“Is it?”
“Mmm.” She stepped close, nose cold against his cheek, voice warm in his ear. “Truly.”
He took both dogs out himself, in the end. Expedite the evening, he’d thought. But he’d promptly discovered a coalition government of paws. Athena decided to inspect every blade of grass. Waffles performed a sit-in at the park gate, eyes luminous with wrongful imprisonment. By the time he herded them back upstairs an hour later, his ears were numb and his patience used up.
The flat was dim and warm. Elizabeth sat at her cluttered desk with the headphones—his headphones—snug over her ears, the room’s city-noise sealed out. She turned when he touched her shoulder, and her eyes lit up in a way that made his chest go strange.
She lifted the headphones off and placed them on the desktop. “Your very un-romantic present just made me cry,” she exclaimed, tossing her arms around his neck. “I finished the book!”
The dogs circled once and settled. He kissed the top of her head, hung the leads on the hook, and turned back to her. “Tea?”
“Tea,” she echoed, and when he moved toward the kettle, she caught his sleeve. “And you.”
It was better than the scarf, even.
“And me,” he confirmed.
Epilogue
Elizabeth had grown up in a house with four sisters and had spent three years of her adult life managing Waffles’s various enthusiasms. But nothing had prepared her for Christmas morning at Pemberley with both the Bennet and Fitzwilliam families in attendance.
“Has anyone seen my ring?” Jane called from somewhere near the Christmas tree, her voice carrying that particular note of contained panic that meant something important had gone missing.
“Which ring?” Lydia shouted back from the kitchen, where she was supposedly helping Maggie Reynolds but was more likely eating her weight in leftover mince pies.
“My engagement ring! I took it off to help with the cooking and now—”
“Found it!” Kitty announced triumphantly, appearing from under the sofa with Jane’s sapphire ring and what appeared to be half of Waffles’s toy collection. “It was wedged behind the cushions with Mr. Squeaky and a dog biscuit.”
“Waffles!” Jane scolded. “What if you had swallowed it?”
“That would have been a wonderful Christmas story.” Richard rose to leave the room. “Spending hours at the emergency veterinary clinic waiting for Waffles to literally pass a stone.”
Elizabeth smiled from her position curled against Darcy's side on the library sofa, watching the familiar bedlam unfold through the open doorway. Some things, she reflected, never changed. The Bennet family’s ability to create delightful disorder remained as reliable as ever, even when transplanted to Derbyshire.
“I would say we were lucky, but now I think we’re all just negligent,” William murmured against her hair, his arm tightening around her. “Otherwise, Waffles wouldn’t have managed to hide that massive dog biscuit behind the sofa cushions without anyone noticing.”
“He’s evolved,” Elizabeth replied.
William snorted. “Next he’ll learn to open doors.”
“I think Athena is helping him,” Elizabeth replied. “Everyone thinks she’s so well-behaved they never suspect her. It’s the perfect cover.”
From the morning room came the sound of her father’s laughter, followed by Malcolm’s voice raised in what sounded like mock indignation. Richard’s deeper tones joined in, and Elizabeth caught the words “ridiculous” and “betrayal of the highest order.”
“Should we investigate?” William asked.
“I suppose,” Elizabeth said, making no move to get up. They’d been awake since six, when Waffles had decided that Christmas morning required immediate celebration in the form of enthusiastic face-washing for everyone within reach. Even Athena seemed relieved when everyone dressed and traipsed downstairs for breakfast.
Any quiet had ended about nine, when the rest of her family had arrived in a convoy of cars, bringing with them enough wrapped packages to stocka small shop, several bottles of champagne, and their particular brand of festive energy.
“Elizabeth!” Mary’s voice carried from the drawing room. “Come quickly! Malcolm’s having an existential crisis!”
“That’s not an existential crisis,” Malcolm’s voice protested. “That’s a rational response to being abandoned by one’s brother!”
“Drama,” William observed. “I should have warned you that Malcolm tends toward the theatrical when he’s been drinking champagne before lunch.”
Elizabeth laughed and extracted herself from William’s arms with real reluctance. “Come on then. Let’s see what fresh disaster awaits.”
