CHAPTER 74 #4
A footman offered. Darcy refused. He took the sapphires, the pearls, the smaller jewel cases, and the ring as if they were not heavy at all. By the time he reached the western apartments, his arms knew better.
Elizabeth was in the new bedchamber, seated before the dressing glass because Jane had insisted her hair be repinned before dinner and then had been called away by Kitty’s cry that Mr. Bingley had returned with another stream.
The October afternoon had failed early. Candles had been lit on the dressing table, and their light softened the new room, warmed the glass, and found Elizabeth in it: sober gown, loose curls, one hand resting low over the child, her face tired enough to be true.
She saw him in the mirror.
Whatever she had meant to say altered at once.
“Fitzwilliam?”
He set the cases down on the dressing table.
She turned carefully. “What has happened?”
He opened his hand and showed her the ring.
Her eyes went to it first, before the jewels, before the old cases, before the explanation he had not yet formed.
“And that?” she asked.
“Mine, apparently.”
“Apparently?”
“Restored.”
Elizabeth looked at him for a long moment. Then she held out her hand.
“May I?”
He gave her the ring.
She did not ask what it had cost. Not then. She slid it onto his finger with more care than gold deserved and less than the moment required.
It fitted.
Of course it fitted. That was almost the worst of it.
“There,” she said.
Darcy looked at the old crest on his hand.
“Does it look different?” he asked.
“No,” Elizabeth said. “Only less lost.”
His breath caught.
She did not pretend not to hear it. She only kept his hand in hers until he could bear to move.
Then her gaze went to the cases.
“Your father?”
“Yes.”
He opened the sapphires first.
Elizabeth did not speak at once.
The dark stones caught the candlelight and returned it cold, deep, and unmistakable. She looked at them not with greed, nor even admiration, but with the grave attention she gave to instruments whose use she had already begun to understand.
“These are not jewels for being liked,” she said at last.
“No.”
“They are jewels for being believed.”
Darcy looked at the sapphires. “My father said they were worn when no one in the room was to forget who Mrs. Darcy is.”
Elizabeth’s mouth curved a little. “Then I hope they are very uncomfortable to anyone who needs reminding.”
He almost smiled.
“They were my great-grandmother’s wedding jewels,” he said. “They have passed with the house. My father says they belong to Mrs. Darcy.”
That altered her face more than their value had.
“Not Lady Anne’s only?”
“No. Mrs. Darcy’s.”
Elizabeth looked at the sapphires again. “Then they are not an apology.”
“No.”
“Nor a payment.”
“No.”
“Good,” she said, very quietly. “I should not like to wear either.”
He opened the pearl case.
The change in the room was immediate, though nothing had moved but his hand. The sapphires commanded. The pearls waited. They lay in two soft rows against faded velvet, warm and quiet, their small diamond clasp giving back only as much light as was offered.
Elizabeth touched them with one finger and said nothing.
“Will you try them?”
She looked up. “Now?”
“Only if you wish it.”
That made her smile more than insistence would have done.
She turned back toward the glass. Darcy lifted the pearls from their case.
For a moment he saw only his own hands, dark against the pale curve of them. Then he set the necklace around her throat.
Elizabeth grew very still.
The clasp was small. His fingers, usually so exact, took longer than they ought. He felt the warmth at the nape of her neck, one escaped curl brushing his knuckle, the faint movement of her breath beneath his hands.
At last the clasp held.
He did not step back.
In the glass, Elizabeth looked at the pearls, then at him.
“Well?” she asked softly.
Darcy’s voice was not quite steady. “I knew they would suit you.”
Her eyes lifted to his in the glass. “You could not have known.”
“No,” he said. “But I knew.”
She smiled then, not brightly, but as if something had settled. The pearls did not make her Mrs. Darcy. They only told the glass what had been true already.
Her hand rose to touch the necklace.
“I shall wear these,” she said.
“And the sapphires?”
Elizabeth looked toward the open case.
“When necessary.”
He bent and kissed the place just above the pearls, where her pulse moved under his mouth.
“I hope it is not often necessary.”
“So do I,” she said. “But I am glad to have them.”
His hand rested on her shoulder. Hers came up to cover it.
Beyond the half-open door, the nursery stood prepared: linen aired and folded away, the cradle covered against dust, the fireguard fixed before a swept hearth, and a bell that had been tested until even Elizabeth could find no further fault with it.
His father could not give back the years.
But the room was prepared.
The bell answered.
Elizabeth leaned back against him, only a little.
“Pemberley is improving,” she said.
In the glass, the ring and the pearls caught the same candlelight.