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"Elizabeth has asked that you stand with me when she goes into church," the Earl said.

Albrecht stopped beneath an elm. "I could not take your place."

"She has not asked you to. There is room for both of us."

"I had hoped, when I learned Minna lived long enough to have a daughter, that I might do something to repair our loss. But I have brought Elizabeth danger instead. My wife came with me, and I did not see what she meant to do."

"You have also brought her stories of her mother, family she never expected, and affection she never doubted once she knew you," Lord Matlock answered. "She does not measure you by Adelheid's actions. Neither should I."

Albrecht breathed in the scent of damp earth and new leaves. "Friedrich would have liked you," he said.

"I hope so. Elizabeth tells me he was the responsible brother, which leads me to suspect he would have found Richard exhausting."

"He would have adored him," Albrecht said with a laugh. "And pretended the opposite."

The Earl offered his arm. They continued their walk without further ceremony.

Later, while Elizabeth's wedding dress hung in the next room, Lady Matlock discovered that one of the pearl pins had loosened from its ribbon. She carried it to her own chamber rather than summoning a maid. It was a trifling repair, easily made, but she sat for some time with the needle held above the fabric before taking the first stitch.

She remembered Elizabeth at sixteen, asking whether the Earl knew how much trouble she would be. She remembered finding her asleep in the chair by the window with a German book open across her knees. On winter evenings the girl had often followed her into the small sitting room without asking for anything, and Anne had learned to move her sewing basket aside to make room. Tomorrow that chair would be empty. Elizabeth would have her own home, her own household, and a husband who looked at her with the helpless tenderness Anne had once recognized in her own young marriage.

The countess drew the thread through the ribbon and secured the pearl. She did not wish Elizabeth to remain a child in her care; she wished the years to have moved less quickly. She laid the pin beside the locket Elizabeth would wear and turned the candle lower. In the corridor the Earl was waiting, holding two cups of tea. He offered her one without asking why her eyes were bright.

"The pin was loose," she said.

"Then it is fortunate you discovered it," he answered. He sat beside her while she drank.

On the morning of Elizabeth's wedding, Lady Matlock found her seated before a mirror with Minna's locket open in her hand. The gown was ready. The flowers had arrived. Georgiana had already asked twice whether the music had been placed upon the stand in the correct order. Yet Elizabeth sat very still, looking at the miniature of Princess Dorothea.

"I was thinking of my mother," she said when Lady Matlock entered. "I have often wondered whether she would recognize the woman I have become."

Lady Matlock came beside her. "I think she would recognize the girl who laughed in two languages and refused to be governed by foolishness. The woman has merely learned how much more there is to love."

Elizabeth closed the locket. "You have been my mother in every way you were permitted to be. I hope you know that."

Lady Matlock's composure failed sufficiently that she was obliged to take out her handkerchief.

"My dear child, I have known it since the first morning you corrected Richard at breakfast. I was only waiting for you to know it as well."

She fastened the locket at Elizabeth's throat. The small familiar weight settled against the gown just above her heart.

Outside the room Saye was directing a servant to move a vase before anyone collided with it, while Richard argued that if the bride remained upstairs another quarter of an hour the groom might have to be restrained from climbing the staircase. Elizabeth heard both voices and smiled.

"They sound as they always have," she said.

"Heaven preserve us if they ever sound otherwise," Lady Matlock answered.

At the church Lord Matlock stood upon Elizabeth's right and Albrecht upon her left as they approached the point where her future waited. Neither man performed a second or invented ceremony. When the customary question came, the Earl answered in the part agreed upon beforehand, and Albrecht remained beside Elizabeth long enough to give her hand a gentle squeeze before taking his place with the family. The gesture was small, but it acknowledged the two households that had loved her.

Darcy waited with an expression of such open feeling that Elizabeth almost forgot every guest who had come to watch. He took her hand, and the solemn vows of marriage seemed both wonderfully simple and entirely sufficient. There was no title upon which their happiness depended, no fortune required to make affection respectable, no past that could change the decision before them. They had chosen one another.

At the wedding breakfast Richard declared that the groom had behaved creditably and the bride had shown remarkable restraint by failing to correct him during the service. Saye observed that the absence of correction did not prove the absence of error. Bingley laughed, Georgiana blushed with pleasure when her music was praised, and Jane reached across the table to clasp Elizabeth's hand.

Albrecht sat near the Earl of Matlock. He watched Elizabeth turn toward Darcy, her face lit with the same quick delight Minna had once shown upon escaping from the schoolroom, and felt grief and happiness meet without destroying each other. Friedrich should have lived to see a niece who argued with her brothers. Minna should have lived to watch her daughter marry. Their absence was real. So was the love that had survived them.

Before the last carriage was summoned, Elizabeth found her guardian standing by the open door of the little library. The Earl had been searching for his gloves. He had them in one hand, yet made no move to put them on.

"I have been wondering," he said, "whether I ever properly thanked you for saving my life."