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“I would have married you in the face of opposition from every relative I possess,” Darcy declared. “Though I admit, the haste of our wedding did prevent her from mounting any resistance in person, for which I think we must both be deeply grateful.”

Elizabeth laughed softly, the sound warming Darcy’s heart. “A silver lining to our precipitous union, then.”

Darcy reached across to take her hand again, his thumb caressing her palm. “It seems we have both misjudged each other’s feelings. You believed I married you out of obligation, while I feared you accepted me only out of necessity.”

The realisation that they had been labouring under mutual misapprehensions struck Darcy as both foolish and wonderfully fortunate. How much anxiety they might have spared themselves with earlier honesty!

“Then we are both where we wish to be,” Elizabeth said softly, “though perhaps by a more circuitous route than might have been ideal.”

“The path matters less than the destination,” Darcy replied, raising her hand to his lips and pressing a gentle kiss to her knuckles. “And I find myself entirely satisfied with where we have arrived.”

Elizabeth’s smile, warm and genuine, filled him with a happiness he had scarcely dared hope for during those dark days following his rejection at Hunsford.

In this moment of perfect understanding, Darcy found himself profoundly grateful for the twists of fate that had brought them together.

Whatever the circumstances of their marriage, the foundation on which it now rested was one of mutual affection and respect, a far cry from the obligation or necessity they had each feared motivated the other.

“Shall we join Georgiana for some music before retiring?” he asked, reluctant to end their private conversation yet aware of his duties as host and brother.

“No,” Elizabeth said quickly, sensing an opportunity to broach that most awkward of topics. “Let her practice in peace. Besides, I find I would rather talk with you.”

“Of course,” he said obligingly. What would you like to discuss?”

Now that the moment had arrived, Elizabeth found herself hesitating again, but this time she was determined to speak; the situation had gone on quite long enough.

While she had delicately remarked to Mrs. Reynolds that the servants’ gossip was unacceptable, and brought up Georgiana’s maid speaking out of turn, the housekeeper had looked at her with knowing eyes even as she promised to manage the matter.

The only way to silence the gossip was to behave as newlyweds should, Elizabeth knew, but how to broach such a delicate subject without appearing either too forward or too demanding?

She had never been shy about speaking her mind, but this was uncharted territory, fraught with the potential for misunderstanding.

“I have been thinking,” she began, then paused, gathering her courage, “about our arrangement. The sleeping arrangements, to be precise.”

A flush crept up Darcy’s neck, but he met her gaze steadily. “I see.”

“Do you?” Elizabeth asked, a hint of challenge in her voice. “Because I confess I do not fully understand them myself.”

Darcy moved to sit beside her on the sofa, though still maintaining a proper distance. “I thought I had explained my reasoning,” he said. “With your sister’s situation, and the unusual circumstances of our marriage...”

“Yes, but we have been at Pemberley for a week now,” Elizabeth pointed out. “Lydia is safely settled in Leicester. The... unusual circumstances no longer apply.”

“You are right, of course.” Darcy’s voice was low, his eyes now fixed on his hands. “I owe you a better explanation.”

Elizabeth waited, her heart beating rapidly in her chest.

“I wanted everything to be perfect for you,” he finally said. “Our marriage has been accompanied by so much haste and complication. The scandal with your sister, the necessary deception, the rushed wedding... none of it was as it should have been.”

“Life rarely arranges itself for our convenience,” Elizabeth observed.

“No, but...” He hesitated, then seemed to come to some decision. “You deserve better than what circumstances have dictated. You deserve a husband who can offer you a proper beginning to your married life, not one distracted by arrangements for your sister or the management of a complex deception.”

Elizabeth considered his words. “So your decision to wait was out of consideration for me? For what you believed I deserved?”

“Partly,” he admitted. “But not entirely.”

“What, then?”

Darcy rose abruptly and paced to the window, his back to her. For a long moment, he was silent, and Elizabeth feared she had pressed too far. Then, without turning, he spoke.

“I was afraid.”

The admission, so quietly spoken, stunned Elizabeth. “Afraid? Of what?”

“Of disappointing you.” He turned to face her at last, his expression more vulnerable than she had ever seen it.

“Little more than a month ago, you told me that I was the last man in the world you would ever consider marrying, and yet circumstances forced you to do exactly what you least wished to do. I fear… being found wanting in the most intimate aspect of our relationship. Of failing to make you happy in the way a husband should make his wife happy, because I am not the husband you wanted.”

Elizabeth stared at him, scarcely able to believe what she was hearing. This confident, accomplished man, who managed vast estates and commanded respect wherever he went, was confessing to insecurities that mirrored her own.

“Fitzwilliam,” she said softly, using his given name deliberately, “did it not occur to you that I might have similar fears? That I, with my limited experience and modest upbringing, might worry about disappointing you?”

He looked genuinely surprised. “You? How could you possibly disappoint me? You are everything I have ever wanted.”

“As you now are to me,” Elizabeth replied, rising to move closer to him.

“I wish you would forget forever those terrible things I said in Kent; those words spoken in utter ignorance of the truth of your character! Every word, every action of yours since that day, have utterly disproved what I believed, and I have only to be ashamed of being so entirely and profoundly wrong in my own actions and beliefs.”

“I have only myself to blame for what you thought of me,” Darcy insisted. “For my pride and arrogance, and my stubborn refusal to explain myself as regards Wickham, which cost you and your family so dearly.”

“Do not take his misdeeds onto your conscience,” Elizabeth told him firmly.

“He paid a heavy price for it all, in the end. Do not let him cost us our chance of a happy future, by whatever tangled paths we have ended up here! He has cost us quite enough, I say; enough!” Just thinking of Wickham angered her all over again; her chest heaved and her cheeks flushed, and suddenly she was aware of that strange heat in Darcy’s eyes as he looked down at her.

Does he admire me when I am angry? she wondered, and a smile came to her lips.

“I don’t know how to make you believe me when I tell you that I have never been more grateful than to be proven wrong about someone.

That far from being the last man in the world I would wish to be married to, you are the only man in the world, and the only fear I have is that you will discover it is you who is wrong, that I am not the wife you have dreamed of.

And so here we are, both afraid of the same thing, both denying ourselves the chance to discover if our fears have any foundation at all. ”

Darcy’s gaze softened as he looked down at her. “I have been a fool, haven’t I?”

“Perhaps we both have been,” Elizabeth conceded with a small smile. “Though I maintain you have been the greater fool, for it was your decision that has kept us in this strange limbo.”

A hint of answering humour curved his lips. “I concede the point, madam. What would you have me do to make amends?”

Elizabeth’s heart quickened at the question and all it implied.

“I would have you remember that we chose each other despite all obstacles and objections. That we have already overcome greater challenges than the awkwardness of new intimacy. That we are partners now, in all things, and need not face any challenge alone.”

Darcy reached out slowly, as though giving her time to withdraw, and took her hand in his. “You humble me with your wisdom, Elizabeth,” he said quietly. “I have been so concerned with doing what I thought best for you that I failed to consider what you might actually want.”

“And what I want,” Elizabeth said, her voice steady despite the flush rising to her cheeks, “is to be your wife in every sense of the word.”

The air between them seemed to thicken with unspoken desire. Darcy’s thumb traced small circles on the back of her hand, sending shivers of awareness through her body.

“Then I shall disappoint you no longer,” he promised, his voice low and resonant with emotion. “Tonight, if you wish it?”

“I do wish it,” Elizabeth confirmed, her pulse racing at her own boldness. “Most ardently.”

Darcy smiled at her deliberate echo of his first proposal. “A happier answer than I received the last time I used those words.”

“A wiser question, this time,” Elizabeth countered, “from a man who has learned to consult his wife’s wishes before making decisions that affect them both.”

“A lesson I shall endeavour to remember,” he promised, raising her hand to his lips.

They did their duty by attending the music room to hear Georgiana perform, but the current of anticipation that flowed between them gave even the most mundane conversation a charged significance.

When at last they retired for the evening, Darcy escorted Elizabeth to her chamber door as had become their custom.

This time, however, he did not politely bid her a good night and turn on his heel.

There was a question in his eyes as he bent to kiss her cheek.

Elizabeth answered it by taking his hand and drawing him over the threshold, into the room that would, from this night forward, truly belong to them both.

The maid Sarah, sitting on a chair by the dressing-room door, took one look at them and discreetly departed, knowing her services would not be required tonight.

Perhaps, Elizabeth thought in the last moments of clear thought before Darcy leaned down to kiss her, Sarah would let the servants know that all their speculations were quite unfounded.

For tonight, Elizabeth knew that while she and her husband still had much to learn about each other and about marriage itself, they had taken the first step toward the genuine partnership they both desired.

Whatever challenges lay ahead, they would face them together, as husband and wife in every sense of the word.