Page 87 of Shipwrecked with Mr Darcy

The name—Mrs Darcy—spoken in this hall carried the immense weight of centuries of history. Elizabeth felt the sudden, heavy truth of her new position.

“Thank you, Mrs Reynolds,” Elizabeth replied gracefully. “Fitzwilliam has told me that you have managed this great house with distinction for thirty years. I shall rely heavily on your guidance.”

Mrs Reynolds beamed, her strict posture softening. “It is our greatest joy to have you here, madam. The household is at your disposal.”

Darcy offered the housekeeper a rare, genuine smile. “I believe Pemberley is in excellent hands, Mrs Reynolds.”

Pemberley was an entire world. Elizabeth had known this from her visit with the Gardiners, but walking its grand halls as the mistress was different from admiring it as a visitor.

She walked through the vast rooms with Georgiana, who had happily attached herself to Elizabeth's side. The young girl eagerly showed her the bright morning room, the grand music room, and the magnificent library.

“Your rooms are in the south wing,” Georgiana told her. “Fitzwilliam had them specially prepared.”

The suite was enormous, comprising a private sitting room, a dressing room, and a vast bedroom. The tall windows looked south over the grounds and east over the lake. It was the exact view Darcy had described to her while lying on a rough pallet in the stone tower. The reality was far more breathtaking than his quiet descriptions.

A massive four-poster bed dominated the room, draped in heavy, cream-coloured fabric that shifted gently in the breeze. The sheets were the finest white linen, stacked with deep feather pillows.

Elizabeth sat on the edge of the bed, pressing her hand into the luxurious mattress. She remembered the unforgiving hardness of the stone floor and the rough sailcloth of the island. It seemed impossible that the woman who had survived that brutal exile was now sitting on feathers in Derbyshire.

She carefully withdrew the small pink shell from her pocket and set it on the mahogany dressing table. The smooth nacre caught the late afternoon light. It sat between a heavy silver hairbrush and a crystal vase of fresh flowers, a quiet, permanent piece of the island surviving in Pemberley.

Night fell slowly over the great estate. Elizabeth had eaten dinner in the vast dining room with Darcy and Georgiana. The table was impossibly large for three people, but the warmth between them made the cavernous room feel intimate.

Georgiana soon retired, and Mrs Reynolds completed her evening rounds. The house fell quiet, settling into its heavy, two-century history.

Elizabeth walked slowly to the master suite. It was the room where she would wake every morning and sleep every night for the rest of her life.

Darcy was waiting by the window. The heavy curtains were drawn back, allowing the silver moonlight to spill across the floor. He turned when she entered. In the soft light, he looked exactly like the man she had loved on the island and married in Valletta.

“You are home,” he said softly.

“It is very large,” she whispered.

“It is.”

“It is beautiful, Fitzwilliam. But it is daunting. I am still learning how to be the mistress of all of this.”

He offered her a deep, warm smile—the same unguarded expression she had first coaxed from him on the island.

She walked to him, resting her hands against his chest and tilting her face up to his.

He kissed her — slow, certain, nothing tentative in it. He was home, and his mouth said so.

She unfastened his coat first, then his waistcoat. The buttons were small and numerous, and she worked through them with a patience she had not always possessed. On the island she had simply pulled his shirt over his head. England required layers.

“There is a great deal of you,” she said.

“The penalty of living in society,” he replied against her hair. “You may take it as a compliment to your patience.”

She removed the coat and the waistcoat and laid them over the chair. His shirt came next. She drew it from his trousers, lifted, and he helped her, and then it was gone.

She placed her hands flat on his bare chest. The scar on his side gleamed silver in the moonlight — the long line she had pressed cold cloths against during the fever, the wound she had thought might take him from her. Here it was simply part of him.

She pressed her lips to it, briefly and firmly.

He exhaled above her — short, unguarded.

She looked up. He was watching her with the expression she recognised: his formal composure set aside, nothing in his face but her. She undressed him the rest of the way. He undressed her with a deliberateness borrowed from the island — the slow attention of a man who had learnt her body over weeks and intended to reacquaint himself with every part of it.