Page 72 of Mr. Darcy’s Forgotten Heir (Pride and Prejudice Variations #1)

“Hush,” Elizabeth interrupted, pulling one hand free to press her fingers gently against his lips. “You were injured. You couldn’t have known.”

“I should have felt it,” Darcy insisted against her fingers. “Something in me did recognize you—why else would I have been drawn to you from the moment I arrived at Bellfield? Why else would William have claimed me so immediately as his own?”

Elizabeth’s smile was tremulous. “He has always known you. Even before he could speak. He said ‘Da’ before he said any other word.”

Darcy swallowed hard against the emotion rising in his throat.

“You mentioned that in the journal. They became my salvation during this journey. Every page, Elizabeth. You put yourself in your words. Every milestone you recorded, every observation about William’s character, every gentle hope that we might reunite as a family. ”

“I needed you to know him,” Elizabeth said simply. “Even if you never remembered me, I wanted you to know your son. I wanted us to be a family.”

“Even when I angered you? Insulted you?” His heart clenched at the pain he’d caused her. “I am so sorry I didn’t recognize you or William. Somehow my heart knew. It knew you, Elizabeth. But my mind fought that recognition, explaining it away.”

“I’m the one who made that recognition as difficult as possible.” She shook her head slightly as if ashamed. “I should have guided you gently, helped you remember through shared stories and hints. Instead, I nursed my wounded pride and demanded you recall what had been stolen from you.”

“You were protecting yourself.” Darcy wanted so much to kiss those tears away. “Elizabeth, the fault is all mine. I failed to see through your circumstances, to your goodness, your kindness, and I should have known… You were so angry, you said you would never give your heart again.”

“I forgave you the moment your carriage disappeared from sight,” she said suddenly, the words tumbling out as if a dam had burst. “Standing in this very spot, watching you leave, I realized that my anger had become a prison of my own making. You were suffering as much as I, perhaps more, because you could not remember what you had lost.”

“But you gave me the journal. In it, you called me ‘my dearest love,’” Darcy said hoarsely, recalling the words that had pierced him most deeply. “In the privacy of those pages, when you had no reason to believe I would ever read them.”

“Because you were. You are. I never stopped loving you.”

Tears streamed unchecked down her face, and Darcy felt his own eyes moisten. With a sound that was half laugh, half sob, he pulled her into his arms. She turned into his embrace as naturally as breathing, her arms winding around his neck while he held her against his heart.

“Elizabeth,” he whispered against her hair.

“I remember our wedding night. Every word, every touch, every promise. I remember how brave you were, how you trusted me despite having every reason to doubt. I remember falling in love with your courage and your honesty, and I remember vowing to protect both.”

She pulled back to look at him, her face luminous despite her tears. “And I remember thinking that I could not possibly love someone I had known for mere hours, yet loving you nonetheless.”

“And I felt the same. That night at the Red Lion. I didn’t know how I could have loved you more. ”

“I have missed you,” she whispered against his coat. “Even when you were here, I missed you.”

“I’m here now,” Darcy promised, breathing in the scent of her hair, the lavender that had haunted his dreams. “Fully here. And I’m not leaving again.”

Elizabeth drew back just enough to see his face, her own alight with a joy he’d feared he might never witness again.

“I had a speech prepared,” she confessed.

“About how I’d been unfair to you, how Mary helped me see my own pride and stubbornness, how I should have told you the truth from the beginning instead of resenting your inability to remember. ”

“And I had a speech about my failures and my determination to make things right,” Darcy replied with a wry smile. “It seems we are equally prepared and equally unnecessary.”

“Well, so… here we are.” Elizabeth looked up at him, her eyes glittering. “What shall we do about this troubling predicament?”

Rather than answer with words, Darcy cupped her face in his hands and lowered his mouth to hers.

The kiss began as a question and became an answer, tender at first, then deeper as two years of longing and separation poured between them.

Elizabeth melted against him with a soft sound of surrender, her fingers tangling in his hair while he rediscovered the taste of home.

When they finally broke apart, both breathing unsteadily, Darcy rested his forehead against hers. “I have something of yours,” he said with the faintest hint of his old humor. “Though I confess I am reluctant to return it.”

Elizabeth’s eyes sparkled with answering mischief. “Indeed? And what might that be?”

“My name,” Darcy replied solemnly. “You have been Mrs. Darcy for nearly two years, yet I have only just remembered giving it to you.”

“How fortunate,” Elizabeth said, standing on her toes to brush another kiss across his lips, “since I have grown rather attached to it. ”

“Have you indeed?” Darcy’s arms tightened around her waist. “And here I had feared you might prefer to return to being Miss Bennet.”

“Never,” Elizabeth said firmly. “Though I confess there is one small matter we should discuss before we become completely lost in sentiment.”

The serious note in her voice caused Darcy to pull back slightly. “What matter?”

Elizabeth moved to the writing desk, her movements graceful despite their emotional upheaval. When she turned back, she held several folded papers in her hands. “These arrived this afternoon, delivered by a gentleman who claimed to have recovered them through diligent investigation.”

Darcy stared at the papers, his legal mind recognizing official documents even as his heart refused to believe what his eyes suggested. “Elizabeth, those cannot be?—”

“Our marriage registry pages,” she confirmed, offering them to him with hands that shook slightly. “Cut from the book at Barnet.”

Darcy looked down at the legal document, the signatures, and the cut edge. “These are… these are authentic. Our marriage record.” His eyes flew to hers. “These make William legitimate. They restore your position, ensure his inheritance…”

Elizabeth’s smile contained more mischief than he’d seen since their days at Netherfield.

“Would you believe,” she said with deliberate casualness, “that Mr. George Wickham himself delivered them? With a most elaborate tale about rescuing them from Mr. Collins, who had apparently stolen them out of jealousy.”

“Wickham was here? At Bellfield?” Darcy’s protective instincts flared immediately. “Did he threaten you? What did he want?”

“Money, naturally,” Elizabeth replied, her lips curving in a smile that contained more satisfaction than humor. “Though I gave him only ten pounds—your ten pounds, in fact, from our wedding morning—along with a signed receipt detailing his entire fabricated story. ”

“Ten pounds,” Darcy repeated, still struggling to absorb this unexpected turn. “For documents worth a fortune to us.”

“He believes Lady Eleanor will pay the remainder upon your return,” Elizabeth explained with evident enjoyment. “I suspect he’ll be rather disappointed.”

Darcy looked from the pages to Elizabeth’s face, torn between laughter and amazement. “You outmaneuvered him completely.”

“Not completely,” Elizabeth demurred. “He still has ten pounds more than he deserves. But I thought the receipt might prove useful when you locate him.”

“When we locate him,” Darcy corrected, carefully setting the precious pages on the desk so he could gather her in his arms once more. “You magnificent, brilliant woman. Do you know what this means?”

“That our marriage is legally provable?” Elizabeth suggested, winding her arms around his waist. “That William’s legitimacy is secured? That we need not go through a second wedding ceremony unless we choose to?”

“All of that,” Darcy agreed, “but more importantly, that we can go home. To Pemberley. As a family. No more hiding, no more pretending, no more uncertainty.”

Elizabeth’s eyes shone. “Pemberley,” she repeated softly. “I had begun to think I might never see it.”

“It has been waiting for you,” Darcy told her. “Just as I was, even when I didn’t know it.”

He bent to kiss her again, marveling at how perfectly she fit against him, how right it felt to hold her after so long apart.

“I love you,” he murmured against her lips. “Not from obligation or pity or even memory, but from choice. Here and now, knowing all that has passed between us, I choose you again.”

“And I love you,” Elizabeth replied without hesitation. “Not because you’re William’s father or because society demands it, but because you are the man I want—stubborn pride, occasional pomposity, and all. ”

Darcy laughed heartily. “Your assessment of my character remains as brutally honest as ever, Mrs. Darcy.”

“Would you have me any other way, Mr. Darcy?”

“Never. I vow to have you every way I can.”

“Da-Da! Mama!” William burst into the room, his face smeared with what appeared to be gingerbread and sugar, Mary following with an apologetic expression.

“He insisted on showing you his creation,” she explained. “And proved remarkably adept at eluding capture when he wants to.”

William toddled toward them, brandishing a misshapen gingerbread man. “Da-Da!” he announced proudly, holding it up. “Mama!”

“He insisted on making one for each of you,” Mary explained, her eyes warm as she watched them. “Though I believe his contribution was mainly enthusiastic stirring and liberal application of sugar.”

Darcy knelt, meeting his son at eye level. “Is this for us, William? How very skillfully made.”

“For Da-Da,” William declared, solemnly breaking the cookie in half and offering the larger portion to Darcy with sticky fingers. He turned to Elizabeth, holding up the other piece. “For Mama.”

Elizabeth knelt beside them, completing the circle. “How generous of you to share,” she said, accepting the offering with grave courtesy. “It looks delicious.”

William beamed, then flung himself against both of them in a spontaneous hug that threatened to grind gingerbread crumbs into their clothes. Darcy didn’t mind. He gathered his son close with one arm, reaching for Elizabeth with the other until all three were locked in an embrace. A true homecoming.

“Your first gift as a family,” Mary observed softly. “I shall leave you to enjoy it properly.”