CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN The Church Door
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
The Church Door
The first person to embrace Elizabeth after the register was signed was not her mother.
It was Georgiana. She crossed the vestry so quickly that Mrs. Annesley barely avoided losing hold of her shawl. “My sister.”
Elizabeth’s breath caught. She hugged the girl tightly. “Yes.” Georgiana pulled back, crying openly now.
Darcy stood beside them. Elizabeth looked at him over Georgiana’s shoulder. His face had gone soft.
“Do not start,” she warned.
“I have said nothing.”
“You are thinking sentimentally.”
“I am allowed. It is my wedding day.”
Richard appeared. “There he is. The romantic hero of Hertfordshire.”
Darcy’s face closed at once.
Richard grinned. Jane was surrounded by Bingley, Mrs. Bennet, Louisa, and Kitty. Caroline stood just beyond them, uncertain.
Jane saw her. For a second Elizabeth wondered what she would do. Jane held out her hand.
Caroline looked at it.
Then she took it.
“Mrs. Bingley,” she said.
Jane smiled. “Caroline.” It was not complete reconciliation.
It was a beginning. Mr. Bennet signed the register twice as father of both brides and complained that no man should be required to perform the same emotional duty in duplicate. The Earl signed for Darcy. Mr. Gardiner signed for Elizabeth.
Richard signed with an unnecessarily elaborate flourish that Darcy criticized. “It is a legal register, not a battlefield dispatch.”
“I wished history to remember me.”
“History will struggle to read your name.”
Outside, the churchyard erupted.
People cheered. Lydia had somehow obtained flower petals despite being specifically told no one would throw anything at the brides. She distributed them to children.
“Lydia!” Mrs. Bennet cried.
“La, Mama, it is pretty!”
Petals flew. Jane laughed when a handful landed in Bingley’s hair.
Elizabeth ducked behind Darcy.
“Coward,” he said.
“You are taller. Be useful.”
A petal struck his nose.
Elizabeth laughed. Darcy caught her around the waist before she could move away. The crowd’s noise dimmed in her awareness.
He looked at her. “May I?”
She knew exactly what he meant. “You are my husband.”
“That is not an answer.”
Her teasing softened. “Yes.”
Darcy kissed her in the churchyard. It was not long. It was not improper enough to scandalize anyone beyond Lady Lucas, who claimed afterward not to have looked. But it was unmistakably a kiss between two people who had waited.
When Darcy lifted his head, Elizabeth was smiling.
“Better than the lane?” he asked softly.
“Considerably.”
“Better than the second one?”
She pretended to think.
“Do not be vain.” He kissed her again, quicker.
Behind them Lydia shouted, “La!”
Mrs. Bennet cried, “Lydia, stop staring!”
Richard applauded. The Earl told him to behave.
Bingley, inspired, kissed Jane.
Then everyone cheered again. Mr. Bennet stood on the church step watching his two eldest daughters with their husbands.
Mrs. Bennet came beside him. “They are gone,” she said tearfully.
“Not yet.”
“They are married.”
“Yes.”
“You know what I mean.”
Mr. Bennet looked at Jane laughing beneath Bingley’s arm and Elizabeth arguing with Darcy over flower petals caught in his collar.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I do.”
Mrs. Bennet slipped her hand into his.
He held it.