Epilogue

Epilogue

It was a wedding breakfast to end all wedding breakfasts.

"Mama has outdone herself," Elizabeth whispered. Her husband smiled. He truly followed a gentleman's code, and when it came to her mother, he usually had very little to say. He watched Mrs Bennet like a hawk, however, not trusting her judgment, let alone her table. He had sworn that he would taste every dish before Elizabeth was allowed to consume it, for the rest of her mother's natural life.

"She will never do such a thing again," she murmured, as he cut a small sliver off her honey cake.

"She will not, lest she be put on the next sailing bound for New South Wales," he murmured back. Yet, he ate the bite anyway and nodded his approval. "I do it so she knows I am always watching her. I never want her to be too comfortable around me, so that you may be always comfortable around her."

Elizabeth smiled, and under the table, well-hidden by the tablecloth, squeezed his knee. Because she could—and never tired of teasing him, she moved her hand a bit higher.

"Careful, my girl," he warned. "However safe you think yourself from your mother, there are other dangers in the room."

"I am not afraid of you," she grinned.

Her husband did not return her smile, but only draped a casual arm over the back of her chair.

"How much longer is the performance?" he leant close to ask.

Elizabeth glanced around. Her mother had actually knocked down a wall between the dining room and the breakfast parlour in order to create one huge dining hall, complete with a dais at one end upon which she had arranged the seating for her most illustrious guests. It really did appear as though she and Darcy were on a stage.

"They will just have the toasts now," she whispered back. "If everyone is as brief as my father's will be, not long."

But it was Bingley who stood, rather than Mr Bennet, tapping his crystal flute with an attention-getting chime.

"Welcome, everyone! Welcome! How happy I have been to see you all! How delighted my family is to share this wonderful day with so many of our friends!"

"Oh, perfect, your mother has enlisted the lengthiest toast-maker in the kingdom," Darcy muttered drily.

"Whatever shall we do to pass the time?" she teased, her hand a featherweight touch upon him beneath the tablecloth.

Something within those dark eyes of his flared, and she felt her husband's thumb graze the bare skin at her nape, an almost imperceptible motion of his hand, causing gooseflesh to rise.

"Firstly, to our host and hostess, Mr and Mrs Bennet, at whose fine, heavily laden tables today we gather to celebrate the marriage of their daughter and new son, lift your glass in a toast!"

The crowd dutifully raised their glasses to her mother and father; Mr Bennet appeared quite satisfied—as well he might be with such a son to join his family—and Mrs Bennet beamed. Elizabeth would never truly understand the relationship between her parents, but she did know that they had somehow bridged many of their differences ever since her mother's noxious interference in her life. At least Papa has taken more seriously his duties as a father, while Mama pays him a good deal of attention—and I will not think any further on that than I have to! However one considers it, his health has been exceptional ever since.

"Secondly, a toast to Miss Mary for the brilliant playing we heard today," Bingley continued. "Her mastery of the church's pipe organ provides music that is a gift to us all. Hear, hear!"

He lifted his glass, and Elizabeth was pleased to see her neighbours join him with cheering enthusiasm for her sister's talent, with her uncle Gardiner leaning over to kiss her sister's cheek and her aunt nodding appreciatively. It was Darcy who had hired Mary a master for the complicated instrument, with its multiple keyboards and soaring pipes—and also who had had the magnificent organ installed in Meryton's church.

"Thank you for helping her," she leant over to him to whisper.

He shrugged. "Look at her face," he said simply. Elizabeth glanced over at Mary, whose cheeks were pink with delight, her smile wide—she looked almost beautiful in the pleasure of her hard-earned recognition.

Bingley's voice interrupted the merry congratulations of her neighbours. "And speaking of the church—although I am certain the beloved Mr Palmer is much missed—we can all take heart in the fine services conducted by Mr Ludlow. Never were any bride and groom better ushered into holy wedlock. Mrs Ludlow, may I mention that I have never seen the church so exquisitely bedecked in blossoms? I fear you denuded the rectory garden in support of your sister's wedding, a gift of beauty on this happy day." He raised his glass towards Kitty and her husband, the village's new vicar, who both smiled happily as the room cheered. The former Charlotte Lucas, wed to Pemberley's vicar, Mr Bradley—and thus an expert in village weddings—had come home from Derbyshire to visit on this great occasion, and leant over and whispered some obvious compliment, for Kitty's smile showed even brighter.

"If Bingley begins an admiration of the church's plasterwork and stained-glass windows, I shall toss my glass at him ," Darcy muttered, so that only she could hear. He had a certain gift, a way of both touch and whisper, that caused her awareness of him to climb sharply up her spine and through her every nerve. He followed it by a look, a look that revealed to her—and only her—a naked wanting, quickly shuttered before the crowded dining hall could notice.

"I cannot toast anyone else until I have raised my glass to my own beloved wife," Bingley proclaimed, beginning a recital of Jane's many perfections.

"Dear lord," Darcy murmured. "It appears he means to keep us here for the rest of the summer."

She grinned at him. "I can think of many worse places to be."

"A challenge, my dear?" he replied, and then set about driving her mad.

He knew just how to do it, of course. The brief touches, his whispered approvals of everything from the colour of her gown to the arrangement of her hair, and how pleased he would be when they were alone again and he would be free to touch and do and say all of what he felt for her. Elizabeth slowly fanned herself, trying to pay attention to the endless toast and not betray her weakness for the man beside her… the wretch .

"Let us see," Bingley said, pinching his chin thoughtfully. "Have I forgotten anyone?"

Lydia giggled.

"Ah, yes, Mr and Mrs Darcy. What can I say of two people who are known far and wide as one of the most ravishing couples in the kingdom? The ton is still whispering about the number of times you required Mr John Bridge, of the renowned jewellers Rundell, Bridge, and Rundell, to cart ever-greater trays of astonishing stones to Mayfair—in the hopes of winning your approval for a stone fine enough to celebrate your engagement. Was it three times or four that you sent him tottering in defeat back to Ludgate Hill?"

"It was only twice—I quickly discovered that no stone on earth would truly be fine enough for my bride," Darcy drawled. "The Pigot Diamond was still in France at the time, you understand, forcing me to settle for something less, hm, substantial."

The crowd's attention was drawn, quite naturally, to the exquisite ring of sizeable diamonds and sapphires upon Elizabeth's finger, which happened, at that very moment, to capture the morning light in a blinding flash—generating a great deal of good-hearted laughter.

"We thank you all for coming to Longbourn, for celebrating this happiest of occasions with us, for being our friends and our family. One more toast: Champagne to our real friends and real pain to our sham ones!" Bingley raised his glass.

Almost as one, the gathering cheered, and Bingley made a show of retaking his seat.

"Mr Bingley! You forgot us!" Lydia exclaimed.

"What? Oh, dear me! I seem to have neglected to toast the bride and bridegroom!"

"Would that she let it go," Darcy murmured.

"She has been planning this wedding with Mama for, oh, twenty-four of her twenty-five years now. She must have her moment in the sun." She gave her husband a sideways glance. "Besides, 'tis you who encouraged your friend Mr Montclair to take Netherfield in the first place, and you who introduced him to Lydia. One might say this lengthy proceeding is all your fault."

He shrugged. "He was too inclined to dullness, and requires a lively bride. I had to wait for her to achieve a modicum of restraint before introductions could be made, however, which took longer than I supposed."

Elizabeth shook her head, smiling. He did not fool her for a minute—her interfering husband had been unable to rest until each of her sisters were happy or happily settled. Ten years of marriage had taught her that he was the very best of men. She leant over to whisper in his ear. "I love you."

Bingley finished his speech at that moment, to great applause and clinking glasses. The moment the guests began converging on the head table, Darcy whisked her away, out the door, down the private paths they knew so well from their previous visits, towards the lovely cottage he'd had constructed out of sight of the main house—closer to Meryton on land adjoining, that he had purchased, and not a part of the estate. Someday, once her father was gone, it would be home to her mother and Mary, that they might not ever have to share one with Mr Collins—who had, as yet, never convinced anyone to marry him. Her husband's generosity truly knew no bounds.

"In such a hurry?" she teased again, once they reached the cottage door. But instead of entering, he leant against it, grinning down at her, his hands placed rather tantalisingly upon her shoulders.

"Inside this home," he said, "I have no doubt, the Harwoods will have prepared us a quiet, private meal of our own." His trustworthy valet had retired from his illustrious career as a gentleman's gentleman and accepted a generous pension—both Mr and Mrs Darcy were deeply indebted to him and never forgot it. To their surprise, he returned to Hertfordshire and promptly married the former Mrs Hill. Together, the couple had embarked upon a second career, becoming the cottage's caretakers.

"Inside this home," he repeated, "is a lovely suite of rooms, furnished to my wife's tasteful particulars, which happens to include a soft, rather splendid bed. I will tell you what is not within this home: three obstinate, headstrong children who have a terrible habit of popping up in all the places one would rather not see them."

Elizabeth Darcy smiled up at him. "Perhaps, if they did not have such an affectionate father, whose pockets were not often full of sweets and other surprises, they might grant him more of that privacy he desires."

His expression grew serious. "What I desire most," he said softly, "is the wife of my heart, bare in the morning light, so that I might show her all the ways I am still in love with her—a thousand times more today than a decade ago. Will you come with me, my darling?"

"Always," she whispered.

He lifted her in his strong arms, carrying her over the threshold to a new and glorious celebration of their very own.

The End