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She dances the whole set. She does not miss a step. Kitty has taught her well. She goes down the middle with the Colonel with her cheeks pink and her wreath slipping over one ear, laughing, and he is looking down at her the whole time with an expression I have seen before. I have seen it on Mr. Bingley's face, looking at Jane. I have seen it, God help me, in the looking glass.

"Fitzwilliam," I say, very low. "Look at your cousin."

"I am looking." He sounds dazed. "Elizabeth. Is he—"

"I believe he is."

"Kitty told me so," he says slowly. "In May. She said he looks at her when she is not looking. I did not believe her."

"Kitty," I say, "has become very observant."

"Anne has taught her."

Mrs. Jenkinson sits down again, slowly, with the shawls in her lap, and watches her charge go down the dance, and after a moment she takes out her handkerchief and presses it to her eyes. I do not think it is because of the draught.

***

It is evening when we leave.

The carriage is at the door. The trunks are strapped on behind. Lowe is on the box, with an expression of profound and private satisfaction that he has not troubled to hide. Everyone comes out onto the step to see us go: Mama, weeping into Mrs. Philips's fifth handkerchief; Papa, with his hands behind his back; Jane and Mr. Bingley, who leave tomorrow for Netherfield; Kitty and Anne, arm in arm; the Colonel, standing very close behind Anne; Mr. Pettigrew, waving his hat. Georgiana, who came down from Pemberley for the wedding and has decided that she adores every Bennet without exception, even Lydia, cries harder than anyone.

Papa kisses my forehead.

"Be happy, Lizzy," he says quietly. "You have earned it twice over."

"I will, Papa."

"And write to me. I shall be very dull without you." He looks past me at Fitzwilliam. "You may write too, sir. If you like. I should enjoy your account of anything. Particularly of my daughter losing her temper."

"I shall send you regular bulletins, sir."

"Do." Papa steps back. "Go on, then. Before your mother faints again."

And we go.

The carriage pulls away. I lean out of the window and wave until the elms hide the house. Then I sit back against the squabs, and the carriage rocks, and the lane goes by in the long gold light of the summer evening, and I look across at my husband.

My husband.

He is looking at me. He has been looking at me all day. In the church, and at the breakfast, and on the step. He looks at me now as though he has been waiting all day to have me to himself for a single moment, and cannot quite believe the moment has come.

"Elizabeth," he says. "I have something for you."

He reaches under the seat and brings out a small flat parcel, done up in brown paper and tied with string.

I take it. I look up at him.

"Open it," he says.

I open it.

Inside there is a single sheet of paper, folded twice. Rosings paper; I know it by the crest. It is a little creased, as though it has been carried in a pocket for a long time. I unfold it.

The hand is his. Not his usual hand, strong and even and certain. This is a hand that slopes a little downhill toward the right, the way it did on the note he sent me from his sickbed. As though the man writing it had been sitting up against a mountain of pillows, with a book on his knee, and a bandage round his head.

At the top, it says:

Rosings. Saturday. Written down the moment she had gone, so that I shall never lose it again.