Chapter 7
Elizabeth
The last night I bore the name Elizabeth Bennet, Jane slept in our bed.
Or rather, she tried.
We lay side by side in the darkness, as still as two children pretending to be asleep. A band of moonlight slipped through the curtains and lit the dressing table, the gown hanging near the wardrobe, and Darcy’s letters resting beneath the candlestick.
Three letters in eleven days.
The last one dealt almost entirely with our journey. The state of the roads. The inn where he had reserved rooms. Georgiana, who promised not to have the entire household perform for our arrival.
Then, at the bottom of the page:
I am counting the hours. F.D.
I had traced my finger over those words until I could feel the texture of the ink.
Now there were almost no hours left to count.
“Lizzy?” Jane murmured.
“You’re not sleeping either?”
She turned toward me. The mattress sank beneath her weight.
“I thought you’d be too impatient.”
“I am.”
“You seem mostly terrified.”
“I am not terrified.”
A silence.
“Very well,” I conceded. “A little.”
Jane laughed softly.
“Mr. Darcy too, probably.”
The image of Darcy terrified by his own marriage should have amused me. Yet I recalled the heavier pressure of his pen on the last words of his letter.
I am counting the hours.
“Do you think so?”
“I saw his face when he looked at you at the ball. That man won’t sleep peacefully until he’s brought you to Pemberley.”
A familiar warmth bloomed beneath my ribs.
“Jane Bennet, I hardly recognize you.”
“Enjoy my last hours under this name.”
Her laughter mingled with mine, then faded.
Jane sought my hand beneath the covers. Her fingers intertwined with mine.
“Tomorrow night, we won’t be here.”
That truth settled over us with a painful gentleness.
I looked at the pale outline of the curtains, the floral wallpaper chosen by my mother, the dresser where our ribbons had mingled for years. Every object seemed to await my departure with an almost offensive indifference.
“Neither will you,” I said.
“Netherfield is only a few miles away.”
“Unfair advantage.”
“I’ll come see you.”
“In Derbyshire?”
“Charles owns a carriage.”
“So that’s the real reason for your marriage.”
Jane stifled her laughter in the pillow.
Then she squeezed my hand tighter.
“I will miss you.”
The lightness disappeared from her voice.
I moved closer to her until I felt her forehead against mine.
“You too.”
Nothing could make this separation less real. Not Darcy’s fortune, nor the beauty of Pemberley, nor the happiness that awaited me. Jane had always been the first person I turned to. The one who knew my poor judgments, my angers, my silences, and the rare sorrows I refused to show others.
She would no longer be in the next bed.
But she would be Jane.
And I would always be Lizzy to her, whatever name was written at the bottom of my letters.
“We’ll write to each other,” she murmured.
“Every day.”
“You hate writing letters.”
“I’m marrying a man who expresses his passion by describing the state of the roads. I must improve.”
This time, Jane laughed openly.
“He did write that he was counting the hours.”
I glanced toward the letters.
“Yes.”
“Are you counting them too?”
I thought of the church. Of his hand taking mine. Of his name becoming mine. Of the carriage that would carry us away from watching eyes, chaperones, and doors left ajar.
“The minutes,” I confessed.
“Lizzy. You haven’t spoken of Lydia.”
The name fell into the darkness of the room. I stared at the ceiling.
“She wrote to Mama last week. She asks if we intend to invite her and her husband.”
“And?”
“Mama said the house would be full.”
Which, coming from our mother, was a diplomatic masterpiece. She had two daughters to marry off brilliantly and a third whose name was only spoken in whispers; even Mrs. Bennet had finally understood that you couldn't seat George Wickham at the same table as Fitzwilliam Darcy.
“It pains you,” Jane said.
“It hurts in a way I can’t untangle. She’s my sister. I’m getting married tomorrow and she won’t be there, and I think I’m relieved—and that relief shames me.”
Jane didn’t tell me I was wrong. That was one of the things I loved most about her: she never consoled with lies.
“Has Mr. Darcy ever spoken of it?”
“Never.”
Not once. Not a word about what he had done in London the previous summer, nor what that marriage had cost him, nor the man he’d had to seek out and pay to spare my family from disgrace. I knew because my aunt had confessed it to me, breaking her promise, and he had no idea I knew.
He could have used it. One word, one allusion—just one—and I would have been indebted for life. He had said nothing.
“He never will,” Jane murmured.
“No.”
“Then sleep, Lizzy. You can’t fix Lydia tonight.”
Jane rested her cheek against my shoulder.
We stayed like that in the darkness, our hands clasped between us.
Sleep came late.
When I finally closed my eyes, the fear was gone.
Only an impatience so fierce it was almost painful.
?
Longbourn woke before dawn.
By seven, my mother had interrogated Hill about the sky, the flowers, the pastor, the carriage, and the state of the road to the church. By eight, Kitty had lost a shoe. At quarter past eight, Mary had tried to read us a passage on the duties of a Christian wife.
My father had shut himself in his library.
I envied him.
“Raise your arms, miss,” Hill said.
I obeyed.
The dress descended over me in a rustle of muslin. Jane and Hill smoothed the skirt while I held my breath. The silver embroidery caught the gray morning light. The ribbon was tied beneath my bosom.
In the mirror, Jane appeared behind me, already dressed for her own ceremony. Her gown was simpler than mine, adorned with small flowers embroidered at the waist. Her fair hair framed her face with a softness that made her almost luminous.
“You look beautiful,” I murmured.
“I was about to say the same to you.”
Hill opened the case resting on the dressing table.
The sapphire lay within.
The stone Darcy himself had fastened around my neck. The stone that had been between us when he kissed me.
I took it before Hill could.
“I’ll put it on.”
My fingers trembled slightly on the clasp.
Jane stepped closer.
“Let me.”
She passed the chain around my neck and closed the fastening. The sapphire settled in the hollow of my throat, cold against my skin.
I looked up at my reflection.
The woman in the mirror was no stranger. She had my too-curious eyes, my lips ready to smile at the wrong moment, and that lock of hair no one ever managed to pin correctly.
Only, she was about to marry Fitzwilliam Darcy.
Today.
The thought brought a smile to my lips before I could stop it.
Jane saw it in the mirror.
“Finally.”
“Finally what?”
“You look happy.”
I turned to her.
“I am.”
Not merely reassured. Not merely certain I had made the right choice.
Happy.
In a vast, complete way—almost frightening in its simplicity.
The door flew open.
My mother appeared, her handkerchief already clutched in one hand.
“Oh, my girls!”
Her voice broke.
She stood frozen on the threshold, her gaze moving from Jane to me. For once, no comment came immediately about the cut of the dresses, the ribbons, or the cost of the embroidery.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“You’re so beautiful.”
She pulled us both against her. Her embrace pressed the sapphire into my chest and probably wrinkled the ribbon she’d insisted Hill iron twice.
I didn’t care.
My mother smelled of rose water and rice powder. A scent I’d known since childhood.
“Two weddings on the same day,” she sobbed. “Two of my daughters. Netherfield and Pemberley. No one will ever say I failed in my duty.”
I closed my eyes against her shoulder.
Even in tears, my mother remained my mother.
I would miss that too.
She stepped back, immediately fussed with a lock of my hair, and wiped her eyes.
“Don’t cry, Lizzy. Your eyelids will turn red.”
“You’re the one crying, Mama.”
“I have my nerves. It’s different.”
Jane turned her head to hide her smile.
My mother kissed us once more before hurrying off in search of Kitty, her shoe, and the bouquet no one had seen since breakfast.
A few moments later, someone knocked softly.
My father entered.
He wore his best coat. His cravat listed slightly to the left, and an ink stain still marked his index finger. He stopped when he saw me.
His gaze held neither worry nor irony.
Only an emotion so raw it took my breath away.
“Well, Lizzy.”
“Well, Papa.”
Jane kissed him, then left the room with Hill. The door closed behind them.
My father and I were alone.
He approached slowly.
“You look like your mother on our wedding day.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Should I be concerned?”
A faint smile crossed his face.
“You resemble her when she was happy—before she started tallying her future sons-in-law’s incomes.”
I laughed, but my throat tightened.
He took my hands in his.
“Mr. Darcy is waiting for you.”
The simplicity of those words stole my breath.
“Yes.”
“And you seem very eager to join him.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“For several weeks now.”
His thumb brushed over my fingers.
“I won’t ask if you’re certain. You are. You were the moment you agreed to marry him, even if you spent considerable energy pretending otherwise.”
“I pretended nothing.”
“Naturally.”
The familiar irony warmed something inside me.
Then his expression softened.
“He loves you.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
“And you love him.”
“More than I ever thought I could love anyone.”
My father lowered his eyes to our joined hands.
“Then I have nothing more to say.”
I knew this man. I knew everything he was hiding behind those words.
I freed one hand and slipped my arm around his neck.
He froze for a second, surprised, before closing his arms around me.
“I’ll miss you,” I murmured.
His hand settled behind my head.
“And I you, my child.”
My child.
My eyes filled with tears.
He stepped back before they could fall and offered me his arm.
“Come. Mr. Darcy has waited long enough.”
I took a deep breath.
Then I slipped my hand through his arm.
?
The rain hadn’t come.