Page 80 of A Most Favourable Match

They smiled at one another and then each looked away a little shyly, not ready quite yet for the more serious conversation that must be had.

“I believe everything is resolved,” Elizabeth remarked. “All the tangles are finally unravelled, and everything is as it should be.”

“Much is resolved thanks to your resourcefulness, compassion, and inventive thinking,” Darcy told her. “I believe that Lord Grantchester and Miss Bingley may well have a happy marriage.”

“Of its own kind,” Elizabeth agreed. “She knows of Lord Keeble and is going into this with her eyes open. I wish all three of them well.”

“Miss Bingley was more than willing to enter a civilised arrangement which gives her fortune, title, and two of the most sought-after men in London as her regular escorts,” Darcy said with a small laugh.

“Yes, that may well make her happy.”

“Shall we walk?” Darcy suggested, offering his arm and feeling a surge of warmth and affection as Elizabeth took it.

“I understand now why you could not explain yourself in opposing Jane’s engagement to Lord Grantchester,” she told him as they strolled. “I must apologise to you for so many of the things I said to you.”

“I am sorry that I could not tell you earlier,” Darcy replied. “I am sincerely sorry that you had to stumble on the truth in a way that must have been shocking for all concerned.”

“I know you could not,” she murmured. “I should not have leapt to such conclusions about you, and I regret so much. I was wrongheaded and rash.”

“Society is not tolerant of men like Grantchester and Keeble, and it was not my secret to tell,” Darcy pressed on earnestly. “Whatever you thought of me then, or think of me now, I was trying to do my best for my friend Grantchester, for your sister, and for my own moral sense…”

“Hush!” Elizabeth stopped him by taking both of his hands in hers and squeezing them gently in a way that made Darcy’s blood rush strongly in his veins.

“Dearest, sweetest Elizabeth…” he breathed, scarcely daring to believe that this was finally happening.

“Fitzwilliam Darcy, I believe you might be the best man I have ever known,” Elizabeth declared as she released his hands and looked tenderly at him, a smile curving her lips. “I do not think I know anyone finer or nobler.”

“Lord Grantchester did something I could not today, when he offered himself to save Miss Bingley,” Darcy said thoughtfully. “It was noble, and it was honourable, and I could never have done it, because my heart was already yours. I suppose he is a better man than I am.”

Elizabeth laughed at him affectionately. “Are you apologising to me for not being noble enough to marry another lady?” she inquired, and at that, Darcy was forced to laugh, too. “If so, I suggest you do not.”

“I am trying to tell you, in my own imperfect way, that there is no other woman for me in the world, Elizabeth Bennet. You are more to me than nobility orhonour. I came here to ask for your hand in marriage, and I…”

Before Darcy reached the end of his sentence, Elizabeth reached out to take his hand and brought it to her lips. The warmth of this intimate touch seared him and seemed to temporarily answer every question still unanswered.

“You had better kiss me now,” she told him. “For then we must go inside and tell everyone that there is to be a third wedding. After that, we will have no peace.”

There could be no resisting such an invitation. Enfolding Elizabeth in his arms, Darcy bent his head to the lips of the woman he loved, in a kiss he wished could last forever.

Epilogue

“There’s nothing like a simple, modest wedding to make you appreciate the value of love and family, is there?” remarked Mr Bennet over the top of his silver-rimmed spectacles as they filed out of the church, his voice entirely serious but his eyes twinkling.

“Simple wedding?” exclaimed Mrs Bennet, as though it were a personal insult to her, never mind the families of the marrying couple. “There is nothing simple about Grantchester Abbey. Look at the estate, Mr Bennet! The church alone is the size of a small cathedral, and there must be two hundred guests, and more coming for the wedding breakfast. There’s another fifty carriages down there on the road already.”

“Dear me, how right you are, my dear,” her husband chuckled. “It does seem very much a grand occasion, now you come to mention it. How did I miss that?”

Sensing that she was being teased, Mrs Bennet glared at him briefly, fastened her coat against the December chill, and then turned her attention to the other guests assembling outside the church, all waiting eagerly for the bride and groom to emerge.

“Can we really not throw rose petals and rice?” Kitty asked plaintively. “I have so much left over from the other weddings.”

“The Countess of Grantchester doesn’t want any mess on her wedding dress,” Elizabeth reminded Lydia and Kitty of the bride’s instructions. “Caroline was very clear about that. She did not seem impressed by the state of my figured muslin, or my hair, when Darcy and I were wed, did she?”

As Mary began to lecture on the difficulty of removing stains from pale-coloured and delicate fabrics, Elizabeth turned to her husband with a smile, remembering the happy day three months ago when they had married in Longbourn’s parish church, before departing for their new life at Pemberley. Jane and Charles Bingley had beaten them to the altar by a week.

“I thought you looked very pretty with rose petals and rice in your hair, Elizabeth,” Georgiana Darcy remarked with a smile. “So did my brother.”

In confirmation of his sister’s words, Mr Darcy dropped a kiss on the chestnut curls of his wife beside him, his eyes dancing with almost as much merriment as the youngest Bennets. “On the other hand, Lydia and Kitty, Lord Grantchester was also clear that you are free to shower him in rice and petals from head to foot,” he told them. “Lord Keeble doesn’t mind if you hit him too, for he will be coming out with Grantchester’s sisters and the other bridesmaids.”