“Forgive me. I was… admiring your work.”
She looked down at the sketch and then back at him, one brow arched. “You approve? I thought him a rather handsome chap, do you not agree?”
He grunted. “I believe I caught you studying my lips with alarming precision.”
Her mouth twitched. “You are very difficult to capture.”
“And here I thought it wasyouwho was so difficult to capture.”
She laughed and extended her hands to him. “You managed well enough.”
“I got lucky.” He crossed the room, taking her offered hands into his own.
“You call that luck?” She tossed her head, pretending to consider. “Oh, perhaps it was, at first, but I could have sworn you were almost the unluckiest man I knew.”
He pulled her in closer—close enough to brush a tender kiss to her forehead. He had dreamed of doing that for so long… “Do you know,” he whispered, “I think my luck has turned around.”
“Oh?” She lifted her face to his, just enough to draw her cheek along his. “I would not callthatluck. That was all my silly stubbornness.”
“No, there… well, yes,” he stammered. “And I shall bless your ‘stubbornness’ all the days of my life, but Elizabeth, I have news. I’ve just come from Carlton House.”
Her brows lifted in intrigue. “Oh? And what has His Highness done now?”
He took a steadying breath. “The Prince Regent has decided to restore my family’s estate and title. Pemberley is to be ours once more.”
For a moment, Elizabeth simply stared, processing the magnitude of his words. Then, a radiant smile broke across her face and she leaped into his arms. “Fitzwilliam, that is wonderful!”
He huffed as she clung to him, so tightly that it nearly cracked his ribs. “It appears His Highness found our recent... notoriety rather entertaining.”
“Oh, dear! So, our scandal is what finally moved the Prince into benevolence?”
Darcy shook his head as she pulled back to gaze up into his face. “Provoking, is it not? To think he held this power all along—and knew the truth, as well, do not forget that—and chosenowto exercise it, seemingly for his own amusement.”
She stepped closer, cupping his face with tender hands. “Let him have his amusement,” she murmured before pressing a soft, lingering kiss to his lips.
In that moment, all thoughts of the Prince and his capriciousness melted away. Darcy wrapped his arms around Elizabeth, deepening the embrace, savoring the sweetness of her affection.
After a time, he reluctantly pulled back, resting his forehead against hers. “There is something you should know,” he began hesitantly. “Pemberley... it is not what it once was. The estate will be in disrepair, the finances likely in ruin.”
Her brow creased. “What of the scoundrel who has ruined the property? Will nothing be done to him?”
Darcy lifted a shoulder. “What has he done for which anyone could prosecute him? It was his father, not he, who made the accusations against my father. The son inherited the property legally, so far as the law was interpreted. Incompetence is not against the law. Being a spendthrift is not a crime. I care nothing for Wickham—less than nothing. I swore to see the property restored, and it shall be so. That is revenge enough for me. But it will be years before Pemberley is even a shadow of its former self again. Wickham may have sold off tenant farms, damaged furnishings… I have no way of knowing the extent of it yet, but I will almost certainly have to sell the townhouse to cover debts… if it is not already sold.”
Elizabeth leaned back, a playful glint in her eye. “Fitzwilliam, have you forgot? I possess a dowry of fifty thousand pounds. That should keep us comfortable for quite some time.”
Darcy blinked, confusion knitting between his brows. “But your father—he did not approve our engagement. He may have structured your dowry… Elizabeth, you may not have access to it until you are five and twenty.”
She did not answer him immediately. Instead, she leaned in and cupped his face again, her thumb brushing once beneath his eye as though she could ease every worry from him by touch alone.
“We spoke last night,” she whispered.
His eyes searched hers.
“It was not a short conversation,” she added. “He sent for me after supper. The Duke and Duchess of Wrexham had been here—I think trying to help him perform damage control—or just contain his temper, perhaps—but they had left by then. It was just the two of us in that cold, terrible study of his.”
Darcy swallowed. “And?”
“He poured brandy for himself. Poured sherry for me. I did not want it, but I drank it anyway, and I told him everything.”
