NIGHT
The townhouse stafflined up in the entrance hall when they arrived.
Elizabeth counted them as Darcy handed her down from the carriage. A housekeeper, a butler, two footmen, three housemaids, a cook, and a kitchen maid, all standing in precise formation with their hands clasped and their faces arranged in expressions of respectful welcome. They had been waiting. The fires in the hall blazed high, candles lined the staircase, and the house smelled of beeswax and fresh flowers that someone had gone to considerable trouble to procure in November.
Darcy offered her his arm. She took it, and felt the tension in him, the coiled energy he was holding in check beneath the formality, and she pressed her fingers against his sleeve in a way that she hoped communicated both I know and later.
“Mrs. Diamond,” he said, addressing the housekeeper, a tall woman with gray hair and kind eyes who curtseyed with the practiced ease of long service. “Allow me to present Mrs. Darcy.”
The words landed in the hall with a weight that Elizabeth felt in her chest. Mrs. Darcy. She was Mrs. Darcy, standing in a London townhouse that was now also hers, being introduced to servants who would answer to her, and the enormity of it threatened to swallow her whole.
She did not let it.
“Mrs. Diamond,” Elizabeth smiled with a warmth she did not have to fabricate. “I am very glad to meet you. And I hope you will be patient with me while I learn the workings of the house. My husband tells me you manage everything beautifully, and I have no intention of interfering with success.”
Something eased in the housekeeper's expression. “You are very welcome, Mrs. Darcy. We are all delighted.” She turned to introduce the rest of the staff, and Elizabeth gave her attention to each name and face, because these people would be part of her life now, and she had learned from watching her mother that servants remembered how you treated them on the first day.
When the introductions were complete, Mrs. Diamond led them through the house, pointing out the principal rooms, the location of the bell pulls, and the hours the household kept. Elizabeth absorbed what she could and resolved to learn the rest tomorrow, because her capacity for domestic geography was being compromised by the awareness of her husband walking half a step behind her, close enough that she could feel the warmth of him at her back.
“Supper has been laid in the small dining room, sir,” Mrs. Diamond said. “Cook has prepared a cold supper, as we were uncertain of your arrival time. Shall I have it brought up instead?”
“The small dining room will do.” Darcy's voice was admirably steady. “Thank you. That will be all for the evening. Please inform the staff they may retire once supper has been served.”
The housekeeper's expression did not change by so much as a fraction, but Elizabeth suspected that thirty years of service had given her a very clear understanding of what “that will be all for the evening” meant on a wedding night.
“Very good, sir. Mrs. Darcy, I have prepared the mistress's chambers. Your things have been unpacked. I took the liberty of laying out a nightgown and wrapper, as your maid has not yet arrived from Longbourn.”
None of the Bennet sisters had a dedicated lady’s maid, and Elizabeth realized she would need to see to hiring one when they arrived at Pemberley. Another reminder of the change in her status. “Thank you, Mrs. Diamond. That was very thoughtful.”
The housekeeper curtseyed and withdrew, and Elizabeth and Darcy were left standing in the hallway, alone for the first time since the carriage.
Elizabeth and Mr. Darcyexchanged kisses between bites of supper before retiring to their chambers. Elizabeth’s chambers were grand. In the center sat a four-poster bed with blue silk hangings, the hearth had a fire already burning, and the dressing table was laid out with brushes and pins. Elizabeth stared into the looking glass, which reflected a woman who looked more composed than she felt.
The nightgown Mrs. Reynolds had laid out was fine white cotton, simple and soft, with a ribbon at the neck. Elizabeth undressed herself, which took longer without help than she had anticipated, and pulled the nightgown over her head and sat at the dressing table and took down her hair.
The face in the mirror was flushed. Her eyes were bright. Her fingers fumbled with the pins because her hands were not steady, and she thought of the cottage, of his hands shaking as he unlaced her stays, and the memory made her smile.
She brushed her hair until it fell smooth and dark over her shoulders. She looked at her reflection and thought: this is the last time I will look at myself and not know what it is like. Tomorrow I will be different. Not changed. Completed.
The knock came at the connecting door.
Elizabeth stood. Crossed the room. Opened it.
He had removed his coat and waistcoat and cravat. He stood in his shirtsleeves and breeches, barefoot on the carpet, his hair disordered as though he had been running his hands through it. His expression when he saw her in the firelight with her hair down her back stopped the breath in her throat.
Her husband stepped through the doorway. His eyes moved over her. The white cotton. Her loose hair and bare feet. She watched him swallow. “You are...”
“If you say tolerable, I will never forgive you.”
He laughed. The sound broke something open in the room, broke the formality and the nervousness and the accumulated weight of five days apart, and suddenly they were just themselves. Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam. The woman who arguedand the man who listened. The two people who had found each other in a snowstorm and refused to let go.
“I was going to say that you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. But I have said that before, and you told me it was unimaginative.”
“I told you no such thing.”
“You told me in the cottage that if I was going to compliment me, I should endeavor to be specific.”
“Then be specific.”
