“Oh,” Georgiana added, though laughing herself, “that is the other thing. You are far too… how shall I put it? You simply cannot have so much fun. It is positively uncivilised! And what can you see in my dowdy brother, anyway?”
Elizabeth considered how to answer. “What do I see? I seehim. It is not as if he checked off some magical list of requirements. Never in a hundred years would I have expected to love him when I first met him, but he just… I do not know; he just became a part of me. Jane, you know, I have never seen her so happy. She adores her Mr Bingley, but I cannot say I feel the same for William. He is air to me—life and being, joy and even sorrow, all made alive in one person. Jane smiles, but I laugh. Even through pain, I feel like Heaven is within my grasp, and I can finally be complete.”
Georgiana blinked. “Wow,” she breathed.
“‘Wow?’” Elizabeth repeated. “Is Miss Darcy of Pemberley even permitted to know such a word?”
“Only if I pretend I learned it from you.”
“It is no good, for I just overheard you,” William said from the doorway. He entered, bestowing a dazzling smile on Elizabeth and even a wink of good humour for his sister. He caught Elizabeth’s hand to kiss it and then made a show of shaking his head in disapproval.
“She says she wishes to study music in America,” he pronounced with a click of his tongue. “I wonder what further shocks I shall have to endure after she returns.”
The girl shrugged nonchalantly as she rose to greet her brother. “After a year or two of marriage to her, you will be quite inured to anything I would be able to devise.”
“Georgiana…” he warned.
“Oh, leave off, William. Elizabeth knows I am only teasing, though I am not very good at it yet. Now, go on, I will leave you to your canoodling.”
“Georgiana! We are hardly… whatever you imply,” he protested. “Where are you going?”
She stopped and gave her brother a mischievous look. “I shall probably have to go riding. There is hardly a safe room in this house at the moment.”
He turned back to Elizabeth with a look of bemusement. “A salty maid she has become of late.”
Elizabeth captured the sides of his face between her hands. “And do not try to persuade me that you are unhappy about it. She is… easier than she used to be.”
He nodded and turned his head just enough to brush her thumb with his lips. “She is. Sassier than when she was younger, but much happier than she has been all the last year.”
“William, I know it was not my affair at the time, but I never learned what came of all that—her intent to run away with Mr Wickham, I mean. She has seemed less guarded and apprehensive of late. Are her troubles truly behind her? Is… is that man gone for good?”
His lips thinned, and he pulled her hand to his chest. “I hope so, but I did not steal precious minutes alone with you to talk about George Wickham. I have just come from telling my cousin about our engagement. You may now expect to be descended upon in a frenzy of excitement by my aunt, Lady Matlock, and probably even Anne. I do hope you have the fortitude for it all.”
Elizabeth laughed as William tugged her into an impromptu waltz across the room, one hand cupping her lower back and the fingertips of the other sliding suggestively down her inner arm from her wrist to her elbow. “The earl did not object?” she asked breathlessly.
He stopped them and drew her closer, pressing a kiss into the ticklish spot at the edge of her hairline. “Of course, he did, but I carried my way.”
“William, I do not wish to be the cause of any rift in your family. I know they hoped for a better match for you. Perhaps it would be wiser for us to wait…”
He touched his fingers to her lips. “You are not causing any rift. Reginald was at least as protective of your happiness as he was my prospects.”
“He… he was?”
“Did you not know? He thinks of you as his little sister now. If I had not caught him by surprise, he would have had a dizzying lecture prepared. He did raise one valid concern, though.”
“Hmm? What was that?” Elizabeth was finding it increasingly difficult to respond sensibly, for it seemed every third or fourth word, William discovered some new little way of caressing her—innocent teases, but one after another, they were turning her knees to jelly and her senses to mush. Was the room becoming hotter?
He bent to lightly taste her lower lip, then straightened and led her to the sofa, his expression now serious. “My love, shall you be happy when I drape you in furs and jewels and escort you to galas and balls?”
She laughed. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“That means it will be a vastly different life for you. Different even from what you have known so far. To become the new mistress of an ancestral estate, to take your place in London society—such a position is not without its charms, but with it comes an equal measure of duty and perhaps even distress.”
She reached up to caress his cheek. “I am sure that the wife of Fitzwilliam Darcy will have ample sources of pleasure to compensate for any minor irritation.”
“I will most certainly see to that. What is your first request? Flowers? Pearls?”
“A little more of this will do nicely.”
