Epilogue
Elizabeth and Darcy did manage to get through the fortnight and through the double wedding.
Even more remarkable, perhaps, was the fact that they managed to get through the required hour at the wedding breakfast devoted to both wedded couples.
An hour was, apparently, the minimum time necessitated by courtesy, at least according to the hostess, Lady Matlock.
In point of fact, they ended up attending the wedding breakfast longer than an hour, because at the hour mark, they began to say their goodbyes, and it was twenty minutes before they actually made their escape.
But escape they did. They entered Darcy House, acknowledged the servants who had lined up to show respect, and climbed the steps up to their joined bedchambers. Almost the moment they closed and locked the door, they heard rain start to tap on the windows.
Elizabeth said, “Our magic that kept us mostly dry all these days together, for all of these sunny outings, seems to have dissipated now that we are married and inside, with no wish to go out for hours. How very coincidental magic seems to be.”
Darcy chuckled but asked, “What do you mean, ‘no wish to go out for hours’? I have no wish to go out for days!”
“Weeks and months, perhaps,” Elizabeth suggested before her lips were caught up in their first real kiss since they wed.
Darcy released her mouth so that he could begin to kiss her jaw and throat and clavicle. He finally managed to gasp out, “Years…”
“What?” Elizabeth asked, her brain scrambling to make sense of the word.
Finally, she remembered their jesting, and she said, “If you insist upon funning me, I will finish it off: we shall spend decades, centuries, even millennia in these several rooms. Now: please begin to show me what we will be doing. No more adorable banter.”
Darcy was inflamed already, and her even greater impatience made him reject his original plan to go very slowly.
He hurried to unbutton her dress and then began taking off his cravat while he watched with the greatest anticipation as she removed her dress, stays, and stockings.
He was entirely nude by the time she was down to her chemise.
Drawing her to him, he growled, “You told me that you know what goes where, but I wish to point out that all manner of what’s can explore all sorts of where’s.
He was not in the mood to lecture, however, and he began to use his hands to explore her and bring them both pleasure. Then he used his tongue with the same goals. Elizabeth emulated him. Finally, he thought she was ready, and when he asked, she sounded immensely certain she was ready….
It turned out, they were both more than ready.
And were several more times, in fact.
By nighttime, the pattering rain had become a downpour—and Elizabeth was grateful her family had planned to leave London soon after she left the wedding breakfast; she was confident that they had been home for hours before the storm intensified.
Darcy had ordered the knocker off the door for at least two days after the wedding, and apparently the weather wished to reinforce that order.
The downpour of the night became a snowstorm by early the next morning, and although the snow quickly melted, London’s poor weather moved into days and days of heavy fog.
Elizabeth seemed as content as Darcy that the social whirl that was London, even during the slower times of winter, could not lure them out of their cosy nest when travel at any speed was quite dangerous.
However, by the end of January, Darcy was yearning to go to Pemberley.
They prepared to travel swiftly if the weather improved, and sure enough, eventually there was a reasonably clear day with just a few clouds still drizzling moisture.
The Darcys loaded up promptly and reached a very comfortable inn for the first night.
The roads further north were very muddy, and it took three more full days of travel to reach Pemberley.
“What do you think?” Darcy asked Elizabeth when she finally got her first look at their home.
They had stopped at an overlook, and although it was still difficult to judge the mansion’s size, she could see the golden glow of sunlight on the stones, the reflection in the lake, and the surrounding cliffs and forests.
“Pemberley is truly beautiful; I have never seen any other building as beautifully situated in my life.”
“I am glad you approve.”
“Approve? I would rhapsodise if I was not so exhausted.”
“It will be an immense pleasure to explore all of it with you during the spring, but as you see, the Peak has its beauties clad in snow, as well. And inside of Pemberley is an immense amount to explore, and in Pemberley’s library is an enormous amount to read.”
“And—”
“Yes,” Darcy said. “And we have the conservatory, the hothouse, the greenhouse, the orangery, and the aviary. And I have plans drawn up to add a pinery in the springtime.”
“So, Fitzwilliam Andrew Theodore Darcy, I have access to all your many places in which you nurture life under a roof, and I have access to your forests and lake, streams and meadows—places that nurture life under no roof, and I still get your most tender attentions? You are by far the very best combined Saint Nicholas’s Day and Christmas and Twelfth Night gift anyone has ever received or given in the entire world! ”
Darcy sang softly, “On the first through twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…her heart, her hand, and the promise of I becoming we.”