Page 46 of Why I Kissed You (Pride and Prejudice Variation)
“Oh Jane… I do believe I have loved him for some time now, and just did not know it,” began Elizabeth with a sigh, “for I cannot fix on the hour, the spot, or the look which laid the foundation. Indeed, it has been coming on so gradually that I believe I was in the middle before I even knew I had begun.”
She looked to her sister with a smile. “My happiness will also be complete, in the moment that I give my husband the gift of knowing I love him.”
“Speaking of love,” said Lady Winterbourne, her words drawing their attention.
She chuckled softly at the sisters’ looks of surprise and continued with, “Forgive my listening to your conversation, Mrs. Darcy, Miss Bennet… I am happy for you, by the by, as I have heard nothing but good things of Mr. Darcy from his cousin. Though many a match is made over fortune, it is more certain to be a truly good match if the parties are fond of each other.”
She gestured then toward the seventh gentleman of their party—Colonel Fitzwilliam—and her sister-by-marriage, Lady Sarah; the pair were walking together along the edge of the wood that bordered the estate. “What think you of those two?” the countess asked.
Elizabeth looked and could only smile. “I think the colonel is quite taken with Lady Sarah, and she seems almost equally enamored of him.”
“But… would your father approve, my lady?” Jane asked. “Lord Satterthwaite, I mean, your father-by-marriage. Colonel Fitzwilliam is but a second son, after all, and His Lordship is a marquess. ”
Lady Honoria, whom it was known had her heart set on Lord Rowarth, laughed softly.
“Sarah is the apple of our father’s eye, for she looks so very much like our dear, late mamma,” said she.
“Though I will own he probably hopes for her to become a duchess one day, I think he would be happy in her choice so long as she truly loves the colonel—and he truly loves her , not only her fortune.”
“Besides which,” said Lady Winterbourne, “I have heard from my husband that the marquess thinks highly of Lord Disley and his elder son—which speaks well for the chances of both my sisters in securing the brothers Fitzwilliam.” She glanced at the blushing Lady Honoria.
“As to Sarah and the colonel specifically… I chanced to overhear Lord Rowarth and Winter talking the other night of how this very pretty property might become Colonel Fitzwilliam’s if he were to sell his commission at last and take a wife. ”
“That is correct,” said Elizabeth. “The income is not large, but three thousand per annum is still very respectable.”
“Indeed, madam,” conceded the countess. “And in combination with the interest of her dowry, they should have something like six thousand a year—more than that, really, with what the colonel has of his own. I do believe that so long as Sarah is not at risk of being impoverished, and the connexion is a noble one, my father will not long lament the colonel being only a second son.”
Having witnessed the increasing fondness for Lady Sarah that Colonel Fitzwilliam was developing, Elizabeth sincerely hoped such would be the case.
She also could not help reflecting on his monumental good fortune in not having to consider Caroline Bingley as a wife—she simply could not imagine the colonel liking the woman enough to marry her on merely the chance of being happy.
Lady Sarah Beckwith was a much better choice in so many ways.
“Watch out!” cried the voice of Mr. Hiddleston just seconds before two of the fencing party—Darcy and Winterbourne—came too near the fountain. One of them backed into it hard and fell in with a splash, and the forward momentum of the other carried him into it as well.
Elizabeth and Lady Winterbourne cried out in unison and jumped to their feet, their skirts gathered in hand as they ran down the lawn to check on the welfare of their husbands. Both were climbing out of the fountain by the time the ladies reached it and found them laughing.
“Are you all right, Winter?” asked the countess as Winterbourne shook water from his hair .
“Darcy, are you well?” Elizabeth asked at the same time.
“I am well, my love. Well and wet,” he said as he pushed his own dripping hair from his eyes. Lord Winterbourne made a similar remark to his wife.
Elizabeth took Darcy’s foil in one hand and his hand in the other. “Come, let us get you inside and into dry clothes, that you don’t catch cold.”
“Catch cold!” cried Lord Winterbourne as the rest of the party followed the two couples back toward the house. “My dear Mrs. Darcy, it is a very warm late spring day. We are hardly likely to catch a chill.”
“Winter, do not be a fool—you know that illness is possible even in warm weather,” Lady Winterbourne scolded her husband.
Inside the house, while the rest of the party gathered in the drawing room to laugh and joke over the misfortune of the two gentlemen, their wives took them to their rooms to see them dried off and changed.
Elizabeth paced in the bedchamber while Vincent assisted his master in the dressing room, and she directed a mock-glare at him when he emerged with his new cravat still untied.
Stepping up to her husband, Elizabeth batted his hands away from the silk and worked to tie it herself. “Has your man suddenly become lazy, my love?” she asked.
“Certainly not, I just happen to like it when you—”
His voice dropped off and he reached up to still her hands, his gaze capturing and searching her own as he asked her, “My love? Did I hear you rightly?”
Elizabeth tried everything to maintain the vexed expression with which she had greeted him but could not and smiled widely. “You did, my love ,” said she, her heart suddenly swelling with the emotion. “It just so happens, Fitzwilliam, that I have come to ardently admire and love you.”
“Thank God,” said he, before capturing her mouth with his and kissing her senseless.
Her head spun and her breathing was shallow when Darcy lifted his head. A wicked gleam with which Elizabeth had become familiar during their seclusion at Darcy House came into his eyes as he held onto her hands and moved backward toward the bed.
“Husband, our friends are expecting us!” she said as he spun so that when they reached the bed, she was the one to fall backward on it.
Darcy grinned as he slowly untied the knot she had just made in his cravat. “They can wait,” said he. “I want to show my wife how happy she has made me in coming to love me.”
Elizabeth smiled as she sat up and began to assist him in removing the clothes he had just put on. “Well, in that case, I am certain your wife will be happy to show you just how much she has come to love you.”
And they did for the whole of the afternoon, not appearing again before the rest of the company until dinner.