“I’m sorry I hid it from you.”
“As impossible as it is, part of me wishes Georgiana wanted to stay. I hate that you had to say goodbye to her twice.”
He tightened his hold on her. “Georgiana struggled with the principles and the advancements here in a way I never did. I think you adapted to the nineteenth century better than she did here—not that you should have gone back.”
She shook her head at the thought. “You live a complete life here that I wouldn’t have been able to have back then. I think from the moment you shaved your sideburns and ran the dishwasher, you were ready to embrace this century.”
“Seeing Georgiana again made me miss things, though,” he said softly. “A musicale evening in London with Fitzwilliamwhere he charms everyone and I make satirical asides to him about people I find tiresome. The sound of carriage wheels pulling up to the house while I wait eagerly for the footman to enter and announce who has arrived.”
He propped his head on his elbow to better look at her. “But that doesn’t mean coming here was wrong. It was never about the house, or electricity, or chocolate bars,” he insisted before kissing her hard. “You simply have to reconcile yourself to being worth more than you give yourself credit for.”
“Well,” she said, embarrassment heating her cheeks, “I’ll believe that if you’ll believe you’ve always been a good father.”
“Done.”
She laughed. It was that easy for him to decide and then act. “Still glad I dragged your fever-ridden body into that stone circle?”
Rather than laugh, he asked, “Were you in love with me then?”
She couldn’t pretend she saved him only for Pemberley’s sake, or for Georgiana’s. “I did it to save a good man and the things he loved, but yeah, I was.”
“I was confident about what we felt for each other,” he said quietly. “I just didn’t know for a long time how to take care of everyone I would leave behind. If everything here is the same, then Georgiana must have approached Mr Willers. You must have been right that they were always supposed to be together. I hope she has the same happiness with him that we have, for however long it lasts.”
“You won’t be there to share all her good moments or be a comfort during all the hard ones. But she’ll have the certainty that you support her choices and approve of her husband.” As she felt herself ready to fall asleep, she asked drowsily, “Werewealways supposed to be together?”
“Of course we were,” he insisted before giving her a kiss, “and together here, in this time, is better for both of us.”
EPILOGUE
September 22, 1826
Autumnal Equinox
Her body scorched while something wrenched her forward and backward in the same instant. It felt like a stone crushed her chest as all the air pressed from her lungs. Georgiana Darcy cautiously sat up, her head aching. She must have fainted on her journey home just as she had when she left 1826 three months ago.
The silver birch trees ringing Nine Ladies were shorter, and rather than see her brother and sister-in-law holding hands, Young Henry Roland, her gamekeeper, held a lantern aloft.
She would never see their faces again, never see Elizabeth’s kind-hearted smile, never brace herself for one of Sandra’s full-weight hugs, never hear Fitzwilliam’s voice telling her that he was proud of her. She wished now for their century’s sound records and light-captured images and instantaneous contact. But those were impossible, and memories would have to do.
“Ma’am?” Young Henry came near as she struggled to her feet, peering at her as he held her cloak over his arm. “Are you well?”
She nodded, not yet trusting her voice, looking all round. She was home, two hundred years away from where she departed. But here on the moor, in the dark, it looked deceptively like the same time and place she just left. This was where she belonged, but her dear brother was truly gone, and whatever happened now with Mr Willers and Pemberley, she would face it alone.
Young Henry watched her as she sighed and took in her surroundings, and then silently put the cloak over her shoulders. “Here, ma’am. Reynolds said you might be cold. Shall I take you home?”
Georgiana tried to walk out of the circle, but her vision swam and she staggered. Young Henry rushed forward and caught her arm.
“Steady there, ma’am. I can carry you to the cart.”
“I am well, merely dazed and dizzy, and rather weary. I know from experience it will pass.”
Despite her plea, he insisted on supporting her as they walked to the cart to drive to Pemberley. It would take them an hour to return home in the dark, with only the lantern as a carriage light to illuminate their path. Not an hour ago, she had driven the same distance—illuminated with glaring lights painful to look at—in less than ten minutes. Her family would already be driving past Bakewell, and would be home with their daughter within moments.
She was lost in her own thoughts, considering her grief at parting from Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth forever, her anxiety at how she would find Pemberley after so long, and her eagerness and unease at seeing Mr Willers. She put up her hood, content with silence, but Young Henry was always inclined to chat.
“Will we ever be accustomed to such a sight?” he muttered, flicking the reins. “Watching someone just appear or disappear before your eyes?”
“It is too fantastic to grow accustomed to, but I expect it is nothing we will experience again.”
