Page 117 of Twice Chosen

"You. Staring."

"I am not staring."

"You have been staring since 1791."

Darcy's mouth twitched. "You are repeating yourself."

"Age."

"You are twenty-one."

"I have been twenty-one before. I did not care for it."

Darcy laughed.

Elizabeth sat up and discovered, with disproportionate pleasure, that her back did not object. She stretched both arms above her head.

Darcy watched with amusement. "What are you doing?"

"Existing without pain."

"You complained very little."

"I was dignified."

"You complained every morning when it rained."

"Privately."

"To me."

"Precisely. That does not count."

Later that day Elizabeth sat on the floor of the blue sitting room to examine a stack of estate maps Mrs. Reynolds had brought for her. When the housekeeper left, Elizabeth stood without touching the chair beside her.

She looked delighted.

Darcy, who had been reading near the fire, lowered his book. "Again?"

"You do not understand."

"I spent the last ten years of my life watching you reject assistance out of spite. I understand perfectly."

Elizabeth sat on the floor again simply so she could stand a second time.

Darcy laughed until she threw a folded map at him.

There were other adjustments less amusing.

Mrs. Reynolds did not know Elizabeth's preferences. The breakfast staff placed orange marmalade beside her plate. A maid entered the dressing room without knocking in the particular rhythm Elizabeth remembered. The footmen addressed her as Mrs. Darcy with the careful respect offered a new mistress rather than the easy confidence of servants who had known her forty years.

Pemberley had to learn her again.

Elizabeth found this unexpectedly painful.

One afternoon Mrs. Reynolds came to her with a question concerning the winter linen. Elizabeth answered immediately, then stopped because the answer belonged to an inventory made thirty years in the future.

"I think," she corrected, "we should inspect what is presently stored before deciding."