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He would have preferred it just to be the three of them, or even better just him and Elizabeth.

But he was happy in the knowledge that she would be staying in his house and there he would be able to spend hours with her and that there was no longer anything standing in his way of being able to make her an offer of marriage.

With that thought he could even listen to and smile at Miss Bingley as she gushed over some flower or other.

* * *

On the Road to Pemberley - Elizabeth

Elizabeth had not been this happy in months, Jane was for the first time since becoming engaged to Mr Bingley being able to act like the happy bride to be.

It did her heart good to see her dearest sister smiling.

Mr Bingley was rather like a schoolboy who had been given off lessons.

He was beaming from ear to ear and talking excitedly to Jane.

Mr Darcy too seemed more relaxed than Elizabeth could remember seeing him, although he had spent most of the morning with Miss Bingley.

His face was no longer as drawn and thin as it had been just before her wedding.

She remembered the smell of port on his breath; he had worn it like a cologne.

His face was still too thin, but the colour was healthier and he was clearly bathing regularly again and smelt pleasant.

Not at all like how her sisters’ or even her uncle smelt.

There was more cedar than lavender, she decided as he helped her into his carriage and then settled down on the seat opposite her, next to Georgiana.

As they prepared to leave Chatsworth and headed for Pemberley.

Elizabeth and Georgiana carried most of the conversation as they drove, with Mr Darcy answering their questions about the house, estate and family.

Lord Cavendish, the sixth Duke of Devonshire, he explained, had gained the title only recently, at the age of twenty-one, once his father had died some two years before. “The duke’s late mother was Georgiana’s namesake.”

“She was Mother’s friend wasn’t she?” Georgiana asked quietly, “I remember meeting her. ”

“She died before her husband.” Mr Darcy explained, “about seven years ago. She and mother were good friends, and they had been to school together.”

“She had a little dog, I remember following it under a table with a long table cloth.”

“Holdfast was the creature’s name,” Mr Darcy laughed, “Mother, Lady Cavendish and I spent an hour looking for you. Lord Cavendish and father had men searching the grounds. But you had just fallen asleep under the side table, behind the chair.”

Elizabeth could not remember seeing him like this before.

Would this be what it was like - no, she must not think about now.

If she hoped too much that it would not happen, something else would happen to upset this delightful trip.

To distract herself from the line that her thoughts had taken, she joined the conversation.

“How old would you have been then?” She asked Georgiana.

Georgiana thought for a moment before answering. “Three or four I believe. Fitzwilliam would know better than I.”

“You were almost four, it was a few months before mother died.”

Silence fell in the carriage, and Elizabeth could feel tears pricking at the corner of her eyes.

She turned her head to the side, as if to take in the wildness of the landscape.

Her own grief was still so close, she could not imagine having lost both parents at such a young age and the effect on Mr Darcy and Miss Darcy, particularly the latter.

“Stop the coach!” Mr Darcy suddenly called to Elizabeth’s surprise. The carriage slowed and then stopped on the top of a hill. Mr Darcy hopped down and then turned to her, his hand outstretched towards her.

“Miss Elizabeth Bennet, may I have the honour of showing you my home?”

Elizabeth smiled brightly at him, and she took his offered hand and stepped down from the carriage.

They walked together to the edge of the beautiful woods that she longed to explore and looked down towards Pemberley House, situated on the opposite side of a valley into which the road, with some abruptness, wound.

It was a large, handsome, stone building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills, and in front, a stream of some natural importance was swelled into a greater one, but without any artificial appearance.

Its banks were neither formal, nor falsely adorned.

She had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste.

The leaves were brown and yellow, as autumn was arriving in full force. They lay in heaps under the trees that they have fallen from. She could only imagine how it would look in a few more months when winter had claimed the woods and fields.

She realised she had been holding her breath for a moment and she released it in a sigh of appreciation.

She had taken a few steps forward and away from Mr Darcy as she took in the house, the gardens, the lake and the woods.

She turned to him now to see him standing nervously waiting to hear her opinion on his home.

She laughed then at the sight of him, which only confused him.

“It’s beautiful,” she said when she had managed to stop laughing at the expression on his face. He took her hands in his and gave them a gentle squeeze.

“Shall I send the carriage on so we can walk the rest of the way?” He asked hopefully, “There is a path here that I have been hoping to show you for many months now. It runs along a stream.” He said pointing a path towards the lake.

She readily agreed and they were soon walking arm in arm through the woods of Pemberley as the carriage drove on without them.

They stopped at the stream, Elizabeth had rarely been so delighted, there was a wildness around these woods that Hertfordshire for all of its orderly beauty had never had.

After a few minutes they continued down the path.

Mr Darcy pointed out features of interest as they meandered through the woods.

At last they came to a break in the tree that had a view of the house and the lake.

Elizabeth smiled at Mr Darcy, as they proceeded on their walk.