Page 39 of London Holiday (Sweet Escapes Collection #2)
25 July, 1859
Closing Day at Vauxhall Gardens
“ H old my hand, Elizabeth.” Fitzwilliam Darcy, still robust at seventy-five years of age, visibly braced himself for the iron grip of his wife’s fingers when the initial shock of her blinding panic overtook her. In nearly fifty years of marriage, she had never fully overcome her troubles with motion or her fear of heights, but for this, she always exerted herself.
“Are you certain of this, Grandfather?” Twenty-one-year-old Fitzwilliam Darcy stood beside his father, Bennet Darcy, and eyed the ageing vehicle with open scepticism. “It looks hardly stable.”
“You will not deter Mother,” Bennet informed his son. “And woe to him who tries.”
“Indeed, saucy boy,” Elizabeth Darcy took her husband’s hand and stepped up to the basket with a tart little smile. “Such you shall discover for yourself well enough, if you persuade Miss Bingley to have you.”
“Miss Bingley! Pray, do not tease me, Grandmother. There is nothing in it. Are you certain you are well? Father or I could attend you, if you insist on this venture. How will you manage? ”
At this, the elder Fitzwilliam Darcy turned and very firmly closed the gate with his own hand, levelling a stern look of command to both his heir and heir-apparent. “We have all we need.”
The balloon master was given the order, and father and son stood back, helpless to protest as the basket began to lift from the ground. From there, they could see the thrill of terror when it first shook Mrs Darcy, but then the nearly instantaneous peace when her husband bent low to speak words of encouragement in her ear. The last sight the younger men would have of the couple’s faces was of cheeks nearly touching, heads turned together, and fingers laced as one.
“Father, I still do not understand,” protested the son. “Why should they have been so eager to grace this tumbling ruin with their patronage? Why, the crowds later will be monstrous, and it is not as if there is anything left of mystery to see. It is all to close down, and I hear the new owners plan on building houses. It makes no sense that they were so adamant to come. And why were they so insistent upon a balloon ride, of all things, that Grandfather would have paid such an exorbitant sum for a private tour? He hates throngs of people, and this,” he gestured to their surroundings with marked distaste, “is disgraceful.”
Bennet Darcy chuckled as he watched the balloon lift his parents away. “Have you never heard how they first met?”
“Grandmother always promised to tell me one day when I was older. She claims it some shocking tale, but do you know, I believe she was simply teasing. You know how she is, and Grandfather only encourages her.”
“And well he might. They saved one another, you could say.”
“And it had something to do with…” another sneer of disdain, “this place?”
Bennet laughed. “Have you never seen that silver admission tag that your grandmother keeps in her reticule? It was from the summer of ‘11, and she never stirs from the house without it. Yes, they spent a day together here, a tradesman’s niece and a footman. It ought to have ruined them both, but instead, it was the making of them.”
The shivers had subsided, and Elizabeth’s fingers now rested easily in Darcy’s. His cheek brushed hers, his breath was soft and warm in her ear. She turned enough to catch his eye. “One last time, my love.”
“What will everyone think?” his voice rumbled low in his chest.
“What they have thought for years—that Mr and Mrs Darcy have a most improper marriage. That is only fitting, after how we began.”
His hands, still clasping hers, lifted from her sides to wrap tightly round her, and he drew her close enough to nuzzle the back of her neck. “I miss the simpler gowns of former days. This is a beastly contraption, and I do not understand how you can move in it,” he groused.
“And requires much assistance in its removal,” Elizabeth reminded him. “But so far, I can make do with only a footman.”
“If you do not take care,” he warned her, “I shall be forced to shock even our good balloon master here.”
“I doubt he will object, after what you have paid for the privilege.”
Darcy turned her in his embrace; slowly, so that she might not be unsettled. Her hands now slid up his chest, and she shamelessly kissed his chin. “Do you know, Fitzwilliam is certain we shall fall to our deaths, and the family shall forever bear the stain of its patriarch meeting his end in such an ignoble way. He reminds me a good deal of his namesake.”
“Like all Darcy firstborns, he was named for his mother—who happened to have been Richard’s daughter. It was not for myself, if that is your implication. ”
“You know very well that none who have any memory at all can look at him without seeing you all over again, full of yourself and certain of your own importance. I fear it shall be a dreadful shock for him!”
“What shall, my love?”
“Have you not guessed it? He is head over ears for my grand-niece, but he is too proud to confess it. That is why I take care to tease him regularly on the topic.”
“She scarcely knows he exists, save as a nuisance.”
“And that, my love, is what makes it so delicious! She will bruise his vanity rather badly, but he has your stubbornness—”
“And yours.”
“Precisely. I think he will make a go of it once he has sufficiently blundered and then made his recovery.”
“See here, Elizabeth, I did not pay so much for you to tell me of my own grandson’s resemblance to myself. I can see that very well from the ground. Look there.”
Still with his arms round her, she turned her head to the northwest. They were well clear of the trees now, and she had nearly forgotten the shifting of the floor beneath her feet as the ageing basket squeaked in the gentle summer breeze. Beyond the borders of the park, they could see the Vauxhall bridge, built some years after their first visit, while Westminster, untouched by the fingers of time, stood on the opposite side of the river and more to the north. Far beyond she could see toward Hyde Park, where Prince Albert’s dazzling Crystal Palace had been first raised, then removed in less time that it had taken their youngest grandchild to learn to read. The wheat fields across the river had fallen under cobblestone, and old wooded areas had become houses.
“So much has gone away,” she lamented. “And we shall nevermore see what was so dear to us!”
“Do you think? I see it every day.”
She looked back to the man she had loved for nearly half a century. His face was lined, his thick black hair now a strikingly handsome silver, but his eyes had never changed. They were those which had wept with her, rejoiced with her, which had seen all that was good and wicked within her, and yet still gazed with adoration each morning when they found her. She traced his cheek. “And do you have no regrets, William?”
“Only one.”
“And that is?”
“Something I ought to have told you long ago. Prepare yourself, for you shall be astonished.”
She raised her brows and waited. He always seemed to enjoy watching the suspense build within her, so she simply smiled back with serene patience. There was nothing here but sweet, warm air, brilliant sheets of colour filling the sky, and him. She was in no hurry to look elsewhere.
He bent low and whispered in her ear. “I am terrified of this contraption. I always have been, though I refused to let you see it. Each time we have set foot aboard, I have feared it would be the last. The only thing which lends me courage is you, and the certain knowledge that if I fall, it shall be in your arms. My greatest regret is that I never told you how you have freed me from the fear of what may come.”
She raised up and kissed him, glorying in the strong arms which still bound her to his heart. His lips caressed hers with the abandon of youth, his hands still cradled her as tenderly and ardently as if she were a new bride, and neither gave a second thought for the poor balloon master, who was likely covering his eyes.
She drew back and brushed a hint of sentiment from those dark, expressive eyes she knew so well. “Let us live this day, William, just as we did the first, as if it might be our last. Hold me, and do not let me fall.”
He kissed her forehead, her cheek, then her neck as he pulled her tightly against him. “At your service, madam."
Dive into more fun Darcy and Elizabeth adventures! I have some sneak previews for you next, starting with The Rogue's Widow . What happens when Elizabeth accepts an offer of employment out of desperation and finds out it comes with a marriage contract?