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Chapter?XI

Snow had fallen all night—soft, inexhaustible, erasing every footprint the city had pressed upon December’s hardened streets.

By morning the drifts along Royal Crescent rose to the height of carriage steps; chimneys puffed against a sky the colour of strained milk, and clouds hung so low Elizabeth felt she might reach up and smear their edges.

Inside Number?Nine stillness reigned. Georgiana practised scales in the distant music room, the notes muffled as though cushioned by snow itself.

Mrs?Winter, having pronounced the roads impassable, ordered a holiday from every task save keeping the greenhouse stove alive and the occupants supplied with chocolate and toast. Darcy, sling finally discarded, retied the knots of his cravat with unconcealed impatience at being idle.

By mid-afternoon Elizabeth could bear the hush no longer. “The roses ought to be shaken free,” she said, wrapping a woollen scarf about her throat. “Wet snow may snap the canes.”

Darcy, already shrugging into his great-coat, nodded. Wordlessly they collected two broom-handles from the tool shed—long poles to tap snow without breaking branches—and stepped into a world muted to a single colour.

The rose garden lay almost unrecognisable: mounds of white where Summer?Blush, Scarlet Nonpareil, and Maiden’s Blush slumbered, thorned skeletons half-submerged. Darcy tested the depth with his boot; fine crystals spurted up his trousers. “We must work quickly.”

Elizabeth began at the nearest climber, rapping gently until slabs of snow slid off, revealing mahogany canes studded with frozen buds.

Darcy moved down the path, freeing each bush in turn; their breath billowed, mingling like twin spectres.

After ten minutes Elizabeth’s cheeks stung and her fingers throbbed despite mittens.

Darcy paused beside her, noticing the tremor when she adjusted her grip.

“You are chilled through,” he said. “A respite in the greenhouse.”

She would have protested, but the lure of warmth was tempting. They crossed crunching drifts, then ducked inside glass lit only by a palest afternoon glow. Frost ferns webbed the roof, yet the air held a lingering citrus note from their small lemon tree; the stove ticked reassuringly.

Darcy knelt to feed a split of birch onto the coals. “If Mrs?Winter finds us dawdling, she will declare us her defective gardeners.”

Elizabeth removed her snow-spattered mittens, flexing pinkened fingers toward the grate. “She has already declared me soft-hearted. Yesterday she found me talking to the hyacinths.”

He smiled, straightened, and brushed snow from his shoulders. Silence settled—not the stiff, uncertain pause of months past, but something expectant, intimate, like a page half-turned. Elizabeth felt the flutter beneath her ribs that always preceded words of consequence.

Darcy seemed to feel it too. He stepped closer, gaze bright despite winter’s muted light. “I have been waiting,” he said softly, “for a moment when quiet might hold us without interruption.”

Beyond the glass a flake tapped, then another—a stud of crystal, a hush within hush. Elizabeth swallowed. “This seems quiet enough.”

He reached into his coat, withdrawing a small, wooden box no larger than a snuff-case.

“When we set aside those lettuce seeds,” he said, “you spoke of seasons and their readiness. I have tried to let that wisdom guide me—to wait until now, when frost protects the garden, and there is nothing to do but trust what sleeps beneath.” He opened the lid.

Nestled inside lay a simple ring: a narrow band etched with a pattern of entwined vines, no gem but a glint of polished silver.

“My mother wore this while she gardened,” he murmured.

“Father had a second, grander ring for formal occasions, but this was the band she chose whenever she worked among the roses. She said jewels snag leaves.” He hesitated.

“I would … very much like to place it on your hand—if you will allow a bloom in winter.”

Warmth rushed Elizabeth’s face and throat, as though the stove’s flame had leapt outward. She remembered Mrs?Darcy’s journals— prune with forgiveness; feed with faith —and felt tears prick. “Your mother’s ring?”

“She would approve,” he said, voice steady but eyes bright. “She always admired capable hands.”

Elizabeth inhaled, tasting wood-smoke and cold air. The vow she formed felt as organic as soil: “Fitzwilliam, my answer has blossomed through every hour we have tended this garden together. Yes—yes, a thousand times, yes.”

Relief and joy mingled on his features so plainly she could not help laughing—half-crying, half-laughing—as he slipped the ring onto her finger.

It fit, snug and light, the metal still cool from the greenhouse air.

He lifted her hand, brushing his lips over the band, then—after a beat’s pause, seeking permission in her eyes—bent lower and captured her mouth in a kiss neither hurried nor hesitant, but measured, reverent, sure.

Outside, a gust of snow cascaded from the glass roof, drumming a soft applause. When they parted she found herself breathless, not from cold but from the tenderness that shimmered between them, bright as sunlight caught on frost.

Darcy rested his forehead lightly against hers. “Forgive me,” he said, smiling, “if I have broken the garden’s truce of silence.”

“You have cultivated it to perfection,” she whispered.

A throat cleared behind them—Mrs?Winter, inevitably, leaning on her cane in the doorway, eyebrows lifted high enough to disturb her bonnet.

“I suspected frost might breed mischief,” she declared, but her voice quivered with delight.

“Am I to congratulate you, or scold you for abandoning half-buried roses?”

Darcy straightened, but his grin betrayed him. Elizabeth slipped her hand—ring gleaming—into the crook of his arm. “Both, perhaps,” she said.

Mrs?Winter’s gaze darted to the band. Tears pooled instantly, though she swiped them away. “Well then. We shall mark this with toast and syllabub—Georgiana shall play, and the roses shall wait. Even dormant plants enjoy a love story.”

She ushered them toward the house as if shepherding lambs. Snow still fell, but inside the windows candles bloomed, golden against winter’s grey. Georgiana met them in the hall; when she saw the ring she clasped Elizabeth in an embrace warm enough to melt any leftover chill.

That evening the parlor glowed with firelight and astonished happiness.

Mrs?Winter proposed three toasts—one to roses that root in unlikely seasons, one to letters properly delivered, and one to ladders sufficiently mended.

Darcy returned each with gratitude so frank it bordered on shy; Elizabeth’s laughter rang, bright and sure.

Later, when guests retired, the two slipped back to the garden to snuff the greenhouse lamp. Frost rimed the panes again, yet through it Elizabeth glimpsed a single bud on the Scarlet Nonpareil—swollen, defiant in the cold. She touched Darcy’s hand.

“A mid-winter bloom,” he said, echoing her thought.

“We will guard it,” she answered.

“Together,” he promised.

They turned toward the house. Behind them, candle-light in upper windows cast long bars across snow, and the quiet night held their footprints—two sets, side by side—marking a path that, come thaw, would lead straight into spring.