“He was petrified,” Fitzwilliam said. “Looked like he was facing a firing squad.”
Everyone was silent, and Darcy groaned. “Too soon.”
Fitzwilliam grimaced. “I meant it as a compliment. It was a lovely ceremony.”
“Oh, it was inspiring,” Mark said dryly, attempting to resume their former levity. “Right up until I realized thatmytwin sisterandmy elder sister are now married women and will—presumably—be spending the night accordingly.”
Bingley choked on his drink.
Darcy, startled, raised an eyebrow.
“I didnotneed to think about that,” Mark said with a shudder. “Someone distract me immediately.”
“That can be arranged,” Fitzwilliam replied. “I believe one of the Lucas girls has made eyes at you twice now.”
“I think she is fourteen,” Mark muttered. “Heaven help me.”
Darcy allowed a small smile as the others laughed, but most of his attention remained elsewhere.
Across the room, Elizabeth stood surrounded by women—Jane beside her, radiant and glowing, as Mrs. Gardiner spoke with two matrons and a Miss Withers asked to see her wedding gloves for the third time.
Elizabeth was laughing.
Her head tipped back, eyes crinkling, mouth wide with joy.
She was dressed in her wedding gown still, the flowers from her hair tucked behind one ear having fallen forward slightly to trail over the curve of her cheek. The soft green of the embroidery on her bodice caught the golden light. She moved with such ease now, such lightness.
And she kept glancing at him.
Again and again, her eyes found his.
Each time, his breath caught. It was as if her gaze tethered him to the room. To her. To the certainty that whatever else may come, she washis. Not just in name. Not just in law.
She caught him looking again and raised her brow in a silent tease, her lips twitching with mirth. He tilted his head slightly, returned the smile.
How had he ever believed himself capable of indifference? Of restraint?
He had never loved anyone so wholly in his life.
Across the room, Jane could not stop smiling—her hand resting lightly on Bingley’s arm. Georgiana stood beside them, pink-cheeked and happy. Lydia was twirling a younger cousin near the fire, Kitty fussing over one of the Gardiner children who had lost a glove.
It was warm. Loud. Slightly disordered.
Darcy had never seen anything so perfect.
Bingley leaned over and said, “Still certain you want this?”
Darcy looked back at his wife, still laughing, still glorious.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “More than anything.”
∞∞∞
After hours of laughter, toasts, music, and clinking glasses, the last guests had at last been bundled into carriages. Farewells had been shouted, coats fetched, and sleepy children gathered from corners and carried off. The day had stretched from weddingbreakfast well into the edges of supper, and Elizabeth’s cheeks ached from smiling.
Mrs. Hurst had proclaimed that everyone would be given wedding suppers on trays in their own rooms.
“No one wishes to linger in dining rooms on a night like this,” she had said with just the right amount of twinkle in her eye. “Privacy, after all, is a wedding gift in itself.”
