Chapter Thirty
Their Wedding
Elizabeth and Darcy married in November.
The morning was cold and clear. Frost silvered the hedges, and Mrs. Bennet cried before breakfast because she believed the weather too cold for a wedding and then cried again because she considered frost romantic.
Jane cried after breakfast.
Mary attempted not to.
Lydia did not try.
Kitty had drawn a small sketch of Longbourn as it looked from the lane and tucked it into Elizabeth's traveling case without telling her.
Mr. Bennet came to Elizabeth's room before they left for the church.
For once she was alone.
He stood in the doorway, looked at her, and seemed briefly unable to summon a joke.
"Lizzy."
"Papa."
He entered slowly. "You are very beautiful."
Elizabeth's throat tightened. "Thank you."
"And very sure?"
"Yes."
"No hesitation?"
"None."
Mr. Bennet nodded. "Then I have nothing clever to say."
Elizabeth smiled. "That may be the nicest wedding gift you could give me."
He laughed.
Then he hugged her.
That was not usual.
Elizabeth held him tightly.
"Papa?"
"Hm?"
"Stay involved."
He drew back. "In what?"
"All of them."
He knew.
His face sobered. "I am trying."
"I know."
"Your mother makes it difficult."
Elizabeth laughed. "She makes everything difficult."
"True."
He kissed her forehead. "Go marry your frightening man."
"He is not frightening."
Mr. Bennet raised an eyebrow. "To you."
At the church Darcy waited.
Elizabeth saw him.
Young.
Alive.
Hers.
Again.
She thought of an old man beside a snowy window.
Find me sooner.
He had.
Darcy watched her approach. His expression remained controlled until she smiled.
Then the same small break.
Left eyebrow.
Parted lips.
A breath.
Elizabeth laughed softly.
Mr. Bennet heard. "What?"
"Nothing."
She reached Darcy.
Their hands joined.
His thumb moved once, twice, three times.
I am here.
Elizabeth squeezed back.
The vows were familiar words spoken into an unfamiliar future.
Darcy's voice caught only once.
Elizabeth did not tease him.
Not until after the ceremony.
When they stood briefly alone in the vestry waiting for signatures, she looked up and said, "You nearly cried."
Darcy gave her a severe look. "I did not."
"You did."
"There was dust."
"In a church in November?"
"Extensive dust."
Elizabeth laughed.
Darcy kissed her before anyone could return.
This time, when the door opened, it was Bingley who caught them.
He stopped.
Darcy stepped back.
Elizabeth smiled.
Bingley's grin became enormous. "I knew it."
Darcy frowned. "Knew what?"
"That you are human."
Elizabeth laughed harder.
Darcy considered whether killing one's best friend immediately after a wedding would create unnecessary paperwork.
The wedding breakfast offered its own opportunities for disaster. Mrs. Bennet cried into Lady Lucas's shoulder, Lydia insisted Georgiana dance with an officer she had never met, and Mr. Bennet told Bingley that Darcy looked as though he were attending his own execution.
Darcy heard.
"Sir."
Mr. Bennet smiled. "You are pale."
"I have just married your daughter."
"Precisely."
Elizabeth slipped into the exchange. "Papa, leave my husband alone."
The word husband changed Darcy's face.
She saw it.
So did Mr. Bennet.
His humor softened. "Very well. I shall save him for Christmas."
Later, when the carriage finally carried Darcy and Elizabeth away from Longbourn, neither spoke for several minutes.
Elizabeth watched the hedges pass.
Darcy watched her.
"You are staring again."
"I am married. It is permitted."
"Is it?"
"I have waited fifty-five years and several months for this journey."
Elizabeth laughed. "We made a similar journey before."
"Not like this."
She knew what he meant.
The first time she had left Longbourn as Mrs. Darcy she had loved him, but much of their shared life remained unknown.
This time she knew the sound of his footsteps when tired, how he would look holding a newborn child, which jokes would still make him laugh at seventy, how he grieved, how he forgave, how he grew old.
And yet she did not know what this life would make of him.
That uncertainty was unexpectedly thrilling.
Elizabeth rested her head against his shoulder. "Do you think we shall quarrel differently?"
"Almost certainly."
"Good. I disliked several of the old quarrels."
Darcy kissed her hair. "So did I."
They rode north into a future neither memory nor love could fully predict.
Before they left Hertfordshire for Pemberley after the wedding, Elizabeth asked Darcy to walk with her one last time to Oakham Mount. The day was colder than the one on which they had finally admitted the truth, and the path had become slick with fallen leaves.
Darcy offered his arm before the incline steepened.
Elizabeth took it. "You did not do that the first time we walked here."
"I was twenty-eight and foolish."
"You are twenty-eight now."
"Chronology continues to be a poor argument."
She laughed.
At the top they stood beneath the oak that had sheltered their reunion. Nothing marked the place. No carving. No stone. No evidence that two people had once stood there and discovered death had failed to separate them.
Elizabeth touched the bark. "Should we mark it?"
Darcy looked alarmed. "Absolutely not."
"Why?"
"Because Lydia would find it within a week, invent a romance, and tell the whole county."
Elizabeth considered. "True."
"Also, I prefer that it belongs only to us."
Her teasing faded.
Darcy came beside her. "There will be other places in this life. We do not need to turn every memory into a monument."
Elizabeth looked toward Longbourn in the distance. "I am going to miss them."
"We will return."
"I know."
"Your mother will ensure it."
Elizabeth laughed. "She will probably arrive at Pemberley before we do."
Darcy looked genuinely concerned.
"I am joking."
"With your mother, that does not reassure me."
They began down the hill slowly.
Halfway, Elizabeth stopped. "William, do you think I am doing better with them?"
Darcy knew exactly whom she meant.
"Yes."
"Mary?"
"Yes."
"Kitty?"
"Yes."
"Lydia?"
Darcy paused.
Elizabeth frowned. "That hesitation was offensive."
"You are doing better. You are also watching her like a mother hen whenever an officer enters a room."
Elizabeth sighed. "I know."
"She notices."
"I know."
"Then perhaps trust what you have already taught her."
Elizabeth looked away. "That is difficult."
"Yes."
She glanced up. "You are not going to tell me I must?"
"No."
"Why?"
Darcy smiled faintly. "Because difficult things are not made easier by being commanded."
Elizabeth's throat tightened.
"Georgiana taught you that," she said.
"Eventually."
"Sooner this time."
"Yes."
They continued.
Near the bottom of the hill, Darcy stumbled on a root.
Elizabeth caught his arm. "Careful."
He froze.
She froze too.
Then both began laughing.
The word had been one of the first cracks in their disguise at the assembly, spoken in the exact tone Elizabeth had used to an old man on a terrace decades later.
Darcy shook his head. "We were terrible at secrecy."
"You asked me about preserves."
"You mentioned my future coffee."
"You wrote about Henry's road."
"You threatened the hawthorn."
"It deserved defending."
By the time they reached the gate, both were breathless with laughter.
Lydia, waiting on the Longbourn steps, stared. "What happened to you two?"
Elizabeth looked at Darcy.
Darcy looked at Elizabeth.
"Nothing," they said together.
Lydia narrowed her eyes. "You are both very strange."
Darcy offered Elizabeth his hand for the steps.
She took it.
"Yes," he said quietly. "We are."
The final evening at Longbourn before Elizabeth's departure was quieter than she expected. Mrs. Bennet had exhausted herself supervising trunks. Lydia had exhausted everyone else. Mary had retreated with music, and Kitty had gone upstairs to finish a sketch she insisted was not a wedding present.
Elizabeth found Jane in the drawing room alone.
Her sister looked up. "I wondered when you would come."
Elizabeth sat beside her. "You knew?"
"You always come when the house is finally quiet."
The simple familiarity hurt.
Jane took her hand. "Are you frightened?"
Elizabeth considered all the possible answers. She knew Pemberley better than Longbourn. She knew Darcy better than any bride should know her husband. She knew the shape of marriage, childbirth, grief, old age.
And none of that protected her from the new future.
"A little," she admitted.
Jane smiled. "Good."
Elizabeth stared. "Good?"
"If you were not frightened at all, I should suspect you had become somebody else."
Elizabeth almost laughed at the accuracy.
Jane leaned her head against Elizabeth's shoulder. "I shall miss you."
"I will write."
"I know."
"You will visit."
"Charles has already invited himself."
"Naturally."
They sat in silence.
Then Jane said, "Mr. Darcy loves you very much."
Elizabeth's throat tightened. "Yes."
"You never doubt it."
Elizabeth looked down at their joined hands. "No."
Jane smiled. "I think that is what I noticed first. Not that you loved him. That you trusted being loved."
The words settled deeply.
In her first life Elizabeth had needed months to believe Darcy's love could survive disappointment, family, pride, and her refusal. In this life she had carried that certainty from the beginning.
Perhaps that, more than knowledge of events, had changed her.
Elizabeth kissed Jane's temple. "You are becoming too perceptive."
"I learned from you."
"Terrible choice."
Jane laughed.
Upstairs Mrs. Bennet shouted that someone had misplaced Elizabeth's traveling shawl.
Both sisters sighed.
Then they rose together and went to find it.