“Ten thousand a year,” young Thomas said mournfully from somewhere near the organ. “I haven’t got ten shillings.”
“You haven’t got a pulse, Thomas,” Reverend Hackett pointed out. “Priorities, boy.”
Elizabeth bit the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted copper. Her father glanced down at her, and she arranged her features into what she hoped was bridal serenity rather than the suppressed hysteria of a woman receiving unsolicited commentary from three dead parishioners during her own wedding ceremony.
Mr Bennet placed Jane’s hand in Bingley’s first, and Bingley received it as though he had been handed a holy relic, his face shining. Then her father turned to Elizabeth, and placed her hand in Darcy’s. His fingers closed around hers, warm andsteady, and he squeezed once; a private communication that said more than any words the vicar was about to pronounce.
“Dearly beloved,” the vicar began, and Elizabeth gave herself over to the ancient words, to the cool stone, to the warmth of the hand holding hers.
Behind her, the ghosts settled. They were quiet now, even Mrs Turnbull, even Thomas, watching as people do who understand, perhaps better than most, that some moments are sacred. They had watched Elizabeth grow from a startled child who could see them into the woman standing here today, and whatever she was walking toward, they would not follow. Longbourn’s dead belonged to Longbourn.
The vows were spoken twice over. Jane’s voice was soft and sure. Bingley’s cracked on “I will”; he laughed at himself, half the congregation laughed with him, and even Darcy’s mouth twitched. Elizabeth heard her own voice, steady and clear, making promises she meant entirely, all except one that snagged, just slightly, in her throat. Forsaking all others. She had not forsaken the dead. She had never been able to, and she did not know if that counted. It was not the sort of question one could put to a vicar without inviting an uncomfortable conversation.
Darcy’s voice was low, sure, and carried a note of wonder that he did not seem to know was audible. When he said “I will,” there was something in it that went beyond the words; not rehearsed, not composed, but raw and grateful and entirely his.
The ring slid onto her finger. Cool metal, a perfect fit. His thumb brushed over her knuckle as he settled it, and warmth flooded upher arm and into her chest, displacing, for a moment at least, the weight she carried there.
“Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.”
From the congregation, Mrs Bennet produced a sob of such magnificent volume that it startled a pigeon from the rafters. Lady Matlock, to her eternal credit, did not flinch. Caroline Bingley’s smile had calcified into something that could have been chipped off her face with a chisel. Georgiana Darcy was crying, though Elizabeth was sure they were tears of happiness; Colonel Fitzwilliam put his arm about her shoulders and gave her his handkerchief.
Two couples, newly wed, turned to face the congregation. Jane was crying too, beautifully as only Jane could, and Bingley was looking at her as though the sun rose and set in her face. Elizabeth caught Darcy’s eye and found him watching her, not the congregation; watching her as though he intended to memorise this moment down to its smallest particular.
Elizabeth Darcy, the name strange and new, stepped out of the church into the pale September sunshine, her husband’s arm beneath her hand, and did not look back. She did not need to. She could feel them watching; Reverend Hackett standing straight, Mrs Turnbull dabbing at eyes that could not actually produce tears, Thomas raising his hand in a shy, hopeless wave.
And in the house beyond the lane, Aunt Irene sat in her chair by the cold fireplace, watching over a family that could not see her, and would not leave her post until the walls of Longbourn themselves came down.
Chapter Two
TheweddingbreakfastatNetherfield was a grander affair than Elizabeth had expected, though she supposed she ought to have anticipated it. Bingley had thrown himself into the preparations as enthusiastically as he did everything, thoroughly encouraged by Mrs Bennet. The result was a dining room transformed: hothouse flowers in towering arrangements, silver, crystal and china which would not have disgraced a palace, enough food to sustain a small army through a siege.
Elizabeth sat beside Darcy at the head of the table, acutely aware of the ring on her finger and the strange new weight of her married name every time someone used it. Mrs Darcy. She caught Jane’s eye across the table and saw her own bewildered happiness reflected back. Jane, seated beside Bingley, looked as though she had been gently placed inside a dream and was in no particular hurry to wake from it. Bingley kept touching her hand as though to reassure himself she was really there, and Jane kept letting him.
“You are very quiet,” Darcy murmured, leaning toward her under cover of the general conversation.
“I am absorbing,” Elizabeth replied. “There is a great deal to absorb.”
“Is it too much?”
She looked at him. He was watching her the way he had at the altar, as though she was the only person in the room. Something in her chest, the familiar stone, shifted and settled. “No,” she said. “It is exactly enough.”
His mouth curved; not the guarded half-smile she had grown accustomed to, but something softer. He lifted his glass to her, slightly, and she lifted hers in return.
From the far end of the table, Caroline Bingley’s voice rose above the chatter, bright and brittle as spun glass. “Such a charming little ceremony! So quaint. One does admire the simplicity of a country church, does one not, Louisa?”
Mrs Hurst murmured something vaguely affirmative.
“I do hope,” Caroline continued, her gaze skating toward Elizabeth, “that you will not find the transition to grander surroundings too overwhelming, Mrs Darcy. Pemberley is, after all, quite a different prospect from Hertfordshire.”
“I am sure I shall manage,” Elizabeth said pleasantly. “Though I thank you for your concern, Miss Bingley. It must be a great comfort to Mr Bingley, having a sister so attentive to the domestic anxieties of others.”
Caroline’s smile thinned. Lady Matlock, from further down the table, caught Elizabeth’s eye and gave her a look of undisguised approval. Elizabeth smiled into her wineglass.
The breakfast stretched on through toasts, speeches, and Mrs Bennet’s increasingly tearful predictions about grandchildren. Mr Bennet endured it all from behind his wine glass, offering the occasional dry remark that Elizabeth was pleased to note seemed to find an appreciative audience in Lord Matlock. Colonel Fitzwilliam told a story about Darcy as a boy that made Georgiana giggle and Darcy look as though he wished the floor would open beneath his chair. Kitty laughed so hard she spilled her lemonade, and Mary said something earnest about the sanctity of marriage that everyone politely pretended to find interesting.
It was, Elizabeth thought, a good wedding breakfast. She looked around, absorbing it all carefully, the way one presses a flower between the pages of a book, to be taken out and looked at later when one was in need of something lovely as a distraction.
The house grew quiet by degrees. The guests departed in a stream of carriages and well-wishes; the Bennets were among the last to leave, Mrs Bennet alternating between sobs and raptures until Mr Bennet steered her firmly toward the door. Mary shook her hand solemnly. Her father kissed her forehead and did not trust himself to speak.
