“Welcome, everyone! Welcome! How happy I have been to see you all! How delighted my family is to share this wonderful day with so many of our friends!”
“Oh, perfect, your mother has enlisted the lengthiest toast-maker in the kingdom,” Darcy muttered drily.
“Whatever shall we do to pass the time?” she teased, her hand a featherweight touch upon him beneath the tablecloth.
Something within those dark eyes of his flared, and she felt her husband’s thumb graze the bare skin at her nape, an almost imperceptible motion of his hand, causing gooseflesh to rise.
“Firstly, to our host and hostess, Mr and Mrs Bennet, at whose fine, heavily laden tables today we gather to celebrate the marriage of their daughter and new son, lift your glass in a toast!”
The crowd dutifully raised their glasses to her mother and father; Mr Bennet appeared quite satisfied—as well he might be with such a son to join his family—and Mrs Bennet beamed. Elizabeth would never truly understand the relationship between her parents, but she did know that they had somehow bridged many of their differences ever since her mother’s noxious interference in her life.At leastPapa has taken more seriously his duties as a father, while Mama pays him a good deal of attention—and I will not think any further onthatthan I have to! However one considers it, his health has been exceptional ever since.
“Secondly, a toast to Miss Mary for the brilliant playing we heard today,” Bingley continued. “Her mastery of the church’s pipe organ provides music that is a gift to us all. Hear, hear!”
He lifted his glass, and Elizabeth was pleased to seeher neighbours join him with cheering enthusiasm for her sister’s talent, with her uncle Gardiner leaning over to kiss her sister’s cheek and her aunt nodding appreciatively. It was Darcy who had hired Mary a master for the complicated instrument, with its multiple keyboards and soaring pipes—and also who had had the magnificent organ installed in Meryton’s church.
“Thank you for helping her,” she leant over to him to whisper.
He shrugged. “Look at her face,” he said simply. Elizabeth glanced over at Mary, whose cheeks were pink with delight, her smile wide—she looked almost beautiful in the pleasure of her hard-earned recognition.
Bingley’s voice interrupted the merry congratulations of her neighbours. “And speaking of the church—although I am certain the beloved Mr Palmer is much missed—we can all take heart in the fine services conducted by Mr Ludlow. Never were any bride and groom better ushered into holy wedlock. Mrs Ludlow, may I mention that I have never seen the church so exquisitely bedecked in blossoms? I fear you denuded the rectory garden in support of your sister’s wedding, a gift of beauty on this happy day.” He raised his glass towards Kitty and her husband, the village’s new vicar, who both smiled happily as the room cheered. The former Charlotte Lucas, wed to Pemberley’s vicar, Mr Bradley—and thus an expert in village weddings—had come home from Derbyshire to visit on this great occasion, and leant over and whispered some obvious compliment, for Kitty’s smile showed even brighter.
“If Bingley begins an admiration of the church’s plasterwork and stained-glass windows, I shall toss my glass athim,” Darcy muttered, so that only she could hear. He had a certain gift, a way of both touch and whisper, that caused her awareness of him to climb sharply up her spine and through her every nerve. He followed it by a look, a look that revealed to her—and only her—a naked wanting, quickly shuttered before the crowded dining hall could notice.
“I cannot toast anyone else until I have raised my glass to my own beloved wife,” Bingley proclaimed, beginning a recital of Jane’s many perfections.
“Dear lord,” Darcy murmured. “It appears he means to keep us here for the rest of the summer.”
She grinned at him. “I can think of many worse places to be.”
“A challenge, my dear?” he replied, and then set about driving her mad.
He knew just how to do it, of course. The brief touches, his whispered approvals of everything from the colour of her gown to the arrangement of her hair, and how pleased he would be when they were alone again and he would be free to touch and do and say all of what he felt for her. Elizabeth slowly fanned herself, trying to pay attention to the endless toast and not betray her weakness for the man beside her…the wretch.
“Let us see,” Bingley said, pinching his chin thoughtfully. “Have I forgotten anyone?”
Lydia giggled.
“Ah, yes, Mr and Mrs Darcy. What can I say of two people who are known far and wide as one of the most ravishing couples in the kingdom? Thetonis still whispering about the number of times you required Mr John Bridge, of the renowned jewellers Rundell, Bridge, and Rundell, to cart ever-greater trays of astonishing stones to Mayfair—in the hopes of winning your approval for a stone fine enough to celebrate your engagement. Was it three times or four that you sent him tottering in defeat back to Ludgate Hill?”
“It was only twice—I quickly discovered that no stone on earth would truly be fine enough for my bride,” Darcy drawled. “The Pigot Diamond was still in France at the time, you understand, forcing me to settle for something less, hm, substantial.”
The crowd’s attention was drawn, quite naturally, to the exquisite ring of sizeable diamonds and sapphires upon Elizabeth’s finger, which happened, at that very moment, to capture the morning light in a blinding flash—generating a great deal of good-hearted laughter.
“We thank you all for coming to Longbourn, for celebrating this happiest of occasions with us, for being our friends and our family. One more toast: Champagne to our real friends and real pain to our sham ones!” Bingley raised his glass.
Almost as one, the gathering cheered, and Bingley made a show of retaking his seat.
“Mr Bingley! You forgot us!” Lydia exclaimed.
“What? Oh, dear me! I seem to have neglected to toast the bride and bridegroom!”
“Would that she let it go,” Darcy murmured.
“She has been planning this wedding with Mama for, oh, twenty-four of her twenty-five years now. She must have her moment in the sun.” She gave her husband a sideways glance. “Besides, ’tis you who encouraged your friend Mr Montclair to take Netherfield in the first place, and you who introduced him to Lydia. One might say this lengthy proceeding is all your fault.”
He shrugged. “He was too inclined to dullness, and requires a lively bride. I had to wait for her to achieve a modicum of restraint before introductions could be made, however, which took longer than I supposed.”
Elizabeth shook her head, smiling. He did not fool her for a minute—her interfering husband had been unable to rest until each of her sisters were happy or happily settled. Ten years of marriage had taught her that he was the very best of men. She leant over to whisper in his ear. “I love you.”
