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Caroline watched Colonel Fitzwilliam tuck the letter into his coat pocket and slip out of the ballroom and into the corridor, which had been kept dark to discourage guests from entering the private part of the house.

She followed him by force of instinct, not knowing what she would say or do when she caught up to him.

The colonel entered the library and carried a candle with him as he perched on the window seat, just where he had sat the night he found her weeping in the dark.

Caroline lingered in the doorway. She watched as he took the ominous message from his coat pocket, his fingers touching the seal but hesitating to break it.

He stared down at it, and did not look up as he softly said, “Come and sit with me.”

She wished to ask how he knew that she had followed him, but the air was so thick with the potency of his agony that she found herself unable to speak.

She sat down beside him, the shifting of the cushion beneath her seeming loud; she held her breath.

Silently, he reached for her with his left hand.

He brought her fingertips to his lips, and when he released them she laid her hand on his shoulder, and then rested her head atop her gloved hand.

She slid her eyes shut as he finally broke the seal.

In another life she might have leaned in to read over his shoulder, but she was there for him and not for herself, and she allowed the moment to be his own as he read the letter.

She heard him fold it in his hand, and then he reached for her face.

She opened her eyes and shuddered at the sight of his tears.

A question lingered at the tip of her tongue, but she only leaned her forehead into his.

Colonel Fitzwilliam wrapped his good arm around her waist and drew her so close she was half in his lap, their bodies crushing together.

He buried his face against her neck and began to sob.

Caroline was instantly struck with a memory of the day her father died, and how she and Charles and Louisa had clung together - until their mother scolded them for encouraging their brother to such an unmanly display.

She did what she would have done for Charles in that moment years ago, had she been permitted.

Caroline tightened her arms around the colonel and slowly began to stroke his hair, swaying herself in a gentle motion against him.

She closed her eyes again, willing him to feel safe and soothed in her embrace.

The force of his sobs wracked his body for several minutes, and she clung to him until she lost all sense of where she ended and he began.

Eventually he stilled, his shaking cries turning into ragged breaths.

She brushed her face against his, and he returned the gesture, his cheek rough against hers.

And then his lips hungrily captured her own, his tongue roved over hers, and he bit at her bottom lip as if he would devour her.

He broke away with a gasp, moaning her name. “Caroline, my God!”

She ran her tongue over the place where his teeth had been, as wild for more as she was confused by his sudden burst of passion. There were still tears in his eyes. She leaned forward and brushed her lips over each of his damp cheeks.

His breath trembled, warm on her neck. “I need you, Caroline.”

She shifted herself until she was fully in his lap, cupping his face in her hands. “I am yours,” she said, and she meant it completely. She would give herself to him right then and there if he wished it.

But this was not what he meant. He clasped her hand, his thumb stroking her third finger. “Marry me. Be my countess. I need you at my side for this.”

Her breath caught in her throat, and then came whooshing out. “What?”

He still clutched the black rimmed letter. “This says… that I am the Earl of Matlock.”

Caroline could only gape at him. “He was ill, when we were in London,” she said at last. “But your brother surely….”

“He went missing a month ago. His ship sank off the coast of Portugal. He survived and was captured about ten miles from Porto. He eventually escaped and made his way to the British encampment, but not long afterward he succumbed to the infection in several wounds he had sustained.”

“I do not understand why the viscount would put himself in such danger,” Caroline said, reeling from shock.

“He never got along with our father. When Father married my stepmother, Roland broke with him completely. He never wanted to inherit any of it, and frankly neither do I. Though I do believe my father would have reconciled with him in the end, if it had been possible. It was learning of Roland’s death that did my father in, the shock and grief of it. ”

“I am very sorry for it,” Caroline murmured. “I think you must go to your family, return to London.” Her heart ached at the loss.

“I want you to be my family, Caroline.”

She broke into a bittersweet smile and ran her fingers through his hair. She had known this already. He had included her so deliberately in his conversation with Georgiana, and had acted so protectively of her when Louisa was turned out of Netherfield. She nodded her head.

“I cannot be the earl without you at my side, my fierce countess.”

“You could .”

“I do not want to.”

“Why?”

He furrowed his brow. “What a joke, the crippled earl who was never supposed to be, never prepared for this role, never expected to be more than a second son simpering at every girl with money. And in London all the young ladies and their mother will begin doing the same - ‘he is rich and titled, but…’ everywhere I go. And my stepmother and my sisters…. I cannot face any of it alone, nor with any woman in the world but you.”

Caroline gave him a rueful smile. “And I suppose you understand that I would never allow such talk.”

“There will be a great deal of it. The crippled earl and the tradesman’s daughter. The countess with hair of pure flame who does not give a damn what anyone thinks.”

She shook her head. “I have often cared too much what others think of me.”

“But you have learned where that gets you. I have seen the change in you.” He laid a hand on her chest. “I have seen your heart take charge.”

“If I have gone soft, I do not see how that will be of any use.”

“I have seen you fight for those you love, and I wish to be one of them. I wish to be somebody you cherish so deeply that you would savage your own sister - as you may, from time to time, have to do with mine.”

Caroline had been ready to strangle Louisa for attempting to interfere with Charles courting Jane, had even quarreled with the colonel for flirting with Elizabeth.

But she was firmly on his side now, and she would have no compunction about putting his fawning sisters and petulant stepmother in their place - which would be out of their home if they gave the new earl the slightest trouble.

But she remembered Mr. Darcy’s words from the night of the assembly, that the future Mrs. Darcy would face considerable scrutiny from the ton .

In a mercenary match, it would not have been worth facing the world’s derision.

But for the man in whose lap she still sat, this man who bore his soul to her and shared her fears - she supposed that she could be the brave one, and not give a damn. She would be happy.

“I suppose being a countess is a role in which I might do some good.”

“You are practically a Fitzwilliam already,” he said with a gentle smile. “And you had developed a taste for benevolent meddling.”

“Matlock is very near Pemberley,” she mused. “We can make a new family.”

His grip on her became nearly indecent. “I should hope so.”

“Will we have to wait until you are out of mourning?”

“Not if we agree that I proposed to you an hour ago, before receiving this news. I see no reason to wait, when the present is when I shall need you most. I can obtain a special license, though it may be easier to make for Gretna, and then retreat to Matlock.”

“Surely you are needed in London. I will go with you.”

Relief washed over his face. “Would you really?”

Never could Mr. Darcy have looked at her with such awe and affection - and never would Caroline have been so resolved to make him a true and loving wife.

She nodded. “Of course. I love you, Richard, and from this day wish never to be parted from you. Especially not when you are grieving; am I not to be your helpmeet?”

The colonel drew her closer again, and laid his head on her chest. “You are everything, Caroline, absolutely everything.”

The ball was nearly over before Caroline and Richard returned to it, for they spent another hour and a half in the library talking together - mostly talking, at any rate.

When they returned to the ball, Caroline thought not at all of attempting to explain their prolonged absence.

She and Richard found Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth, and brought them to a private place where they shared their news and the plans they had made.

Mr. Darcy had not been close enough with his uncle to feel the loss keenly, but offered consolation and promises of assistance to Richard, while the two women did likewise.

Before Elizabeth departed, she had spoken with Jane and Mrs. Bennet, for she was to play some part in what was to come.

The whole party was to leave Netherfield for London in the morning; Caroline and Richard would be wed in less than a week if it could be managed.

Not wishing to separate the other newly betrothed couples, Jane and Lizzy would be invited to Caroline’s wedding, which would be a smaller affair than the joyous occasion she had been anticipating.