Twice Chosen (Pride and Prejudice Variation)

Chapter One

The Last Morning at Pemberley

Elizabeth Darcy had always believed Fitzwilliam would die first. It was not a pleasant belief, nor one she had ever admitted aloud.

It was simply arithmetic. He was eight years older, had spent much of his youth riding horses that possessed considerably more courage than sense, and had never properly accepted that walking across wet grass in January without a coat was not proof of masculine fortitude.

At seventy-six, Elizabeth had long since abandoned any hope of improving him in that particular respect.

So it seemed deeply unfair that she should be the one lying in their bed at Pemberley while he sat beside her looking as though he might frighten death itself into reconsidering.

Elizabeth opened her eyes and found him watching her.

His hair had gone entirely white, though it remained thick, and the stern lines she had once thought so intimidating had softened with age.

The creases beside his eyes had not been put there by time alone.

She liked to think she had been responsible for a good many of them.

"Do stop scowling, Fitzwilliam," she whispered, her voice little more than breath.

Darcy's expression darkened immediately. "I am not scowling. I am sitting quietly beside my wife, which under ordinary circumstances would be considered admirable behavior."

"You have been scowling since 1791. I have simply grown accustomed to it."

"I have not been scowling for fifty years."

"Fitzwilliam."

There was a particular manner in which Elizabeth could say his name that had defeated him from the earliest years of their marriage.

His eyes closed now, just as they had when he was thirty and she had caught him pretending not to be jealous of a visiting gentleman who had praised her eyes rather too enthusiastically.

Elizabeth smiled. "That is unfair."

"What is?"

"You know precisely what you are doing."

"I should hope so. I have had decades of practice."

His mouth moved, almost becoming a smile, and Elizabeth felt an absurd little triumph.

She lifted one hand from the coverlet. The effort made it tremble, but Darcy caught it before she had raised it more than a few inches. His thumb moved slowly across her knuckles--once, twice, three times.

I am here.

The gesture had begun during their first year of marriage at a dinner neither of them had particularly wished to attend.

The hostess owned seven lapdogs and possessed a gift for asking questions so intrusive that even Elizabeth had been rendered temporarily speechless.

Beneath the table Darcy had stroked his thumb three times against her hand.

At the time she had not understood what he meant. Later he had told her.

Three strokes had survived births, funerals, quarrels, difficult tenants, terrified children, Lydia's letters requesting money, Jane's widowhood, Georgiana's first confinement, Mr. Bennet's final illness, and all the ordinary miseries that filled the spaces between larger griefs.

Elizabeth turned her hand beneath his. "You must sleep tonight. You have hardly closed your eyes since Tuesday."

Darcy adjusted the blankets around her before answering. "I have decided I dislike Tuesday."

A soft laugh escaped her. "That is hardly Tuesday's fault."

"I have not yet reached a conclusion on that point."

"Still unreasonable after all these years."

"Only where necessary."

The physician had stopped pretending two days before. Elizabeth and Darcy had stopped yesterday. There would be no spring for her. Neither of them said so now.

Elizabeth turned toward the windows, where snow drifted softly across the dark lawns of Pemberley. She could just make out the old cedar beyond the terrace, its branches bending beneath the weight. "Pemberley looks beautiful."

Darcy followed her gaze. "It always does."

She looked at him sidelong. "Arrogant."

"Accurate."

This time he did smile.

They remained quiet for several minutes.

Silence had long ago ceased to require filling between them.

Elizabeth could remember being twenty and believing silence meant awkwardness, displeasure, or boredom.

Fifty years of marriage had taught her that sometimes silence was simply another way of being together.

Eventually she asked, "Do you ever think about that first assembly?"

Darcy gave her a suspicious look. "No."

"Liar."

"Frequently," he admitted after a moment, though he sounded as though the concession pained him. "Mostly I remain grateful Bingley did not strike me."

Elizabeth laughed softly. "He should have."

"Charles Bingley had never struck anyone in his life."

"He considered Wickham."

"Everyone considered striking Wickham. That hardly counts."

Even after all these years, Darcy's mouth tightened at the name. Elizabeth squeezed his fingers before he could wander too far into old anger. "Do you remember how proud we were?"

Darcy looked down at her hand in his. "You were prejudiced."

"You were insufferable."

"So you informed me."

"Repeatedly."

"For more than half a century."

Elizabeth smiled. "Someone had to undertake your education."

His eyes lifted to hers, warm now despite the sadness beneath them. "And you considered yourself qualified?"

"Entirely."

"Of course you did."

Something about the look he gave her caused the humor to leave her. Elizabeth stared toward the fire. "I would do some things differently, you know."

Darcy's thumb stopped moving over her hand. "Us?"

She turned back immediately. Beneath his calm expression she saw the question he had not truly meant to ask. "No. Never us."

The tension left his face so slightly another person might have missed it. Elizabeth did not. Darcy lifted her hand and pressed his lips against her fingers. "What, then?"

"Mary, for one. Sometimes I was kind to her. Other times I laughed."

"Mary frequently invited laughter."

Elizabeth gave him a look.

Darcy sighed. "That was unkind of me."

"It was also true, occasionally. But that does not mean I always needed to join Papa in making sport of her. Mary was trying to find somewhere to belong in a family where Jane was beautiful, I was clever, and Lydia made certain no one forgot she existed."

Darcy's expression grew thoughtful.

"And Kitty," Elizabeth continued. "I should have noticed her before Lydia swallowed every room the two of them entered."

"Kitty eventually found herself."

"Yes, but perhaps she might have found herself sooner if anyone had bothered to look."

Darcy did not answer immediately. His eyes had shifted toward the fire, and Elizabeth knew exactly where his thoughts had gone. "Georgiana."

His jaw tightened. "I would not have left her so alone after Ramsgate."

"You did not leave her alone."

"I did, Elizabeth. I surrounded her with protection and mistook that for companionship."

"You were frightened too."

"I was her guardian."

"You were also her brother."

Darcy looked away. "I forgot that sometimes."

Elizabeth raised her hand and touched his cheek. The skin beneath her palm was thinner now, but the shape of him remained familiar. "You remembered eventually."

He turned his face slightly into her hand.

After a while Darcy said, "And Bingley."

Elizabeth smiled faintly. "You bullied him."

"I advised him."

"You bullied him politely, which does not make it less bullying."

"He was exceedingly persuadable."

"So you persuaded him."

Darcy released a breath that might once have become an argument. "I would not do that again."

"I know."

Another silence settled between them. Then his expression hardened. "And Wickham. I would have dealt with him before he ever reached Meryton. I knew what he was."

"How would you have done that?"

"By telling the truth."

"Georgiana's truth?"

Darcy's jaw tightened.

Elizabeth waited.

At last he answered, "No."

"Then perhaps it was never quite as simple as you wished."

"It should have been."

"There you are."

Darcy frowned. "Where?"

"Still proud."

He stared at her in wounded dignity. "I am sitting beside my dying wife and being criticized."

Elizabeth's eyes brightened. "I am dying. You are merely being dramatic."

For a glorious instant he looked offended. She laughed, but the laugh became a cough before she could stop it. Darcy immediately moved, sliding an arm behind her shoulders and helping her upright.

"Easy," he murmured, all teasing gone. "Do not try to speak."

The fit left her exhausted. When it finally passed, Elizabeth rested against his chest and listened to the steady beat of his heart. "I am tired."

Darcy's arm tightened around her. "I know."

She closed her eyes. For a time neither moved.

Then Elizabeth said, "Do you know what I would keep?"

Darcy's answer came close to her ear. "Everything."

"No. The first time you smiled at me."

"At Pemberley?"

"No."

"Hunsford?"

She gave him a look. "Certainly not."

"Netherfield?"

"The assembly."

Darcy frowned. "I did not smile at you at the assembly."

"You nearly did."

"I did not."

"I saw it."

"You imagined it."

"For fifty years?"

"Your imagination has always been persistent."

Elizabeth laughed softly. His thumb moved over her hand again--once, twice, three times.

I am here.

Her eyelids felt impossibly heavy. "Fitzwilliam?"

His voice softened immediately. "Yes, my love?"

"If there is another life... find me sooner."

Something broke briefly in his expression. He lifted her hand to his lips and kept it there. "Always."

Elizabeth smiled. Her breathing slowed. Outside the windows, snow continued falling over Pemberley.

Her final thought was absurdly ordinary.

She had forgotten to tell Mrs. Harold, the new housekeeper, that the chimney in the blue room required inspecting.

Then there was nothing.

Darcy remained beside her until evening. Georgiana's eldest daughter came to the door twice. The first time Darcy merely shook his head. The second time he said quietly, "Not yet, Anne," and she understood and left him.

Someone lit the candles. Someone brought a tray. Darcy touched none of it. At last he lay down beside Elizabeth and placed his hand over hers. Her fingers were cold. Impossible.

Her spectacles remained on the little table beside the bed.

Her embroidery rested in its basket near the window.

The ridiculous china spaniel she had purchased in Bath because he had called it hideous still sat upon the mantel.

How could a room contain so much of a person when the person herself had gone?

Darcy closed his eyes. "Find you sooner," he whispered.

A pain spread through his chest. He drew one breath, then another. His hand remained over Elizabeth's. His thumb moved once, twice, three times.

I am here.

The darkness came gently.