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The next day dawned bright and cold, the sort of morning that carried sharpness on the air but light in the corners of every room.

Elizabeth rose early. She lit the small stove in the back room and moved through the motions of preparation—rolling pastry dough, setting out tins, polishing the small stack of spoons—all with hands that moved as if on their own.

But her mind was elsewhere.

It lingered on a note folded into a drawer beneath the till.

It lingered on a man with quiet eyes and a voice that had softened.

It lingered, despite every reasonable protest she might raise within herself.

Darcy did not come that day.

Nor the next.

By the third morning, Elizabeth told herself she was being foolish to notice. He had said he would return, yes—but not when. Not how often. His words had left her room to breathe, not obligation.

And yet.

She checked the door twice for any sign of a shadow.

She brewed the Darjeeling anyway.

On the fourth afternoon, just as she was about to turn the sign to Closed for the Evening , the bell chimed.

She knew it was him before she looked.

He stepped in, hair wind-tossed, coat a little too fine for the street grit that clung to its hem.

“I hope I am not too late,” he said.

“You’re exactly on time,” Elizabeth replied, before she could think better of it.

He smiled then—brief but full.

She set about preparing the tea.

They sat at the corner table, away from the window this time. The sun had already begun to sink, casting gold and rust across the plaster walls. Elizabeth brought his tea—his usual, though he had never named it—and sat opposite without ceremony.

He reached into his coat.

“I brought something.”

She tilted her head. “Another book?”

“No.” He placed a letter on the table between them. The paper was creased but carefully preserved.

She recognized it at once. Her breath caught.

“You kept it?”

“I did.” His voice was quiet. “I wrote it… after Hunsford. After you refused me. I believe you may have read it?”

“I did. A year after my father passed.”

He nodded. “I wondered. You never replied.”

“I thought it too long past.”

“Perhaps.” He looked down. “But I still wished to place it between us. In the open.”

Elizabeth reached for the letter but did not unfold it. She had read it many times already. She knew every stroke of his pen. Every place where the ink darkened, where emotion had pressed harder against the page.

“I did not understand everything, at the time,” she said.

“Nor did I. I was… not kind, in Kent.”

“Nor was I,” she admitted.

They fell quiet again. Then Darcy spoke.

“Do you remember what you said to me, that day in the parsonage?”

She winced. “I said many unkind things.”

“You did. But one in particular stayed with me.” He paused. “You said I was the last man in the world you could ever be prevailed upon to marry.”

Elizabeth looked down into her cup. “I remember.”

“I have wondered since whether that was the worst of it—or the truest.”

“It was certainly the angriest.”

Darcy smiled faintly. “Fair.”

She looked up, more solemn now. “If I could rewrite that moment, I would.”

“As would I.”

Another silence. But this one had a strange comfort to it, as if they were laying old words to rest.

Finally, Elizabeth reached for the letter and slid it back toward him. “I don’t need to read it again.”

He did not move to take it. “I’m not asking you to. I only… I think I wanted you to see that I was trying. Then. And still.”

She met his eyes.

“I do see that.”

Just then, the door creaked. A gust of wind slipped through as Sarah entered with a red nose and arms full of parcels.

Elizabeth rose, setting the moment gently aside.

“Back door was jammed,” Sarah said, unbothered. “Wind’s up something awful. Feels like snow.”

“Go warm yourself,” Elizabeth said with a kind smile.

Darcy stood, brushing invisible lint from his coat. “I’ll go.”

“You don’t have to,” she said quickly.

“I know.” He hesitated. “But I think we’ve said what needed saying. For now.”

She watched him walk to the door. Just before he opened it, he paused.

“May I still come back?”

Her answer was quiet but certain.

“Yes.”

The letter stayed in her thoughts long after he had gone.

She did not reread it. She did not need to. The words had etched themselves into her long ago—firm in their logic, restrained in their emotion, and, more than anything, honest. It had changed her understanding of him once. Now, it changed her memory of herself.

She had been so certain at Hunsford. So sharp. So full of the righteousness that comes with partial truths and wounded pride. And he had answered—not in kind, but in clarity.

That, more than any confession, had disarmed her.

Now, with that letter returned to her counter once more, it felt less like a wound and more like a bridge. Fragile still. But real.

The shop was quieter than usual the next day. Sarah took the early shift, and Elizabeth spent most of the morning in the back kitchen, weighing out tins of tea and kneading the dough for oat biscuits with lavender.

Her mind wandered.

She thought of the way Darcy had stood—half hesitant, half resolved. She thought of the look in his eyes when he asked to return. Not pleading. Simply… open. Vulnerable in the smallest, truest way.

She understood it, that particular kind of guarded offering. It was not easy to live a life on one’s own terms and still risk hope.

Just after two o’clock, the bell above the door rang.

Not Darcy.

Mrs. Gardiner.

“Lizzy, my dear, I’m frozen through,” she said, shaking snow from her cloak. “Tell me you’ve a pot of something ready.”

Elizabeth smiled and ushered her in. “You’re just in time.”

She brought out two cups and poured from the pot steeping near the hearth. A winter blend—black tea with clove and orange peel, touched with cinnamon. Her aunt breathed it in with exaggerated relief.

“You spoil me,” she said. Then, with a pointed look, “And you seem… different.”

Elizabeth raised a brow. “Different?”

“Lighter. Less like you’re carrying the weight of everyone’s opinions in your apron pocket.”

Elizabeth laughed. “Aunt, really.”

Mrs. Gardiner took a sip, then narrowed her eyes. “Who is he?”

“There is no who ,” Elizabeth said lightly, but the blush rose to her cheeks anyway.

“Oh, my dear girl. I know that look.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “He’s been here, hasn’t he?”

Elizabeth hesitated. “He has. Once or twice.”

Mrs. Gardiner’s eyes sparkled. “Mr. Darcy?”

Elizabeth sighed, half exasperated, half amused. “I see I cannot keep anything from you.”

“Nor should you. Does he look well?”

“He does.”

“And is he different?”

“In ways that matter.”

“And you—” Mrs. Gardiner paused, gentling her voice. “What do you feel, Lizzy?”

Elizabeth looked out the window. Snow had begun to fall again, fine and white against the grey of the street. It blurred the outlines of everything.

“I’m not certain what I feel,” she said honestly. “But I find I look forward to seeing him.”

Her aunt reached across the table and took her hand. “Then that is more than enough to begin.”

That evening, she opened the drawer beneath the counter.

The letter still rested there, now joined by another—shorter, unsigned, but unmistakably Darcy’s. She did not read them again. Instead, she closed the drawer, turned the sign to Closed , and lit the lamps early, filling the shop with golden light.

The snow fell steadily beyond the windows.

She found herself hoping he would walk through the door tomorrow.

Not to finish a conversation.

But to start something new.