Epilogue
“Where are you taking me?” Elizabeth Darcy asked her husband. He replied with only a little quirk of his brow and a promise that she would enjoy it.
She snuggled a little closer to him and said, “I enjoy all the time I spend with you.”
“As do I with you,” he said, looking down at her. Inclining his head slightly, he kissed her on the tip of her nose. “Indeed I rather hate the time I must spend asleep. I would much rather remain awake to talk to you.”
A pointed clearing of the throat reminded them that they were not alone. Across from them, Saye peered over the top of the newspaper. “Perhaps you might save those sentiments for a private moment.”
“This was meant to be a private moment,” Darcy informed him. “It was you who attached yourself to our outing. Need I remind you that we have been married but three days?”
“It has been four, actually,” Saye grumbled, raising his paper again. “And no, I need no reminder. I was there, remember? Mingling among Bingley’s relations like a commoner.”
The charming autumn day on which Elizabeth had upheld her promise to marry Mr Darcy had been as beautiful as any wedding day could be. Thinking of it always brought a smile to her lips; that smile was generally shared with her husband and, more often than not, another kiss.
It was a day in which their felicity was shared with two of those most dear to them: Jane and Bingley. Mrs Bennet assured anyone who would listen that if a mother had two daughters engaged at the same time, a shared wedding was the only way to manage it without completely succumbing to her nerves.
Georgiana and Lydia were both permitted to attend the wedding, having recently completed three months of being housebound for their antics in Brighton.
Georgiana was ordered to remain by Colonel Fitzwilliam’s side; Lydia was closely overseen by her father who sent her back to her bedchamber midway through the breakfast for flirting too boldly with Lieutenant Denny.
And now Elizabeth was Mrs Darcy, a fact which seemed extraordinary to her but to which she was slowly growing accustomed.
“I had a letter from Hartham,” Darcy told her. “Congratulating us on our marriage.”
“That was good of him,” she said. “I thought I had heard that he proposed to someone?”
“Someone his aunt knew,” Darcy replied. “A distant relation.”
“When do the pair of you go to Brighton?” Saye asked.
“Tomorrow,” Elizabeth replied.
“We needed a day or two so the priest might finish his task,” said Darcy gravely.
Saye’s brows wrinkled. “Priest? What priest?”
“The one we had in for the exorcism.”
Elizabeth stifled her giggle. Darcy had come late to teasing, but he had grown quite proficient.
Saye huffed. “I have no time for your nonsense, Darcy. It was all a humbug, and your little wife told me so herself.”
“Yes, but I did not know all of it,” Elizabeth said, managing gravity. “The fiddler, to be sure, but there was more. A great deal more.”
“What more?” Saye rolled his eyes. “The only dreadful spirit that inhabited that house was the spirit of sopping, sickening romance, sure to make a mooncalf from any who dared set foot inside.”
“Including you?” Darcy asked him. “I noticed that you and Miss Goddard disappeared for a bit during our breakfast.”
“That is peculiar; I should have thought your mind would be on your wife, not your cousin. You are a strange man, Darcy.”
“She did look rather flushed and giggly when you returned,” Elizabeth supplied. “When may we wish you joy?”
At this, Saye thrust his paper to the side with a loud rustle. “Never, it seems. Miss Goddard is determined to be a spinster.”
“Did she refuse you?” Darcy asked, sounding shocked.
“Would I be following in your footsteps if she had not? I shall be just as bad as you were Darcy, a barrel in breeches,” Saye retorted.
Elizabeth turned to look at her husband, wishing to see him better beyond the obstruction of her bonnet. To further her intrigue, Darcy appeared red-faced and was levelling a disgusted look at Saye.
“I was hardly a barrel in breeches,” he pronounced stiffly.
“You were close. Lord knows what would have happened if I had not come along and invited you to Brighton. In any case, here we are!”
“As it is,” said Elizabeth staunchly, “I find my husband’s figure very pleasing, not at all like a barrel.” This earned her a brief kiss.
“Well, you have me to thank for it,” Saye replied drily. “I dragged him away from the very establishment we are about to grace with our presence, and set him on a course of gymnastics to return him to his former glory. But here we are!”
Elizabeth looked out of the window as they drew to a stop, seeing a charming little shop named Benjamin and Gerald’s. It was clearly a confectionery from its appearance; from the distance they had travelled, she could only assume it was a most excellent one.
“The best cream ices in England,” Darcy informed her as he stepped out of the carriage. “Prepare yourself, my dear wife, for the only thing I think is sweeter is the taste of your kisses.”
“Good lord, must I hear this?” Saye moaned. “Now I shall need a double portion.”
That Darcy was an esteemed patron was very clear.
The proprietor came out to greet him as soon as they entered, and ushered them to the best table, the one overlooking the street.
And then Elizabeth saw the real tribute: a particular concoction called The Darcy.
“Well, I simply must have that one,” she cried out delightedly. “Is it your favourite, Darling?”
“No, you are my favourite.” He leant in very close, his fingers rising to graze the spot on her neck just beneath her ear. “I assure you, if there was a cream ice as sweet as this, they would have hundreds lined up outside the door.”
Elizabeth felt a blush heat her face, and she looked down, wholly disconcerted.
She found much to enjoy in her husband’s attentions, but she had not yet set her maidenly pretensions so far behind her as to not blush at the reminder of them.
Thankfully the server arrived to ask them what they wished to order; in short time the sweets were set on the table before them.
“If they taste half as good as they look…” Elizabeth began.
“It tastes twice as good as it looks,” Saye informed her. “Go on, take a bite.”
She did and was completely and utterly in raptures immediately.
“This is quite beyond anything! It is far better than Gunter’s, and I thought Gunter’s sublime.
I daresay I could come every day and never grow tired of it.
” She took another small bite, determined to make the treat last as long as she could.
“Which is exactly how your now-husband found himself bursting from his waistcoats,” Saye informed her. “That, my dear, is a true story. A button flew off and nearly took my eye out.”
“It was hardly as dramatic as that,” Darcy grumbled.
“Heartbreak,” Saye informed her. “Copious amounts of cream ice are the only cure.”
“You were heartbroken?” Elizabeth looked at her husband in amazement.
“Does it surprise you? The love of my life had just refused my hand. I believed all hope was lost.”
She smiled softly at him. “Such a fool I was.”
“Not at all. When I think of how I was, how I acted, only this time last year, I can hardly abide it myself. I can only be grateful you were as willing to take on a husband in need of improvement as you were a house.”
Saye was already scraping the bottom of his cream ice bowl with his spoon.
“Yes, yes, a vast deal of improvement was needed. Darcy here was up with the dawn, off in the forest somewhere making himself sweat and heave like a horse, all for the cause of returning himself to the state you see him in now.”
“It was you!” Elizabeth cried out. “Running up and down the hill…” Her voice faded as she recollected it, how the sight of the muscular man in his shirtsleeves had produced sensations in her that she had not understood at the time but which she now understood very, very well.
“You need not worry,” Darcy told her. “I am firmly ascribed to the creed that all good things must be enjoyed in moderation. You must not fear—”
“Oh, I do not know,” she said softly. “I certainly enjoyed watching you improve your health, so if you find yourself in any way inclined to undertake your gymnastics again…”
He chuckled. “You would not be opposed?”
“Far, far from it,” she told him warmly.
“I can hardly believe this is real,” he murmured.
“That somehow, in some way, from the rubble of my dreadful proposal, we have managed to build this.” He gestured between them with a finger, his eyes full of the love she no longer had any doubt that he felt.
“To sit here with you, eating cream ices, with all things felicitous ahead of us… You must pinch me so I know I am not dreaming.”
“I cannot pinch you,” she said softly. “For I have caused you pain too, and I promised myself I would never do it again.”
He lifted his finger to stroke her cheek. “Just a little pinch perhaps,” he teased. “Just so that I know— Blast! Saye! That hurt!”
“Well, you wanted a pinch, did you not?” Saye raised one brow as he reached over and took the remains of Darcy’s abandoned cream ice. “There, you have it.”
Darcy rubbed his arm and glared at his cousin.
Elizabeth giggled and then, quite daringly she thought, shoved the rest of her own cream ice across the table towards Saye.
“Here you are,” she said. “Pray finish mine as well and take your time with it. I must speak with my husband alone in the carriage.”
She stood, looking over her shoulder at her husband who had remained seated, no doubt surprised by her boldness. “Come, Husband,” she said with a little wink.
They left London with the dawn the next morning. The autumn days were growing shorter, but they were determined to reach Brighton before losing the light. They arrived at the house on Marine Parade to find an astonishingly gratifying sight.
Elizabeth’s house was at last complete. The rotted floorboards had all been replaced and the doors all hung, the walls were sturdy and straight, the new windows poured what was left of the daylight into the house, and each and every cornice and moulding was firmly affixed in its proper place.
Darcy heard his wife gasp over and over again as they walked through the rooms, seeing the wallpaper she had chosen so painstakingly, the furnishings she had ordered…
even the books she had had brought down from Longbourn which now graced the library shelves.
“It is really almost perfect, is it not?” She asked him several times, and each time he answered her, “Yes, it is. You will have made your aunt very proud.”
When at last their survey of things was completed, they sat on the tufted velvet sofa in the library. “We will need more books in here,” said Darcy. “I shall have some brought down from Pemberley.”
“Well…it would hardly be necessary, if we mean to sell the place.”
“Do we?” he asked.
“It seems indulgent, does it not, to have yet another house? A house in Derbyshire, a house in town—”
“And a house by the sea,” he said. “I confess, it will be hard for me to give it up. It is the place you finally fell in love with me. I should like it exceedingly well if we maintained it, but I leave the decision to you. It is your inheritance after all.”
“Then perhaps we should keep it, at least a few years,” she said, her sparkling eyes and smile telling him how much she enjoyed the prospect. “At least until the children come. It will be far more difficult to travel about with children.”
“But children love the sea.”
“Ours might not,” she said, though he knew she did not really believe that anyone could dislike Brighton.
“But perhaps they will.” He leant over and gave her a kiss. “I suppose we must wait and see.”