“That may be the best advice you could offer.”
He laughed softly, kissed her again, and let her go.
And then Elizabeth was in the carriage beside her husband.
Her husband.
Darcy sat close enough that their shoulders brushed whenever the carriage shifted. Georgiana accompanied them, at Elizabeth’s insistence and Darcy’s great satisfaction, for they were to make Pemberley a home together. She sat opposite, shyly radiant, and though she sometimes looked out the window in silence, there was no terror in her now. Wickham had been removed from her future. What remained was uncertain, but it was hers.
The journey north was long, but Elizabeth did not weary of it. Darcy told her of towns, inns, hills, roads, and old family stories. Georgiana described Pemberley’s music room, her favorite walks, the stream where Darcy had once fallen in as a boy and blamed a stone, though Richard insisted that Darcy had simply been too proud to admit he had slipped. Elizabeth listened to every word and gathered them close. She had known Pemberley first as an obligation, then as a wounded estate, then as a beloved place spoken of by those who missed it. Now she would see it for herself.
She was determined to love it.
No matter what state it was in, she thought privately.
Darcy had warned her, though never dramatically. There remained repairs undone. The retrenchment had left its mark. Some rooms were closed, some tenants still required attention, and the grounds had not been kept to the standard they once had. Elizabeth believed him. She understood neglect, recovery, and work postponed for want of money. Longbourn had taught her that beauty and difficulty often shared the same roof.
Still, as the carriage climbed through the last wooded rise and the valley opened before them, Elizabeth forgot every sensible expectation she had formed.
Pemberley lay below.
The house stood large and handsome upon rising ground, its stone warmed by the afternoon light. Behind it, wooded hillsrose in gracious shelter; before it, the stream wound through the park with a natural ease no artifice could have improved. The lawns were not as finely kept as they might have been. Here and there, growth had gone a little too wild, and a distant path appeared almost swallowed by encroaching green. Yet none of it diminished the scene. If anything, the want of rigid symmetry added to its charm. The place did not impose itself upon the landscape; it belonged to it.
Elizabeth leaned forward despite herself.
“Oh,” she whispered.
Darcy watched her, saying nothing.
The carriage rolled onward, and more of the house came into view. There were signs of care as well as want: repaired stonework on one wing, newly cleared drainage near the lower grounds, fresh thatching on a cottage glimpsed through trees, and in the distance, sheep scattered over a green slope. This was not a dead estate waiting for rescue. It was a living place that had been wounded and was healing.
Her throat tightened.
She thought of the young man who had sold luxuries, paid debts, kept tenants in their homes, and given his sister every safety he could while denying himself comfort. She thought of the boy who had loved a father who had not deserved it and had chosen, somehow, not to become bitter. She thought of the man beside her, silent now because this mattered too much for easy speech.
The carriage stopped at a turn where the view was fullest.
Darcy stepped down first, then turned to hand her out. Georgiana followed more slowly, her eyes bright with emotion. For a few moments, all three stood together in the soft air, looking down upon Pemberley.
Darcy’s arm came around Elizabeth with a hesitation that was not uncertainty, but reverence. As though he wished to hold her and the moment both, and feared to disturb either.
“What do you think?” he asked quietly.
Elizabeth looked at the house, the hills, the water, the softened lawns, the unfinished work, the beauty that had endured neglect and was waiting for love.
Then she looked up at him.
“It is beautiful.”
His expression loosened, relief and joy mingling so deeply that she was glad she had spoken simply. No cleverness was needed. No teasing could have improved the truth.
“It needs work,” he said.
“So do most worthwhile things.”
A smile touched his mouth. “You are not dismayed?”
“By overgrown lawns? Uneven paths? Rooms in want of use?” She turned slightly in his arm and looked once more over the valley. “No. I think Pemberley has been waiting.”
