Elizabeth leaned back against the cushions, her hand still resting in Darcy’s.
The journey had begun.
∞∞∞
Four days later, the carriage at last turned into the familiar drive of Netherfield.
Elizabeth had scarcely waited for it to come to a full stop before she opened the door and flew out, oblivious to the exclamations of the others at her lack of decorum.
“Jane!”
The two sisters met halfway between the steps and the carriage, falling into each other’s arms with tears and laughter.
“Oh, Lizzy! How I have missed you.”
For a moment, nothing else existed. Tears filled Elizabeth’s eyes as she realized just how much she had missed her sister, and just how badly she had been affected by not being able to stand up together or even bid one another farewell.
But something felt… different.
Elizabeth drew back slightly, her eyes dipping down to her sister’s abdomen. “Jane,” she whispered, “are you…?”
She did not finish the question; she did not need to. Jane’s cheeks bloomed with color, her eyes shining as she gave the smallest, most radiant nod. Elizabeth let out a soft, incredulous laugh—and pulled her sister into another embrace.
“Oh, Jane,” she whispered, pressing her cheek to hers. “I am so very, very happy for you.”
Behind them, the others were descending, greetings beginning, servants moving to and fro with well-practiced efficiency. But Elizabeth hardly noticed.
When at last the two sisters were drawn apart, it was only because they were gently—but firmly—ushered inside by their husbands.
“You must be wishing to freshen up before dinner,” Jane said. “Will an hour be sufficient?”
“More than enough,” Elizabeth replied, though her hand lingered in Jane’s for a moment longer before releasing it.
She quickly made use of the basin in the corner to wash her face, then changed swiftly into a clean gown. As she stared in the vanity mirror while her maid completed arranging her hair, her attention wandered.
The familiar corridors of Netherfield had seemed at once unchanged and entirely different—echoes of memory layered over the present. She had walked these halls once before under very different circumstances, anxious and uncertain, her thoughts consumed by her sister’s illness and her own place in a house that was not her own.
Now—
Now she returned as a wife.
“Do you remember your first night here, when Jane was ill?”
Elizabeth smiled and looked in the mirror back at her husband, who stood in the doorway connecting their two rooms.
“Of course I do,” she exclaimed. “I could never forget the expression on Caroline Bingley’s face when she saw me.”
He winced. “That situation was… unfortunate.”
“That is one way of saying it,” she said. “Although it certainly gave me a rapid insight into your character, as well as Mister—that is, as well as Bingley’s. I still cannot call him Charles yet.”
“Well, I had never been so… unsettled. I was attracted to you, and I idly wondered how my ancestors would feel if I were to marry someone like you.”
“Impertinent and mischievous?” she said with a coy smile, batting her eyes at her.
He grinned. “Well, yes, in part… but mostly due to religion.”
She opened her mouth to respond, but he waved it off and said, “Allow me to finish, my dear. It was quite a surprise for me to realize that all my logic could hardly repress my urges to go to your room.”
