Page 35 of Done for the Best (Engaged to Mr Darcy #5)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

POSITIVELY MEDIEVAL

E lizabeth again ascended the stair into the assembly room with Darcy hard on her heels, his hand laid with gentle possessiveness on the small of her back. She was glad for it; the fact that after all the contentions and confusions between them, they were acknowledged lovers, betrothed did not seem real.

The murmur of conversation and the strains of music from a quadrille got louder as they neared the door. Miss Goddard lingered at the edge, almost out of the door. She turned and smiled as they approached.

“Mr Darcy and Miss Elizabeth,” she said warmly. “How good to see you both.”

“We have been outside,” Darcy blurted, somewhat awkwardly. “We are engaged.”

Elizabeth laughed, as much from the impulsiveness of his declaration as the relief of knowing it was true.

“How delightful!” Miss Goddard exclaimed and threw her arms around Elizabeth. “Do you mean just now? He has only just now proposed?”

“Only just now,” Elizabeth confirmed with a nod.

“What is this?” Saye appeared suddenly from behind Miss Goddard. “Engaged? Ask a girl to dance first, Darcy.” His teasing words were mollified by a clap on Darcy’s back.

Before long, a knot of well-wishers had formed around them. Sir William Lucas informed Darcy that he had obtained the jewel of the county. Mrs Bennet told everyone she always knew it was going to be so and that Elizabeth needed only for time until her wits came back to her. Jane hugged her sister over and over again with tears in her lovely eyes, and Mr Bingley stood by his friend, smiling more broadly than Elizabeth had ever seen anyone smile.

Miss Bingley approached Elizabeth. “Miss Eliza, do allow me to offer you my warmest congratulations. You have certainly made an exemplary match.”

“Yes, I have.” Elizabeth cast a warm look behind her to where Darcy talked to the men of the group. “I count myself very fortunate.”

“Mr Darcy moves in the highest circles. If I may be of any use to you in selecting your gowns or accoutrements, pray do not hesitate to consult me.” With that, she moved off.

At length, Saye proclaimed, “Are we here to dance or discuss wedding plans? Miss Goddard, I believe you promised me the next?”

Growing pink, Miss Goddard nodded and allowed Saye to lead her away. Mr Bingley, Elizabeth saw with satisfaction, also took Jane away.

Darcy’s voice, low and reassuring, came from over her shoulder. “It seems it is time for the dance you promised me.”

“Very well, but I might make a fool of us both,” she said lightly.

“I do not care in the least what you do,” he told her, “so long as you are with me when you do it.” He took her hand and placed it on his arm and led her towards the set.

Happily, it was one of the easier dances, and to Elizabeth’s relief, even if her mind did not recollect the movements, her legs did, instinctively taking her into the patterns she had once known well. She made one or two wrong turns, and stumbled once, catching her foot on the hem of her gown, but Darcy’s hand was immediately there to steady her, and she did not think those around them noticed.

“You are doing perfectly well,” he told her when it was their time to be still in the pattern.

“I remember more than I thought I might,” she said. “But my mind still feels as though I am spinning about like a madwoman. I think that might be because of you.”

“Me?”

“Us,” she said. A little shyly, she added, “I am very, very happy.”

“No more so than I,” he assured her. “When might we do it?”

“The wedding?”

He nodded.

She pretended to ponder the question. “I am not busy tomorrow.”

“Pray do not tempt me,” he replied, his voice feeling like a caress. “I have waited a long, long time for you and would move Heaven and Earth if it were possible.”

“Then let us move Heaven and Earth, as least as much as we can,” she said and he, happily, agreed.

To Darcy’s dismay, Mrs Bennet was violently opposed to any sort of haste with the nuptials. “How would it look?” she demanded in the drawing room the next morning. “It makes it seem like there is a reason that the nuptials must occur with haste.”

Shockingly, it was Darcy’s own aunt who concurred. Lady Catherine, flush with the success of her daughter’s wedding, insisted on a proper feting of her newly engaged nephew in London. “It will take away any gossip about Anne jilting you,” she insisted via letter.

“Anne jilted you?” Elizabeth enquired. “You know, for such a handsome and eligible bachelor, you have suffered a great deal of romantic tribulation!” She accompanied this tease with a kiss and thus Darcy did not mind it in the least.

“No one knows what I have suffered,” he said, with a purposely woebegone countenance that he hoped would garner him more kisses. Happily, it did and thus it was some minutes before he could explain to her, “Lady Catherine had a notion of Anne and I marrying, to unite the fortunes of Rosings and Pemberley. Neither Anne nor I agreed to the idea, but that did not discourage her whatsoever. Only Anne marrying Yardley put an end to her hopes, but she still likes to pretend Anne jilted me.”

Mrs Bennet quite liked the notion of Elizabeth being celebrated in London by Darcy’s elevated relations, and a happy fortnight was thus spent, in November, in parties, shopping, and a ball given by Lady Matlock. Darcy permitted Georgiana to be in attendance at each and all of the events, even if she did not dance at the ball. Between Elizabeth and Georgiana there was a growing regard that Darcy delighted in. It was what he had always hoped for and was grateful to see it happening naturally.

Elizabeth was also quickly growing very fond of Miss Goddard who continued to torment Saye with seeming indifference. She had told Elizabeth, privately, that she meant to accept him eventually but thought it good for his pride to suffer a little.

Bingley, too, was suffering romantically. Jane, once in London, was the subject of much interest. Her beauty, in combination with a connexion to the Darcys and Matlocks, made her an object of desire for many gentlemen. Having no fortune of her own was some little detriment, but did not seem to deter anyone at Lady Matlock’s ball where Jane had more offers to dance than were even planned for the evening.

“She still loves Bingley,” Elizabeth told Darcy as they sat at the supper observing Jane talking to the Duke of Ogden. “Jane is not the sort to have her head or her heart turned by a title.”

“One thing I know for sure,” Darcy replied to her, “is that I will not insert myself into the matter. Your sister may do as she pleases, as may Bingley. Ogden too for that matter.”

Elizabeth married Darcy, at last, on a winter’s day in December 1812.

It was a day when nothing went according to plan. The parson, Mr Willingham, became ill the day prior, and his curate was required to come from two towns away for the ceremony. This would not have been such a difficulty, save for the fact that a sleety, rainy kind of snow began to fall, making the roads treacherous.

Darcy was staying at Netherfield, where a new laundry maid took it on herself to press his waistcoat, burning it in the process. Darcy told Elizabeth later that he quickly conscripted Saye’s new waistcoat to his own purpose, offering his cousin one of his older ones to wear. Shockingly, Saye did not offer much protest. “Well, it does not match your eyes, does it? Mud brown,” he said with a sniff. “But I daresay the bridegroom deserves the new waistcoat.”

One of the guests at the breakfast knocked the best dish off the table, sending it flying all over the rug, and one of the Goulding boys stuck his finger in the marzipan on top of the wedding cake. Fortunately, Lady Catherine—who had a previously unknown fondness for gin, and a lot of it—only laughed at the chaos, and Lady Matlock kindly set about soothing Mrs Bennet’s nerves.

Saye was discovered kissing Miss Goddard in the west parlour. It was Jane who discovered them, having been in the process of sneaking Bingley in there for the very same reason. And Lydia became violently ill and nearly vomited on Colonel Fitzwilliam, only being hustled away by Mrs Hill at the very last moment.

“Were I not so full of felicity,” Elizabeth told her new husband, “I might find some of this a source of dismay. But I am Mrs Darcy; I have no cause to repine.”

“You might,” he said, “when I tell you the next calamity.”

It seemed his coachmen did not think it sound to carry them off in the weather to London. “It seems unlikely we should make it to Watford, much less London.”

This intelligence did give Elizabeth some pause. Their little village was full to bursting with wedding guests, a fact which had delighted her. It was not often that people would travel to a simple country wedding, and the honour of Darcy’s relations giving her such distinction was much appreciated. Such a display of familial approbation would go a long way towards easing her way in Society.

Mr and Miss Bingley had graciously offered Netherfield Park for the convenience of Lord and Lady Matlock, Saye, Colonel Fitzwilliam, Georgiana, and Lady Catherine. Miss Goddard and her mother were being urged to join them there.

Elizabeth went to the window, gazing out upon a wintry wonderland. It was pretty, for anyone who had no intentions of travelling. Darcy came behind her, laying one hand on her waist as they both looked out. Elizabeth had hoped for some sign of lessening snowfall, but it seemed dishearteningly steady.

“What if…” With a deep breath, she enquired, “What if we are stuck here ?”

“At Longbourn?”

Elizabeth’s shudder was her only reply. It was her wedding night, and at the risk of being indelicate, she wished to be alone with Darcy. Finally alone.

“I cannot think Netherfield ideal either,” he mused. “Not with so many people there.”

“Netherfield has the advantage of lacking my younger sisters,” she reminded him.

“But has the decided disadvantage of my cousins.”

Elizabeth pursed her lips, staring out of the window into the squall and wishing she might see some sign of the clouds dissipating. In truth, it looked like one of those snowstorms that would last for days. Privacy, of any sort, was seeming like an increasingly distant prospect.

It was then that Saye sidled up to them, sniggering as he came. “Poor Darcy. Tonight will be positively medieval.”

“Whatever do you mean?” Darcy asked.

“Oh you know, Henry the Eighth and so forth, consummating the marriage while the courtiers cheered him on.” Saye laughed while Darcy gave Elizabeth a look.

“Longbourn it is, then,” Elizabeth said grimly.

Saye wandered off, while Darcy leant in and whispered into her ear, “I hope that before too long neither of us will remember exactly where we are.”

“As long as I am in your arms, I will never need anything more,” she replied and was rewarded by a kiss.

The End