Chapter Sixteen
They’d all reconvened around the dinner table, the conversation flowing more easily now that Caroline and Louisa had gone—a development that improved Darcy’s mood considerably. He’d been stealing glances at Elizabeth, who had been just as pointedly not looking at him, when Richard caught him at it.
“Right then.” He pushed back from the table. “Best be off before the roads get icy.”
What followed was a masterclass in well-intentioned haste.
Darcy found himself pressed against the wall of the hallway, watching with fascination as Richard and Malcolm tried to juggle what appeared to be half the contents of the house.
Richard had somehow acquired not only his own coat and scarf, but also a wrapped portion of Christmas pudding, a small bottle of whisky that Jane had pressed upon him, and a wrapped present.
“I’ve got it, I’ve got it,” Richard muttered as the bottle slipped precariously towards the floor. “Just need to—ah, bloody hell.”
He rescued the bottle, but the present hit the ground with a soft thump, which attracted Athena, who seemed to view it as a potential snack.
She picked up the package, her teeth sinking through the wrapping, while Waffles bounded up, tail wagging with sufficient force to knock over the small table by the door.
“Waffles!” Elizabeth groaned.
“Told you Waffles was a bad influence,” Malcolm observed. Waffles was industriously sniffing around the fallen table. “Look at him—he’s giving her ideas now.”
Indeed, Athena had dropped the present and was now methodically investigating everyone’s shoes. This might have been less problematic if people weren’t trying to put their shoes on at the same time.
“Has anyone seen my gloves?” Kitty called out from the lounge. “I know I had them when we arrived.”
“Which gloves?” Mary asked, emerging from the kitchen with her arms full of foil-wrapped leftovers. “The black ones or the grey ones?”
“The brown ones.”
“I didn’t know you had brown ones.”
“Well, I do. Did. Have them, I mean.” She looked around her, hands on her hips. “Had them, at any rate.”
Darcy pressed himself further against the wall as Lydia swept past, trailing a bright red scarf that was either exceptionally long or had somehow become entangled with someone else’s.
“Now, are you quite sure you won’t take more of the pudding?” Jane was saying to everyone. “There’s turkey, too.”
“Happy Christmas, everyone!” Richard called, having achieved an equilibrium with his various burdens now that Athena had lost interest. “Grand evening, thank you so much for having us!”
This seemed to trigger a chain reaction of farewells. Everyone began calling out “Happy Christmas!” in overlapping waves, voices blending into a warm chorus of gratitude and affection. Cheeks were kissed, hands were shaken, and promises were made to ring soon.
Through it all, Darcy found himself watching Elizabeth.
She scooped up the present before Athena could make off with it, retrieved Kitty’s gloves from under a sofa cushion, untangled Lydia’s scarf situation.
There was something deeply satisfying about watching her work, the way she seemed to anticipate problems before they fully materialised and solve them with the minimum of fuss.
But there was something else, too, in the way she kept glancing towards the door as if mentally calculating how much longer this would all take.
“Darcy!” Malcolm’s voice cut through his observations. “You’re not driving back to Pemberley tonight, are you? The roads will be lethal.”
“No, we’re staying in London,” Darcy replied, straightening from his position against the wall.
“Wise man. Well, I’m off before I drop something else.” Richard turned towards Elizabeth, who had appeared beside him with the mangled present. “Elizabeth, you absolute star. Delightful evening, Jane, Charles, thank you so much.”
“Thank you for coming,” Jane replied, accepting his awkward one-armed hug. “Drive safely.”
“Always do. Happy Christmas!”
And then, with a final burst of energy, the Fitzwilliams were gone.
The exodus continued for another ten minutes, a gradual diminishing of voices and footsteps and car engines starting in the drive. Mary left on her own, still debating Kitty over a book recommendation. Kitty and Lydia left together, chattering about presents and boys.
Finally, blessedly, the house fell quiet.
Well, relatively quiet. Athena had settled down for a thorough investigation of Waffles’s rope toy, which involved a series of small grunts and the occasional thump as she repositioned herself.
Waffles had claimed the spot by the radiator and was snoring.
From the kitchen came the sound of Jane and Charles discussing the evening, their voices low and domestic.
But Elizabeth, Darcy noticed, had gone very still.
She stood in the hallway, looking about, but there wasn’t much left to do. Her smile, which had been constant throughout the farewells, had transformed into something more uncertain.
“Well,” she said to no one in particular. “That was . . .”
“Delightful,” Darcy supplied, and meant it. “Your family is better behaved than mine, and tonight was the proof.”
The Bennets’ enthusiasm had been unpolished, unscripted, and alive in a way that his own family gatherings had never managed.
There had been no careful choreography of conversation, no strategic positioning around topics that might prove awkward.
Just people who loved each other enough to be themselves without apology.
Elizabeth belonged to this, was woven into its very fabric, and watching her move through it had made him long for more nights like it.
Before he could examine the feeling too closely, Jane appeared from the kitchen.
“Lizzy, we’ve got the worst of it sorted. Why don’t you and Darcy head off? The roads will only get worse.”
“Are you sure? I can help with hoovering—”
“Absolutely not. You’ve done quite enough. Besides”—Jane’s smile turned sly—“Charles is insisting on his very specific system for cleaning the house after a party. I’m not allowed to interfere, to which I say ‘have at it.’”
Elizabeth laughed at that, the sound warm and genuine, and Darcy could only gaze at her and hope that he hadn’t ruined anything.
"Well." Elizabeth turned back to him. “I suppose we should . . .”
“Actually,” Darcy said, the words coming out before he’d fully thought them through, “would you mind if we walked for a bit first? Before we drive back, I mean. It’s cold, so we won’t take long, but I’d like to stretch my legs a bit before getting back in the car. And the dogs need it, too.”
He winced the second the words left his lips.
The dogs? This was not the way to be straightforward about his intentions.
He held his breath for a moment, wondering if he’d miscalculated. The request felt significant in a way that asking someone to take a walk probably shouldn’t. But Elizabeth just nodded.
“I’d like that,” she responded. “I’m glad you asked.”
As they collected their coats, leashed up the dogs, and said final goodbyes to Jane and Charles, Darcy touched his new scarf.
It made him want things, to be worthy of the time she’d spent learning something new just for him, to stop calculating every gesture, worried it would be too much, to tell her how he felt, to match her openness with his own.
She handed him Athena’s leash. Waffles, for once subdued, having been awakened from a toasty nap, leaned against her legs and yawned.
“Ready?” she asked.
Darcy certainly hoped so.
Elizabeth had approximately thirty seconds to decide whether she was going through with this conversation before they reached the end of Charles and Jane’s drive, and frankly, thirty seconds wasn’t enough time to prepare for what might be the most relationship-defining discussion of her adult life.
The snow was falling more heavily now, fat flakes that caught in her eyelashes and made everything look like a Christmas card.
Under different circumstances, she might have found it romantic, walking through the quiet neighbourhood with Darcy, both dogs trotting companionably alongside, the whole world muffled and peaceful around them.
Instead, she felt like she might throw up.
“Wonderful evening.” Darcy seemed determined to fill the silence. “Your sisters were in excellent form.”
“Mm,” Elizabeth managed, because discussing Lydia’s dinner table antics seemed like rather a detour from the conversation she needed to have. “They like you.”
“Do they? I wasn’t certain. Mary seemed to be taking notes at one point.”
“Mary takes notes on everything. I think she’s writing a sociological study of relational dynamics at Christmas dinners.”
Darcy’s laugh was warm in the cold air. “I’m not sure I want to know what her conclusions were.”
Elizabeth glanced sideways at him. He looked relaxed, more at ease than he’d seemed all evening. The careful tension in his posture that had been on and off all day was gone, replaced by something looser, more natural. It made what she was about to do feel even more awful.
Waffles chose that moment to become fascinated by a particularly interesting lamp post, which meant they had to stop while he conducted what appeared to be a detailed forensic investigation of its base.
Athena waited, well-behaved as always, though Elizabeth caught her shooting Waffles a look that signaled she was considering joining him.
“He’s very thorough,” Darcy observed.
“Too thorough. We’ll be here for ages if he’s allowed to examine every lamp post between here and the car.” Elizabeth tugged on the lead. “Come on, Waffles. It’s not that fascinating.”
But the delay had given her time to think, which was either a blessing or a curse. Her sisters’ voices echoed in her head: Tell him how you need to be loved. Jane’s calm certainty that honesty was always the right choice, even when it was frightening.