“I love you too,” she whispered. “Your purebred dog, crazy hours, and fancy house. I love you even when you give me headphones for Christmas and make me question everything.”
She watched his expression transform. The guardedness that was so much a part of him melted away, replaced by an expression of relief. His eyes closed briefly, and when he opened them again, there was a brightness there she’d never seen before, a sense of wonder that made him look younger, lighter, like someone who’d been holding his breath for months and could now exhale.
“Elizabeth.” Darcy leaned down to place a soft kiss on her lips.
It was a perfect kiss, Elizabeth thought dimly as his lips met hers—warm and sweet and tasting of wine and Christmas pudding. The sort of kiss that belonged in films, with snow falling around them and fairy lights twinkling in the distance.
By the time they broke apart, both a bit breathless, Waffles was back to sniffing the lamp posts. Athena was next to him this time, glancing back at them as though prepared to wait indefinitely for her humans to finish being absurd.
“We should head back.”
“We should,” Darcy agreed, but he didn’t move. “Though this is rather a nice way to freeze to death.”
“Very romantic,” Elizabeth said. “Much better than headphones.”
Darcy groaned. “I’m never going to live that down, am I?”
“Not a chance,” Elizabeth said, taking his hand as they began walking back toward the car. “I’m going to bring it up every Christmas from now on.”
“By the by,” Darcy told her as they returned to the car, “Athena isn’t a purebred Great Dane. Don’t tell her, but she’s part poodle. I adopted her from a rescue.”
Elizabeth gazed up at him admiringly. “You really are the perfect man.”
Chapter Seventeen
The winter night had the hush of a cathedral. Somewhere distant, a vixen let out a thin, ragged scream, and William’s fingers tightened around hers.
Waffles and Athena paused but didn’t bark.
Beside him, Elizabeth tucked her free hand into his.
He cleared his throat. “Elizabeth?”
“Mmm?”
The sentence he’d rehearsed all evening evaporated. “Might you . . . would you call me William?”
She stopped. Turned to face him. He braced, stupidly, as if he were about to catch a cricket ball.
Her eyes flashed. “NotFitzwilliam?” she asked, all innocence.
He sighed, his long-suffering expression purely for show. “If you must.”
“William,” she said instead, and her smile gentled. “Thank you.” She squeezed his hand. “Truly. It’s the perfect present.”
For a moment he could only stare. Everything he’d put himself through trying to figure out what to give her for Christmas, and all she had wanted was this. Him.
“Is it?” he managed to ask. He hated how raw he sounded.
“Of course,” she said, in that practical, sensible tone that undid him. “I’ve been falling for William all along. Darcy’s very handsome and tidy and has an impressive wine cellar, but William is the one who carries dog biscuits in his coat, and lectures me about reflective leads, and pretends he didn’t nearly go over on the ice just then.”
“I did not—” He had. “It’s dark. I didn’t see it.”
“All right, Mr. Safety Briefing. Didn’t you say ‘walk with care’ about three seconds before you skated on the ice like Bambi?”
He would have replied with something sensible and dignified, but she lifted herself up on her toes to place a kiss on his cheek, and that was that.
They set off again. The glow from Charles and Jane’s windows pooled across the snow-dusted gravel, which crunched under their feet.
