Page 62 of Mr. Darcy’s Victorious Bride

"That," said Lydia, with the first grin that had felt like her own face in three months, "is what will make it so mysterious."

Kitty threw the pincushion at her.

Lydia caught it. A dozen years of the game, and she had never once caught it. She looked at it sitting in her palm, absurdly pleased. She had caught it!

Below them the pianoforte worked its slow correct way to the end of the hymn. Mama's voice rose up through the floor, triumphant, planning: and Lydia shall wear the blue, she looks best in the blue. Lydia Bennet, sixteen, lay back across her sister's knees on their old bed. She found that she was looking forward to it. Not the officers. Not the being looked at but the dancing.

Just the dancing.

EPILOGUE

The sapphire gown lay across the bed. Elizabeth stood over it with her arms crossed. Darcy waited in the doorway with his cravat in his hand and knew better than to speak first.

The ball was tomorrow. Mrs. Darter had come herself that afternoon for the last fitting, and Darcy had heard laughter through the door, twice. The gown was deep sapphire silk with the waist high and the lines clean. It was not gray. It was not lavender or dove, or any quiet color a lady wore to escape notice. Mrs. Darter had chosen it on purpose.

"Every eye will be on me," Elizabeth said.

"Yes."

"Everyone will be looking for it. The Lucases, the Longs, Lady Catherine, Miss Bingley, every gossip from here to Ware. The whole kingdom knows it exists. I said so before the Lords. They will stare at my back all evening and try to see through silk." She touched the sapphire where it would lie over the scar. "Mrs. Darter made up a gray one too, in case. She said a lady should have the choosing, both ways."

"She is right."

"You are being very careful, Fitzwilliam."

"I am married to you. I am told the two are indistinguishable."

"Braithwaite is convicted," she said at last. "He is condemned. Graves will follow him. Fenner is fled, the shop is rebuilt, the ship is a story to frighten no one. And I am standing in my own bedchamber deciding whether to spend the rest of my life dressing around him." She turned. Her eyes were bright and level. "No. That mark is not his name on me. It is the receipt, Fitzwilliam. Paid in full, and I will not hide in gray because of it. Not at my own ball, among my own people."

"Then wear it," Darcy said.

"I intend to. Mrs. Darter says a lady ought to wear what she is proud of."

She turned toward the glass and loosened the lacing of her wrapper. It slid to her hips. The scar lay low on her back, on the left side, small and pale and silvered now. Ink, his aunt would have called it. Ink is what lasts.

Darcy crossed the room. His hand rose and hovered for the space of one breath. The months since the cellar had taught him every place on her he must ask before touching. Would the flinch come?

He laid his fingertip on the brand and traced the whole small cruel shape of it.

She did not flinch. She stood warm and steady under his hand, watching him in the mirror. Then she leaned back into him with all her weight.

"You are the bravest person I have ever known," he said against her hair.

"So you said in London." Her eyes found his in the glass. "Then stop trying to protect me from things, Fitzwilliam, and let me be brave."

And Darcy laughed.

It broke out of him before he knew it was coming, a great unguarded shout of a laugh. He had not laughed like that since before his father died.

Elizabeth's face in the mirror went from arch to astonished to lit. "There you are," she said softly. "I have been wondering where they kept you."

She turned in his arms and took his face in both hands, and kissed him. It was neither gentle nor careful. The sapphire gown went onto the chair a moment later, with great disrespect, to wait for tomorrow.

The house was lit from cellars to eaves, and the music had already begun.

Elizabeth came down the great staircase of Netherfield in the sapphire gown. The hum of the hall below faltered, gathered itself, and went on. She felt the eyes go to her back, searching the sapphire silk for what it covered. The moment was smaller than its rehearsals. A glance, a widening, a whisper behind a fan. Mrs. Long looked, looked away, and looked again.

Let them look! It was a very fine scar. It had stood up in front of the House of Lords. No one's diamonds could say as much.