Page 62 of Courting Elizabeth

No one remarked upon it. Yet Richard glanced at Elizabeth’s slightly disheveled coiffure, then at me, and smiled in a way that made me want to send him back to his regiment at dawn.

Later, when the last guests had departed, Elizabeth stopped at the foot of the stairs.

“Good night, Fitzwilliam.”

I looked at the stairs leading to our chambers, then at her face.

“Good night.”

She went up alone.

The door remained closed that night.

I did not consider it a failure.

For the first time, she had told me she was moving toward me.

I was finally humble enough to understand that the journey mattered as much as the arrival.

Chapter 15

ELIZABETH

I knew Fitzwilliam had spoken to Colonel Forster when Lydia wrote that some tiresome officer had taken it upon himself to question Mr Wickham’s intentions.

The letter arrived two weeks after we had settled at Pemberley. Lydia devoted three indignant lines to the matter, then six pages to the prospect of leaving for Brighton with Mrs Forster. She mentioned no danger. She saw balls, uniforms, the sea, and freedom from our father’s distracted supervision.

I reread the letter in the small morning room.

“She’s going,” I said.

Fitzwilliam set down his newspaper.

“Your father has given his consent?”

“He seems to find it less tiring than keeping her at Longbourn.”

Anger tightened my throat. I loved my father. I also knew his weakness: he preferred to laugh at an imprudence rather than make the effort to prevent it.

“I can write to Forster again,” Fitzwilliam offered.

“He cannot refuse his wife’s company to a gentleman’s daughter simply because you despise an officer.”

“I do not despise him. I know him.”

“The result is the same for those unaware of your reasons.”

He rose and came to my side.

“Do you wish me to write to your father?”

A few weeks earlier, I would have taken this as another attempt to make decisions for my family. Now I saw he was simply asking how to proceed.

“No. He would take offense at receiving a lecture from his son-in-law.”

“Even if it is necessary?”

“Especially then.”