Page 27 of To India with Mr. Darcy
Three Months Later
D arcy had faced warier, scarier crowds before. Parliament. The boardrooms of London. The high, cold halls of Pemberley with ancestral portraits staring down in judgement. Lady Catherine de Bourgh. But none of them, not one, made his hands sweat quite like the moment he stood at the front of the church, waiting for the woman who was to become his wife.
The air was warm, rich with the scent of the floral displays Mrs Bennet had insisted they fill the church with. Every pew behind him was filled, the hush of anticipation thick as treacle, and yet he could only hear one thing, the hammering of his own pulse.
Beside him, Bingley leaned in. “Steady,” he said under his breath. “You’re about to marry the cleverest, most dazzling woman in all of England—except Jane, of course. Why the long face?”
Darcy swallowed. “Because the cleverest, most dazzling woman in all of England is about to marry me.”
Bingley let out a short, warm laugh. “And thank God for that. Don’t worry. You haven’t imagined it. She really is going to say I do.”
Darcy gave a dry look. “I should hope so, as it would be terribly awkward if she did not.”
Then, before Bingley could respond, there was a shift in the room. A small, silent ripple moved across the pews as heads turned towards the back of the chapel. The music swelled, a familiar strain of strings that Darcy had once thought overly sentimental. Today, it felt perfect. Meant for them.
He looked down at his suit one last time, as if he had any chance of correcting any mistake now. His brass buttons shone with polish, his boots reflected his eyes back to him. He picked off some invisible dust, trying desperately not to turn around and watch. It was bad luck, after all.
The doors opened, the noise filling him with emotion. And then he couldn’t take it. Bad luck or not, he turned. Once again, the world stopped.
There she was. Elizabeth. His Elizabeth. The very woman who had infuriated him, intrigued him, embarrassed him, and drew him so unequivocally. The woman he thought he would never win over.
She stepped forward, her hand lightly resting on her father’s arm. Her gown was simple, elegant, and made entirely extraordinary by the woman who wore it. Just as he’d suspected, unfussy yet beautiful. The sunlight through the stained glass lit her in patches of rose and gold. She met his gaze at once, of course she did, and held it, unwavering. There was no hesitation in her steps. No fear. Only the quiet certainty that she carried with her always.
Darcy’s throat closed. He would have fallen to his knees right then had it not been considered poor form in a ceremony.
As she approached, he barely registered Mr Bennet’s brief nod, or the words passed between them as he placed his daughter’s hand into Darcy’s. He only felt the press of her fingers, warm and steady, and the upward curve of her smile. A smile just for him.
The vicar began to speak. Darcy heard none of it and neither did he mind. Then came the vows.
“Do you, Fitzwilliam Darcy, take Elizabeth Bennet to be your lawfully wedded wife? To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do you part?”
Darcy met Elizabeth’s eyes. “I do,” he said. The words were not loud, but they were clear and unshakeable. Darcy had never been more certain of anything in his entire life.
The vicar turned to Elizabeth, and she watched with careful attention. “And do you, Elizabeth Bennet, take Fitzwilliam Darcy to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
Her voice was calm but filled with something that made his knees weak. “I do.”
His fingers trembled as he slipped the ring onto her hand, and then the vicar pronounced them husband and wife. The world was the same, but nothing was the same. A cheer rose faintly from the back of the room. Darcy turned to Elizabeth. She was smiling—truly smiling—and unable to stop himself, he leaned forward and offered her a chaste kiss, witnessed by the whole of Hertfordshire.
Darcy barely recalled the walk down the aisle, only that Elizabeth’s hand remained in his and that she looked up at him now and then with such serenity it made him feel as though he had been made new. She truly was happy, she wasn’t merely doing this for him. The love flowed both ways.
Outside the chapel, the late summer air was turning to autumn, sunlight slanting through the trees as guests spilled out into the churchyard in a flurry of congratulations and petals. Somewhere behind them, Bingley was laughing, and Mrs Bennet was shrieking delightedly about two weddings in one season, while Mr Bennet offered dry commentary from the sidelines like a man who had long ago accepted the chaos he’d married into.
Darcy glanced down at Elizabeth, his wife now— his wife —and caught the twinkle in her eye.
“Do you think they’ll let us escape if we run?” she murmured.
“We could make for the hills,” he murmured back, “but I fear they’d only chase us. Your mother has remarkable stamina.”
Elizabeth stifled a laugh, her fingers tightening on his. “Best to endure it with dignity, then.”
“A very Mrs Darcy thing to say.”
She raised a brow. “Is that who I am now? Goodness, I hadn’t thought of that.”
He leaned in, breathing in every bit of her. “Indeed. And I have never been prouder of a name in my life.”
The wedding breakfast was held in a fine marquee just beyond Netherfield, all white linen and twining greenery, with long tables groaning under the weight of scones, cakes, trifles, and at least one monstrous ham Mrs Bennet insisted was absolutely necessary.
As they entered the tent, a cheer went up, not for him, of course, but for Elizabeth, who managed to bear it with grace and only the faintest roll of her eyes. Darcy, for his part, managed a bow that he hoped struck the right balance between humble and relieved.
The Gardiners were among the first to greet them. Mrs Gardiner embraced Elizabeth warmly, and Mr Gardiner gave Darcy a firm handshake, his eyes twinkling beneath his spectacles.
“Well,” he said, “I suppose we must take some credit for this.”
Elizabeth laughed. “You may take all of it, Uncle. If you hadn’t invited me to India, I’d never have boarded the Belmont . I might never have spoken more than two sentences to Mr Darcy in my life.”
Darcy smiled. “Then I am in your debt, sir.”
Mr Gardiner gave a modest shrug. “I merely suggested an adventure. You two created the story worth telling.”
“It’s true,” Mrs Gardiner said. “I believe that fate would have brought you together one way or another. It’s obvious just from looking at you that you were meant to be.”
They moved through the crowd, Darcy exchanging nods and handshakes, Elizabeth receiving kisses on the cheek and small bouquets from excitable younger cousins. Mrs Bennet cornered them twice, first to declare that she had always known it would be Darcy, and then to scold Elizabeth for the length of her train, which she feared would be impossible to replicate for the next daughter.
Kitty flounced past them in a pale yellow dress, looking radiant and breathless. “Another wedding!” she cried. “I am simply exhausted from all this joy. First Jane and Mr Bingley, and now you! But do go on, Lizzie, marry every eligible gentleman in England if you must. At this rate, we shall all be duchesses by Christmas.”
Lydia, close behind, chimed in with a dramatic sigh. “I don’t care who’s next, as long as it isn’t Mary.”
“I heard that,” Mary called from a nearby table, not even looking up from her sermon notes.
There was laughter all around, easy and unpretentious, a blur of voices and clinking glasses and sunlight filtering through gauzy white curtains.
And for the first time in his life, Darcy did not feel out of place in the noise.
They were not his people, not exactly. But they were hers. And somehow, in claiming Elizabeth, he had found himself claimed in return, folded into something loud, ungovernable, and brimming with life. They were not undignified, he thought now. Just… colourful. And he could live with colourful.