Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
Fitzwilliam looked between them. “He asked about marrying,” he observed, as though noting an unusual bird. “Our Darcy. Who once looked pained when a lady mentioned needing a partner for a jig.”
Adrian lowered the list. Elizabeth arranged her face into what she intended to be composure; it did not last a moment before the corners of her mouth betrayed her. He looked from Mr. Darcy to Elizabeth and back again, his expression brightening into something between glee and menace.
"It continues,” Adrian said. “If Princess Elizabeth is not attached, Their Majesties request she not become so. If she is engaged but not yet wed and can do so with comfort, they would wish to celebrate her marriage in Thurnia at the palace, and to receive her English family with all honour.”
Adrian folded the paper and tossed it on the table. “There are other instructions,” he said. “Some involving introductions, and some involving what I am allowed to say to you about your family.”
Elizabeth tilted her head. “Am I allowed to ask?”
“You are allowed,” Adrian assured her, “and I am allowed to answer, so long as I do not ‘startle you into rash behaviour.’”
“That sounds as though you have a reputation,” Elizabeth said.
“We have an uncle who believes all behaviour is rash if it occurs before breakfast,” Adrian replied.
Mr. Darcy, still holding Elizabeth’s hand, said with deceptive mildness, “And now that you have delivered the crown’s assurances, you both may leave.”
“I beg your pardon?” Colonel Fitzwilliam was on the verge of laughing and did not appear to have any intention of removing himself.
There was a brief shuffle, and then her father appeared in the doorway, looking mildly ruffled and rather curious. Uncle Gardiner and Aunt Gardiner followed him.
She watched as her father took in the scene. “What have I missed?” he asked.
“A number of rules about poultry, Papa,” she told him. “Apparently I am not allowed to bring any to Thurnia with me.”
His shaggy eyebrows lifted.
“Oh,” she said, as though she had forgotten, “and I am engaged.”
Mr. Darcy’s growl was low and seemed to issue from the back of his throat. But it did not make her laugh. It made her feel something she had never felt before and was not entirely sure was proper.
Her father stared at her, then at Mr. Darcy, then back at Elizabeth again. “Engaged,” he repeated.
“Yes, Papa,” Elizabeth said.
“And was anyone,” her father asked mildly, “intending to consult me?”
“Sir—” Mr. Darcy began. Adrian and the colonel smirked at him, and he glared back before continuing. “May I request a few moments of your time? Privately, if you please.”
Papa’s brows lifted. “Now? After the engagement has already occurred?”
Mr. Darcy held his ground. “I would not dare ask you before her, sir.”
“Indeed not,” Elizabeth said, meeting her father’s eye. “I should have been very put out.”
Her father regarded them for a long moment, then said, “Very well. Come and explain yourself, Mr. Darcy. I am, at present, in the mood to be entertained.”
Mr. Darcy kissed her hand before following her father, and then, just before he passed through the doorway, he looked back at her over his shoulder.
His eyes found Elizabeth’s at once and the smile he gave her was so unguarded, so quietly pleased, so promising, that she could not imagine doing without him.
Then Mr. Darcy followed her father from the room and the door closed behind them with a soft click.
Elizabeth left her visitors to the Gardiners and moved to the writing table. In her uncle’s study, Papa was teasing Mr. Darcy, she was certain of it. But she had a letter to pen.
She wrote to Their Majesties honestly, plainly.
She began with duty, because even she understood that duty was the coin of any realm.
She informed them that she would come to Thurnia when required, but ideally not until the weather improved.
That she would learn what she must learn and represent what she must represent.
That she would not sulk, flinch, or behave in any way like a child.
Then, with the same steady hand, she began to write the sentences that mattered most.
I am engaged to Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy.
She did not phrase it as a hope. She did not ask permission. She wrote it as a fact—like rain, like gravity, like the sun in the sky.
England will be our home.
It was not a rejection of Thurnia. She kept writing, explaining that Mr. Darcy had an estate in Derbyshire, he had responsibilities, he had a sister who was under his guardianship. Elizabeth would not ask him to discard his life. Nor, if she was truthful, did she intend to discard her own.
She added what she could offer in good faith: they would come for a long visit this year.
They would bring their future children to Thurnia to meet their royal family.
They would be pleased to handle the Crown’s affairs in their area of England.
Given the business that had seen Elizabeth relegated to the care of the Bennets to begin with, was it not best to have her serve the family here?
She set down her pen and read it through once.
Adrian leaned in without permission to read her missive. His brows rose once at the engagement line. They rose again at the mention of England.
When he reached the end, he exhaled through his nose. “Well,” he said. “You have managed to be respectful without being obedient. That is a rare talent.”
“It may be my only one in matters of politics,” Elizabeth said sweetly.
“I request,” Adrian said, “to add a few lines.”
Elizabeth sat back. “If you intend to turn it into a plea, I warn you—”
“I intend to turn it into something the Crown can accept without feeling it has been instructed.”
“Have I done that?” Elizabeth said, frowning. “I have only said what is true.”
“Yes,” Adrian agreed, entirely untroubled. “That is why I must help you.”
He took the pen when she offered it and added a small paragraph—formalities, assurances, a particular turn of phrase that sounded respectful while it stepped carefully around the truth.
Elizabeth read the words with a wary respect. “You are an alarming sort of cousin.”
“Everyone should have one.”
When he had done, he sanded the ink.
“There,” he said briskly. “Now it is both true and likely to succeed.”
Elizabeth scanned the additions—and then, at the very end, found the final sentence he had written, and felt her mouth twitch despite herself:
And for the Crown’s practical comfort, having Princess Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy settled in Derbyshire will prevent me from running to all ends of England in Their Majesties’ service and allow us to expand our reach.
As our success here grows, I would very much like to share that burden with my cousin and her intended.
Adrian’s tone was maddeningly mild. “They will like that line.”
“Because it benefits you.”
“Because it benefits the Crown,” he corrected. “Which, in this instance, is the same thing.”
The door opened and Mr. Darcy stepped in. He did not look at Adrian. He had eyes only for Elizabeth.
“Your father has given us his approval.”
“Did he give you much trouble?” she inquired.
Darcy’s mouth tightened in an expression that was nearly a smile. “He is rather formidable.”
“That is not a word I have ever heard in connection with Papa.”
“That,” Mr. Darcy said, “is because he has never been asked for your hand before.”
Adrian made a small, appreciative sound—then turned to join Colonel Fitzwilliam and the Gardiners in their conversation.
Elizabeth slid the letter across the table toward Mr. Darcy.
“Before you say anything,” she said, “I have written to the king and queen.”
Mr. Darcy’s brows rose. “I see.”
“I have told them I will come when summoned.”
A serious nod.
“And that I am engaged to you.”
“Even before my conversation with your father was completed?”
“Yes.”
His gaze turned dark, and for a moment the room narrowed until there was no one in it but them.
“And,” Elizabeth continued, her voice little more than a whisper, “that England will be our home.”
Mr. Darcy blinked once. Then he unfolded the letter and read. He took his time, but when he finished, he lowered the page and shook his head slowly.
Not in objection. With affection.
“You are impossible,” he said, and there was something in his voice that made the word sound like gratitude.
Elizabeth lifted her chin. “I am efficient.”
“Your father asked what I intended to do with my estate and my obligations here,” he said, glancing up. “I told him you and I would decide it together.”
“Oh,” she said, suddenly feeling wrong-footed. “We can certainly discuss—” She stopped when he shook his head.
“I would never force you from Thurnia,” he said, “but neither is it in my nature to relinquish what is mine to manage.”
His eyes returned to her letter. “I find I am . . .” He stopped, as if searching for just the right words. “I find I am profoundly relieved that you have made this decision for us.”
“I did not decide for us,” she said, softer now. “I decided with you, just . . . in advance.”
Adrian, from the window, said without turning, “Yes, yes. You may both admire my statesmanship now.”
“It is clever,” Mr. Darcy said, and there was dry amusement in it. “He has presented our happiness as fulfilling an administrative need.”
She glanced over at the others in the room and pressed a quick kiss to his lips.
He blushed. “Princess Elizabeth,” he murmured, “you are going to be the most magnificent disruption to my orderly life.”
“I certainly intend to be, Mr. Darcy.” She smiled up at him, feeling gloriously reckless and entirely certain.
From the window, Adrian’s voice carried across the room with a dramatic disgust: “For heaven’s sake, there are other people in this room!”
This pronouncement produced stifled laughter from everyone else.
But neither Elizabeth nor Darcy paid it the slightest attention.