Epilogue

Epilogue

Our engagement was to be announced at the start of supper, but between our first kiss and then, we by mutual silent agreement came out from behind the pillar just to make sure the engagement period was measured in weeks instead of hours.

Fitzwilliam asked, “Elizabeth, I see Bingley and Miss Bennet. May we tell them the happy news?”

“Of course!”

We were out from behind the pillar, grinning like fools, but even all the gossips in the room had apparently lost track of us, so we were in relative privacy—something for which I was eternally grateful, though thoroughly confused.

Fitzwilliam managed to get Mr Bingley’s attention, and he started over with Jane on his arm. They would have had to be simpletons indeed to miss our dance. Of course, a dance does not an engagement make, or even a courtship for that matter; so they were unaware of our current status.

As they walked toward us, Fitzwilliam turned to me with another handsome smile.

“Elizabeth, the wedding is the purview of the bride, but do you think you would be willing to cede me control over just one tiny little detail. I have one specific thing I would like to arrange.”

I laughed and told him he was welcome to work with my mother and control all the details of the wedding, and his look of horror was priceless.

When Jane and Mr Bingley approached, Fitzwilliam quickly spoke up.

“Miss Bennet, may I humbly request the brother’s privilege of calling you Jane, as Elizabeth has very graciously agreed to become my wife.”

Jane was completely overcome, and just nodded her assent then jumped over to hug me tight while Mr Bingley slapped my future husband on the back hard enough to raise a bruise I would eventually have to kiss away. It was odd that we had managed to reduce both Jane Bennet and Charles Bingley to a state of complete silence, a feat I would have previously considered impossible.

Fitzwilliam was not quite finished though.

“My future bride has ceded me control of one small, tiny, insignificant detail of the wedding, but I will need your help. Are you amenable?”

Both just nodded again. They had gravitated back to each other, so the two couples were facing each other, a yard apart.

Fitzwilliam continued, “I believe both of you are happy to act as witnesses, yes?”

Both nodded in happy agreement, their smiles matching ours.

Fitzwilliam continued, “We will be married on the 26 th of December in—”

He looked at me questioningly, and I replied, “Longbourn Chapel.”

“Yes, Longbourn Chapel. Here is my request. Could we alter the traditional arrangement ever so slightly? Bingley, if you would stand about two paces to the left of the traditional position, and Jane, you stand one pace to the left, why we could have two weddings at the same time with hardly any more trouble and expense. What say you?”

Both their eyes got as round as saucers at the sheer, unadulterated insanity of the request.

Finally, they looked at each other, and Mr Bingley simply raised one eyebrow in a questioning manner, to which Jane simply smiled wide and nodded.

Just like that, Fitzwilliam and my brevity contest seemed ever so silly. We were so proud of our three words , but I had just seen my sister become engaged and agree to a wedding date and ceremony with not a single word spoken.

That was going to be tough to beat.

~~ Finis~~