Page 26 of Courting Elizabeth

But I would not ask her to answer for that fear in the middle of her wedding breakfast, mere steps from her family.

I remained alone until my breathing steadied. When I rejoined the ground floor, no one could have guessed that the world had just changed a second time.

Bingley was waiting for me near the vestibule.

“The carriages are ready,” he said. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes.”

He studied me, perhaps surprised by the brevity of my response, but Elizabeth appeared at the top of the stairs before he could press further.

She wore a dark green traveling dress. Her bonnet framed a face still pale with fatigue and emotion. When she saw me, her smile wavered, as though uncertain of its welcome.

I crossed the vestibule and offered her my hand.

“Are you ready, Mrs. Darcy?”

Warmth returned to her eyes.

“I believe I am.”

I bowed over her fingers with the same care as if I had heard nothing.

She would not know I had stood behind that door.

Not today.

Perhaps never.

We took leave of her family. Mrs. Bennet wept, Lydia demanded an immediate invitation to Pemberley, and Mr. Bennet reminded me with a silent look of the promise made in his library. I received it all with calm.

In the carriage, Elizabeth settled across from me. Longbourn disappeared behind the trees.

“Fitzwilliam?”

It was the first time she had used my Christian name.

I had dreamed of hearing it from her lips. The pain did not diminish its sweetness.

“Yes?”

“You are very quiet.”

“The day has been considerable.”

She gave a slight smile.

“That is a very Darcian way of describing a wedding.”

“I shall endeavor to find a better one before London.”

She relaxed against the seat. We spoke afterward of the journey, of Georgiana, of the places where we would stop. My voice did not tremble. I denied her neither a glance nor an answer.

I kept to myself only the certainty I had acquired in the corridor at Longbourn.

I had obtained her hand.

I had not yet won her heart.