Page 37 of Twice Chosen

One may know a road and still choose where to place one's feet.

Elizabeth stared.

The sentence was not printed. Darcy had written it in his own hand.

Her hands began to shake.

He had said those exact words at sixty-five when their son Henry asked whether foreknowledge would have prevented a disastrous business investment.

No coincidence could reach that far.

Elizabeth closed the book.

Tomorrow.

She would know tomorrow.

After their discovery, they found it almost impossible to part normally. Darcy should have bowed and returned to Netherfield. Elizabeth should have gone back to Longbourn with some plausible explanation for spending nearly two hours walking.

Instead they stood at the edge of the lane like foolish young lovers.

Which, Elizabeth supposed, they were.

"Go," she said.

Darcy did not move.

"William."

"You first."

"This is my neighborhood."

"I am aware."

"Then you are the intruder."

"I have ten thousand a year. I am rarely considered an intruder."

Elizabeth stared, then laughed so loudly a farm boy farther down the lane looked back.

"There," she said. "That is the arrogant man I remember."

Darcy smiled. "Reassuring?"

"Oddly."

He grew serious. "Elizabeth, what if you wake tomorrow and this is gone?"

The fear was so naked that her laughter vanished.

She took his hand. "Then tonight happened."

"That is not enough."

"No."

"I have already lost you once."