Page 82 of Elizabeth Bennet Says Yes to Mr. Darcy

His smile against my skin gave me the answer before his hands did.

The next day, Mrs. Reynolds asked me if I wanted to replace the flowers.

“No,” I said. “They’re exactly where they belong.”

Epilogue

Elizabeth

Six months after our marriage, Lady Catherine came to Pemberley.

She had not announced her visit. A carriage appeared in the drive in the middle of a December afternoon, followed by a second carrying enough luggage for a military campaign. Fitzwilliam, summoned by a servant, joined me in the drawing room with a resigned expression.

“She has brought Anne,” he said.

“Then we shall receive them.”

“My aunt might stay several weeks on principle.”

“We shall survive. I survived five Bennet girls in a single house.”

“Your courage humbles me.”

Lady Catherine entered as if reclaiming a wayward estate. She greeted me with regal coldness, inspected the drawing room, criticized the arrangement of the flowers, and asked whether the east apartments were properly heated.

Anne stood behind her, pale but smiling.

I embraced her with more warmth than her mother judged proper.

“I am happy you have come.”

“Fitzwilliam invited me,” she replied softly. “Several times.”

Lady Catherine pursed her lips.

She did not forgive me that day. Nor did she apologize. But she stayed for Christmas, discovered that Pemberley had not collapsed under my management, and was forced to admit that Fitzwilliam appeared happy. Her disapproval gradually softened into a bearable irritation, which, for her, was nearly the same as affection.

Anne extended her stay after her mother left.

Kitty also came to spend two months with us. Away from Lydia, she became less agitated, more curious, and reasonable enough to surprise everyone. She and Georgiana formed a friendship no one would have predicted. Mary preferred to remain at Longbourn, where my mother’s undivided attention after three daughters had left allowed her to gain confidence. Lydia wrote letters filled with officers, balls, and plans that changed every week.

Jane and Bingley settled on an estate less than thirty miles from Pemberley. My mother still judged this distance excessive, but she consented to travel it in a comfortable carriage provided by her two sons-in-law. My father, freed from the immediate threat of his debt, began managing Longbourn with a diligence that astonished his neighbors. He claimed that Darcy had made boredom respectable.

One evening, after our guests had left, I found my husband in the library.

Snow was falling beyond the windows. The fire lit his face and the open book in his hands. He looked up when I entered.

“Lady Catherine asks why we have not yet announced an heir.”

He slowly closed his book.

“And what did you answer her?”

“That we are applying ourselves seriously to the question.”

A sudden heat darkened his gaze.

“Elizabeth.”