Page 91 of Twice Chosen

Darcy noticed her speaking with the dowager and asked afterward, "You disliked her once."

"I disliked her feather."

"You described the woman and the feather as morally connected."

Elizabeth looked offended. "I was twenty."

"You are twenty."

"That argument has become tiresome."

Darcy smiled.

He too was learning to see people beyond categories. At a dinner hosted by the Matlocks, a young baronet spoke at length about agriculture. The old young-Darcy would have dismissed him as tedious. The older-minded Darcy listened and discovered the man had spent three years restoring land ruined by his father's mismanagement.

On the carriage ride home Elizabeth said, "You liked him."

"I respected him."

"You invited him to Pemberley."

"His drainage methods are interesting."

Elizabeth leaned back against the squabs. "Romance has transformed you."

Darcy took her hand. "Marriage improved me."

"You are not married yet."

He brought her fingers to his lips. "Anticipation has effects."

Elizabeth's pulse skipped despite fifty years of familiarity.

That was another discovery.

Knowing someone completely did not make courtship dull. It made every new variation more intimate.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The Proposal They Chose

Darcy proposed at Pemberley.

Not at Hunsford.

Not in anger.

Not with a speech about struggling against her family, her connections, and every sensible objection his pride could assemble.

At the south meadow beside the hawthorn.

Elizabeth laughed when she saw it.

The tree stood crookedly against the afternoon sky, younger than the ancient, hollow thing she remembered yet already stubborn in shape.

"It is still here," she said.

Darcy looked at the branches. "It is healthy."