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The interior of the two-storied house turned out to be far grander than Longbourn. A handsome oak staircase wound round the vestibule, its walls adorned with portraits. Mrs Bexham undertook to lead Mary to her chamber, a grand affair with a four-poster bed. Mary’s dressing room alone was bigger than the room that had been shared by Lizzy and Jane at Longbourn.

After washing away the dust of the journey, Mary joined her husband in a dining room that rivalled Netherfield’s. She was not quite sure what she would do with all this magnificence and had already begun to worry how many servants would be required to keep it all in order. The sight of her husband instantly laid all her cares away. When he spoke calmly of the parish and the tenants, she felt a pang of guilt at having dwelt on such worldly considerations. Mary straight away decided to leave the details of the running of the household to Mrs Bexham’s capable hands while she helped her husband tend to his flock.

Mary got up dutifully as the plates were being cleared away to leave her husband in solitude with his wine, but Mr Elliot would not think of it, saying he was only a social drinker. To the footman’s delight, he left the rest of his glass on the table so that he could join Mary in the withdrawing room. He had already begun to turn this large room into a much cosier affair by having some large screens set around two chairs at the fire. Nervously trying not to think of their coming night together, he opened his Bible to Song of Solomon to read aloud some of the passages he had favoured during their courtship. The tea things were brought in and cleared away. When Mrs Bexham mentioned on leaving that the chambermaid Belinda was free to wait on the mistress as she had earlier petitioned to do, Mary rose.

“Should I...?” said the husband and wife in chorus, wondering whose bed they should occupy. Both laughed nervously.

“I will come to you,” said Mary decisively before giving a deferential bob to her husband and hurrying off.

Mr Elliot had gone off to his room in solitude. On went his nightshirt but with more resolution, off came his smalls. He settled himself in bed.

Meanwhile, Mary was engaged in a silent contretemps with Belinda. Having gone off immediately she was relieved from her kitchen duties, Belinda had flown up the servant’s stairs to her mistress’s bedchamber to get all in order. Throwing open the trunk she had briefly explored earlier, the maid hastily set out Mary’s brush and toilet water before retrieving the beautiful net nightgown she had set over a chair.

Belinda’s grandmother had served as the late mistress’s tirewoman. Having obtained the post of chambermaid when the Hall was empty, Belinda was keen to show her worth and elevate her status. However, Mary took one look at Jane’s indecent gown in Belinda’s hands and declared she would be wearing her chemise to bed. This Belinda could not allow. As she brushed out Mary’s beautiful dark hair, the maid coaxed and cajoled, admiring the gossamer quality of the net and the fineness of Jane’s needlework. A London modiste could not do better! Such a clever sister!

After fifteen minutes of vigorous brushing and gentle bullying, Belinda wrought such wonders on Mary’s hair with coloured powder that the maid caused Mrs Elliot to doubt her own decision. Mary deigned to try on the gown. One look in the mirror was almost enough to ruin the whole enterprise. But Belinda was clever and slipped the silk wrap, a present from the Gardiners, onto her mistress’s shoulders quickly.

“There!” she said, having restored modesty. “Don’t you look beautiful? Now, just a single ribbon in your hair...” she said, fashioning the strip of white silk across Mary’s crown and tying it at the nape of her neck.

“Should not we plait it and tie it back?” asked Mary plaintively, having always had to deal with her own tangles.

“Not tonight, ma’am,” replied Belinda, confidently gaining the upper hand.

Mary watched in the mirror as the maid primped her long locks to fall over one shoulder.

“Lovely!” Belinda said, looking at her beautiful mistress with satisfaction and envisaging a wonderful career ahead of herself. “Off you go!” she whispered, opening the door of the dressing room and shooing her mistress out.

Mary trod barefoot across the cold floor of her bedchamber to the connecting door, an unsettling mixture of excitement and dread churning her stomach. A tentative knock on the door was answered with a summons. She slipped into her husband’s bedchamber and softly closed the door behind her. Approaching the bed, she found her husband staring at her with open-mouthed wonder. Mr Elliot had always appreciated his wife’s beauty but suddenly it seemed he was in the presence of a goddess. Heartened by her husband’s reaction, Mary turned her back to remove the silk wrap. As it slipped from her shoulders to reveal the curve of her bottom through the thin net, the clergyman nearly had an apoplexy.

“Oh, my Go..odness!” he blurted as Mary turned to face her husband, confronting him with two rosy, red nipples adorning the swell of her breasts and the neat dark triangle nestled between her snow-white thighs, barely concealed by the fine fabric.

Mr Elliot’s hand flew to his mouth at his near blasphemy and then was quickly raised to his eyes to shield them. Meanwhile his whole gut seemed to have displaced itself with a jerk by several inches as his anatomy responded to the sight before him.

Mary was distressed. “Oh, I am sorry!” she apologised, scrambling to get her arms back into the wrap, tears springing to her eyes.

“No, no!” cried Mr Elliot, aghast he had upset his wife.

Quickly swapping the hand shielding his vision for his left as if he were playing blind man’s bluff, he reached out with his right hand in the direction of his wife.

“Forgive me! You look magnificent, my dear! I am a fool! Please have patience with me!”

Mary instinctively grasped her husband’s hand, as if for succour.

What happened next neither could quite remember. It seemed their affection for one another suddenly leapt from a box to transform into something else altogether. When they woke in the morning it was to vague memories of having alternately caressed each other passionately through the night before falling asleep, only to wake up to renew the process. Mary’s gown was rucked up under her armpits while Mr Elliot could not find his at all. Whether they had actually consummated the marriage on that first night, Mr Elliot was never quite sure. But if not, then the second night certainly did the trick.

Thus began a very happy marriage.

Chapter 51: Ariston Men Hydor

Back in Mayfair, Darcy had begun to miss Elizabeth as soon as she had departed for Hertfordshire. He knew this was nonsensical. Apart from their one night together after the opera, he had been parted from her every evening when she returned to her relatives in Cheapside. Her departure to Longbourn had plunged him into melancholy, which he was struggling to understand. It seemed more than her mere absence. Darcy knew he should be happy in the knowledge that they could finally live together as man and wife when Elizabeth returned from her sister’s wedding. He wondered if fear of some accident befalling Elizabeth during her journey was the cause of his anxiety, though he had never been particularly prone to worry before.

After snapping at Finn when his valet gave him a cheery good morning on the day following Elizabeth’s departure, Darcy had to admit there was something wrong.

“I am sorry, Finn. I am blue-devilled. I should be the happiest man in the world, having gained the hand of such a gem as Elizabeth. I cannot understand the sudden increase in my ill-temper.”

“I think I understand your position, sir. It is like the prize that you seek is behind glass.”

“Finn! That is the problem in a nutshell! Elizabeth has been mine but not truly mine! But why should I despair now she is finally to live here with me? Now that I am to have her constantly by my side?”