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“I am wide awake, sir, and not entirely beyond restraint,” she said, smiling through what felt like a falsehood.

“But as I have come to compromise you and thoroughly succeeded, you must be my husband, you wicked rogue.” And just as he had done to her, she kissed the tender places of his neck before whispering into his ear, “I love you.”

He closed his eyes slowly and then opened them again, his smiling face full of emotion as he lifted her hands to his lips and kissed both of them. “I must do this properly, my love.” And then he dropped to one knee.

Elizabeth sucked in a breath of anticipation, feeling as though her heart would explode from her chest. As he knelt before her, she wished not to blink and miss a moment of the sight of his on bended knee before her.

Mr. Darcy took her hand and held it against his rapidly beating heart.

“Elizabeth Helena Bennet, since the earliest days of our acquaintance, you have captivated me with your intelligence, your kindness, your lively wit, and everything that makes you the finest woman I have ever known. Every day I have spent in your company is one that has taught me I desire nothing so much as a lifetime with you at my side, that I might look upon your beauty and bask in your warm and bright spirit. I would pledge to you everything that I have in this world, laying my heart, my home, my name, and even my life at your feet. Please allow me to love you as my wife for all my days.”

“I will - I accept - yes,” Elizabeth said. She tugged at him, and when he stood she fell into his embrace. “You are the dearest man in the world, and I love you madly.”

Mr. Darcy held her close. “I am glad you have come to think so.”

After a lengthy embrace, Mr. Darcy released her and gestured for Elizabeth to sit on the sofa beside him.

She moved the book he had been reading out of the way and made a face as she looked at the cover.

It was a volume of poetry she had read before and thought especially tedious.

“It is a wonder you did not fall asleep.”

“Bingley has little better in his library. But if I were dreaming, I would simply do it all again tomorrow. I cannot believe you are mine, Elizabeth. I thought I should never have a moment alone with you to ask.”

“How did you know my middle name?”

“Do you not recall Miss Bingley asking you and Jane, in my presence and Bingley’s? She has many accomplishments, but subtlety is not amongst them.”

Elizabeth laughed. “I remember now - that was during a rowdy round of charades, so I must admit I was quite distracted. I shall never forget the sight of you miming out The School for Scandal - how you stood in the curtains and lifted the pretend gown to reveal an ankle - scandalous indeed! And you were listening to me all the while?”

“I was hoping to hear you say that you found my scandalous tableau completely bewitching,” he teased.

“It was tolerable, I suppose.”

“Fortunately I think better of your scandalous display.” Mr. Darcy leaned closer and kissed her shoulder along the necklace of her chemise.

Elizabeth shivered with excitement, losing herself in the moment that his lips met her own.

He kissed her gently this time, soft and brief; when he drew away, his eyes burned into her own.

“We are in some danger, Elizabeth, and in another moment I may not be able to say that we should retire to our separate rooms.”

It was thrilling to know she held such power over him, though she was near to succumbing to the same temptation. Elizabeth nodded and forced herself to stand and take a step back. “Goodnight, William.”

He grinned. “Good night, Mrs. Darcy.”

***

Much to Elizabeth’s relief, Mr. Collins had departed Longbourn an hour before she and her sister returned to the house.

His suit had been accepted by Charlotte Lucas the previous day, which might have vexed Mrs. Bennet were it not for Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley both requesting a private audience with Mr. Bennet as soon as they entered the house with Jane and Elizabeth.

Their mother did not require any response to the thousand questions she posed to them, in between the effusions she expressed to her younger daughters.

As Mrs. Bennet extolled to Lydia and Kitty upon the pin money and jewels and carriages her two clever eldest would have, Elizabeth sat with Jane at some remove.

“Papa must be needling Mr. Bingley for returning so soon to his study after asking for courtship only a week ago. But however did he propose to you? Caroline scarcely gave any of us a moment alone! I think she wished to frustrate all the gentlemen, and not merely the colonel!” Elizabeth laughed, hoping Jane did not likewise inquire how she and William had accomplished the same.

Jane blushed. “One night Caroline was teasing him about playing billiards every night with the colonel, and she demanded to learn the game herself. Mr. Bingley offered to teach both of us - I think you and Georgiana were speaking together and did not hear. Well, the next night Caroline said that we should sneak into the billiard room after everyone had retired, and we could learn for ourselves and astonish her brother with our talent. But when I went to the billiard room after dressing for bed, it was not Caroline but Charles who was waiting for me. I suppose I ought to have known, for my nightgown was taken out of the drawer and something more, ah, elegant was left in its place.”

Elizabeth suppressed the urge to howl with laughter as the colonel so loudly did. Miss Bingley’s infamous negligee had served them both well, it seemed! “I suppose you did not learn to play billiards?”

“Not that night, but the next night - last night - Caroline and I returned - dressed properly, of course - and he did teach us a little. But we all… oh dear - have they told you of the ventilation grate?”

“The what?”

Jane shook her head with a rueful smile.

“Charles told me privately that on the night of the assembly, they overheard his sisters in the next room - they were using the ventilation grate near the floor to eavesdrop on the gentlemen. Charles was speaking of me ,” she said, blushing prettily.

“But when they all had a turn at hearing his sisters’ conversation, Charles knew that Mr. Darcy ought to put an end to Caroline’s hope that he would offer for her.

So Mr. Darcy said as much, knowing that Caroline would hear it without the awkwardness of telling her directly. Has he not told you of it?”

Elizabeth shook her head, considering this information.

“So Caroline decided that if she could not be his wife, she would be the dearest friend of the next Mrs. Darcy.” A month ago, Elizabeth might had felt suspicious of her friend’s motives, but she knew that Caroline had become sincerely attached to the colonel, and it had all worked out for the best.

And then she registered what Jane really meant. “You and he listened? And Caroline, too? When William and I were in the library?”

“It was very wrong of us, but we could not help ourselves.”

Elizabeth chortled. “Oh, well, I suppose it must be your reward for being quite right that Caroline intended to match me with William. You are both very clever for seeing it before I did.”

“You are utterly perfect for one another.”

Though Jane was convinced, Mr. Bennet was not. To Mr. Bingley he gave his blessing, after a great deal of raillery. But in the face of William’s suit, Mr. Bennet would hear from his daughter before giving any answer.

Elizabeth was summoned to the book room, where her father demanded to know if his favorite had taken leave of her senses in accepting the gentleman who had called her merely tolerable.

“I believe we have each begun to reconsider our first impressions of one another,” Elizabeth said with a wry smile.

“Do you mean to say that you love and respect him? Or merely that you no longer loathe him and laugh at him at every opportunity?”

“Though I love him dearly, I hope I shall still laugh at him, from time to time,” Elizabeth said archly.

Mr. Bennet made a droll face at William. “And I suppose you understand that you shall have an insolent wife, sir? You shall never relate to the sedate sanguinity of your friend’s marriage.”

William looked bewildered at the sardonic man. “Sir, I love her - I shall be happier than any man in England.”

“Either you are wise, and therefore correct, or you are a fool, and my Lizzy will run circles around you.”

William nodded somberly. “I have faults enough, but I hope they are not of understanding.”

“Well, Lizzy, he says you can make him laugh - best of luck to you, my dear.” Mr. Bennet waggled his brows at her. “But there is one other concern. My cousin Collins informs me that your aunt, his noble and infallible patroness, will not look kindly on the match. What have you both to say to that?”

“It can be nothing to me,” Elizabeth said.

William grimaced. “Mr. Bennet, if the sister of Miss Elizabeth’s mother were to voice her disapproval of our marriage, what would that mean to Elizabeth, or to you?”

Mr. Bennet’s countenance betrayed exactly what he thought of most of Mrs. Phillips’ opinions. “Very well, then, though I will be most seriously displeased if I hear of your aunt causing my daughter any distress for accepting you.”

William glanced over at Elizabeth, who was already considering what she might say and how she might act if such a scenario were to arise.

As if he could read her like a book, William said, “Sir, if I am unable to prevent any unfortunate meeting between them, all of my fears would be for Lady Catherine; your daughter knows what she is about.”

“Ah - so you do deserve her,” Mr. Bennet said with a hoot of laughter. “Very well then, you may proceed to the company of Mrs. Bennet, who will be insisting on a double wedding the likes of which Hertfordshire has never beheld. You are on your own, there.”

He detained Elizabeth a few minutes longer after dismissing William.

In a wildly uncomfortable and blessedly brief exchange, Mr. Bennet sought his daughter’s reassurance that Mr. Darcy had done nothing to impose himself upon her at Netherfield in such a way that would oblige them to wed in haste.

She assured him this was not the case, omitting that it had indeed been quite the reverse, and escaped before her reddened face could betray her.

That evening at the Netherfield ball, Elizabeth hoped that her father would see the tremendous affection between both of the couples he had given his consent to that morning.

The announcement was made over supper and Jane and Elizabeth received the well wishes of all their friends and neighbors throughout the evening with as much good cheer as they received the attentions of their betrothed.

Each couple danced thrice together, their hearts brimming with all the joy of the occasion and prospects of the future.

It was just after supper when Elizabeth had a chance to speak privately with Caroline. “I believe I owe you my thanks, and a great deal of teasing, besides. I have heard all about the ventilation grate.”

Caroline’s eyes widened and she gulped a sip of wine. “Oh. That.”

“Tell me, did you eavesdrop on both proposals?”

“I confess I did - I wanted to be sure they did a fine job of wooing you as you deserve! And is the nightgown not exquisitely pretty?”

“It was appreciated, I am sure,” Elizabeth quipped. “I shall only reproach you by saying that I had thought you clever enough to come up with a different ruse for each of us, rather than using the same ploy twice.”

“But it is twice as clever as any other scheme I have ever employed,” Caroline countered.

“Though I suppose you have heard that I had not such pleasing results the first time I used the grate? Of course, I can hardly repine any of it now that I have achieved such a superior outcome. But I am sorry I did not tell you how recently I had ceased to think of Mr. Darcy.”

Elizabeth smiled and pressed Caroline’s gloved hand in her own. “It was generous of you to be so disappointed, and yet think of others.”

“My motives were perhaps a little selfish when first I began thinking of uniting you and Mr. Darcy, but I do believe you shall be the happiest couple of all my acquaintance - and Jane and Charles, of course.”

This news has shone an edifying light on much of her friend’s behavior in the month she they had met, but Elizabeth did not begrudge Caroline a whit of it. “And are you to be as happy? Have you shown the colonel any mercy yet?”

Caroline laughed. “Oh, I intend to. But I wished you and Jane to have your share of novelty in your news tonight.” And then Caroline turned as if searching the ballroom for her dear colonel.

Elizabeth found him in the crowd just as her friend did.

They both watched him across the room; he was approached by a footman who presented him with a letter, and they were not too far away to see that it was rimmed in black.

Caroline seized Elizabeth’s hand and squeezed it hard. “I think I must go and speak with him - forgive me.”

“Of course,” Elizabeth said. She recollected what William had told her in London, and as Caroline stalked away Elizabeth sought out her fiancé.

If the colonel had received the news she suspected had come, she would be with her beloved when he was needed to console his cousin.

She was to be his wife, and her place was at his side.