His voice was not less gravelly, but his throat hurt less. “I comprehend that she was merely relieved to have two fewer people about whose futures she need be anxious.”
“If only that meant her effusions would be lessened by two fifths rather than transferred in undiminished magnitude to my other poor sisters. You are very wise to have overlooked her transports about your fortune, though. It would only recall you to the argument she had with my Aunt Philips about who tailors your clothes, and that would inevitably remind you of the little soliloquy she gave to the whole party about your looks.”
“Hmm. I shall not deny that had I been in the country as long as Bingley, I might not have been quite so forbearing. He has been here for most of the time that you and I have been in town, and I fear even his good humour has worn thin.”
She winced. “Poor Mama. She means well but is incapable of passing up any opportunity to be vulgar that presents itself.”
“At least shedoesmean well,” Darcy replied, feeling rather guilty, for he was in no position to censure Elizabeth’s relations. “Lady Catherine, on the other hand, has made it her business to offend you by every possible method. Compared to her behaviour, your mother’s occasional impropriety is entirely forgivable.”
Elizabeth rubbed his forearm, her brows drawn together in sympathy. “Not all your relations are so determined to despise me. Your cousins seemed to enjoy themselves today—and do not try to tell me they came only to take Georgiana home, for it would not have taken both of them to do that. One of them at least must have come of his own free will.”
“Granted.” He picked up her hand and pulled her glove off, finger by finger. “Anne did not come.”
“That was a vain hope. Was it not enough to have Miss Bingley there? Did you need every woman who ever set her cap at you at your wedding?”
He smiled, savouring her teasing, and lifted her hand to his lips to kiss her palm. “I am merely demonstrating that I have more relations who have treated you with contempt than the reverse.” He moved his lips to her wrist.
“Lady Matlock does not despise me.”
“Not now that you are her ticket to every fashionable soiree in London.” His aunt had begun, at Fitzwilliam’s urging, by condescending to take Elizabeth shopping. After the third lady of thetonhad stopped them to enquire about the accident, Lady Matlock had recognised the value of her new niece and forbidden her from answering any further questions unless under the explicit invitation of one of a dozen particular ladies and, even then, only once inside their front doors. Elizabeth had confessed to being vastly diverted by the whole thing, and—judging by the questions Darcy was occasionally asked when he was out—she had not scrupled in embellishing the story in ever more ludicrous ways, no doubt for some mischievous reason of her own.
He tugged her gently towards him and kissed her neck. “Of all the intrigues to have enthralled London that I can recall, you are by far my favourite.” They were poised to kiss, the jouncing carriage jostling them so that sometimes their lipswere touching and sometimes they were not, when the driver banged on the roof and shouted that they had arrived. Darcy would have kissed Elizabeth anyway had she not been startled into laughing at herself.
“Good gracious, does he always do that? I think I just aged ten years!”
Darcy smiled a deliberately suggestive smile. “No, but he does not usually have such good reason to suspect I may not be paying attention to my journey.” He enjoyed the blush that crept up Elizabeth’s neck as he handed her down from the carriage and turned her towards the front door. They had gone only a few steps in that direction when it was flung open and a young man strode towards them, calling over his shoulder as he did.
“Uncle, they are here!”
Another figure appeared in the doorway and walked lopsidedly towards them. “What’s that, John? Are they here? Is it Mr and Mrs Darcy?”
Elizabeth glanced at Darcy with a private, triumphant smile before calling back, “Yes, Mr Timmins. It is.”
“You are very well met. How good it is to see you both again. And you looking so well, Mr Darcy.”
“Thank you, sir. It is excellent to see you again.”
“Ah! So that is what you sound like.”
“Actually, it is not really,” Elizabeth said, wrinkling her nose in pity. “My husband has been talking all day, and his voice is not yet fully recovered and still easily lost.”
“That is most unfortunate,” Mr Timmins replied.
Darcy was inclined to think otherwise. He had said his vows; those were the only words that needed to be spoken aloud today. He was assured that the performance of none of his other duties as a newly wedded husband would behindered by the loss of his voice. “We shall get by,” he said benignly.
