Page 98 of The Longbourn Bloodline

“You are being consulted quite sufficiently now, my dear,” Mr. Bennet interrupted smoothly. “Your daughter is kissing a remarkably wealthy gentleman within the sacred walls of church. I suggest you savor the moment.”

Elizabeth pulled away from Darcy, laughter bubbling up, pure and unrestrained. She laughed because her father was incorrigibly witty, her mother gloriously absurd, her family both mortifying and beloved, and she was, at last, married to the man who had tipped his hat to an empty lane, a man she had seen even when he could not see her.

“You tipped your hat,” she teased. “To an empty window.”

“It was not empty, because you were there.”

“You could not have seen me,” she argued. “The sun was on the glass.”

“No,” he said, his gaze intense and tender on her face as happy confusion swirled around them. “I could not see you. But I looked back anyway because I could not leave without…”

“Without saying goodbye?” Elizabeth guessed.

“Without telling you I loved you,” he said. “Even if you never heard it.”

Elizabeth lifted his hand—his strong, warm hand now irrevocably hers—and held it firmly in both of hers in front of the altar, the flowers, the vicar, and every soul in the parish of Longbourn.

“I heard it, Fitzwilliam,” she said. “I have always heard you.”

EPILOGUE: TEN YEARS

It was a truth universally acknowledged in the county of Hertfordshire that Mrs. Bennet had produced the finest crop of grandchildren in living memory, and that she took full credit for every last one of them.

Twelve, at present reckoning, counting Lydia’s Henry and Kitty’s Horatio. Five dark-haired Bennets belonged to Elizabeth and Darcy, from nine-year-old Thomas—who had inherited his mother’s gift for argument and his father’s unnerving tendency to be right—down to baby Alice, three months old and already issuing imperious decrees with a frown that proved the Darcy disposition survived any change of surname. Between these bookends marched William, Catherine, and George, each equipped with dark curls, sharp eyes, and opinions on pudding that brooked no contradiction. Mrs. Bennet, who styled them her little Griffins—dark, aristocratic, fiercely territorial—had bestowed upon them Darcy’s enormous Irish wolfhound, Caractacus, as both mascot and anchor.

And five blond Darcys—Jane and Bingley’s golden brood—exuberant, irrepressible, and radiating their father’s inexhaustible cheer, though not without their mother’s tranquil sweetness. The eldest, Charles, at nine, had already begun to display a gravity reminiscent of his uncle Darcy, a development Bingley regarded with mingled hilarity and alarm. The youngest, Mathilda, aged two, had mastered the art of saying “no” with such conviction that one suspected she had rehearsed it in utero. Bing at eight, Margaret at six, and four-year-old Rose completed the perpetually bouncing “Spaniel” team, so named for their gilded locks and for Russet, the vast Sussex spaniel who shadowed Jane’s children everywhere and was, at present, attempting to devour one of Mrs. Bennet’s commemorative sashes.

“Russet, no!” Bingley dove for the dog, missed entirely, and came up with grass in his hair. “That sash cost… Jane, how much did your mother pay for the sashes?”

“More than the sash is worth and less than your dignity.” Jane did not look up from the blanket, where she was arranging the luncheon things. “Let Russet have it. There are spares.”

“There are no spares!” Mrs. Bennet’s voice blasted across the lawn with the tenor of a military bugle. “Mrs. Hill’s niece embroidered those sashes, and I will not have them destroyed by Russet. Drop it! Charles, control your animal. Jane, why is nobody controlling the animals?”

On this particular July afternoon, the Bennet, Bingley, and Darcy clans were strewn across the Longbourn lawn, and the noise was nothing short of magnificent. Elizabeth, naturally, sat with baby Alice nestled in her arms, while Darcy reclined at her side, studying the clouds and debating whether they resembled sheep or geese.

Elizabeth thought he looked at least fifteen years younger than the man who had once arrived at Longbourn, trailing aristocratic pride and a dignity heavy enough to require porters.

“Ten children. Five ours, five Jane’s. And Mamma is counting on more. How did this happen?”

“In the usual manner, I believe. Though I confess I was not present for Jane’s contributions.”

“You are incorrigible.” But he was smiling, and when Elizabeth reached down to muss his already disordered hair, he caught her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm.

He raised himself on one elbow and counted heads, stopping at nine. “Where is Thomas?”

“He broods in the orchard,” Elizabeth explained. “William informed him the Darcys would win the tug-of-war. Thomas countered that Bennets never lose at anything. William pointed out the Bennets have never won yet, as the event hasn’t occurred—a technicality Thomas found unforgivably pedantic.”

“He takes after you.”

“I debate broader principles, not minor quibbles,” Elizabeth retorted.

A tremendous crash punctuated the air. Caractacus, spotting Russet with the disputed sash, intervened with enthusiasm, sending two chairs and a precarious tea table flying in defense of Griffin honor.

“That wolfhound,” Bingley said, emerging from the wreckage with a bent spoon, “is a menace. And clearly cheating. She must weigh six stone.”

“Cara weighs four,” Elizabeth said placidly. “Russet weighs three. The difference is negligible.”

“The difference is decisive. If the Griffins are permitted a wolfhound, the Spaniels should be permitted two dogs.”