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She did not ask what he meant. He knew, even; the idea of another apoplexy must be a fear she lived with, had accepted would be a part of her life when she agreed to be his bride. He had ensured her settlement was more than ample, had done everything he could to better safeguard her future as well as Georgiana’s. It would never be enough.
“Would…be harder now,” he tried to explain. “Lost…all once…but I had nothing then…in comparison. To…lose all…after having…everything.” He clenched his teeth against the very thought.
“What do you see now? Right this minute,” she asked quietly.
He felt some surprise at her question but answered anyway. “The front…expanse of Pemberley. A good deal…of snow. A…silly snow-gentleman.”
“That is because you are trying to look too far out,” she said. “What do you see before you?”
He brought his eyes back to the glass itself, mere inches away. The firelight showed their reflections in it, ghostly images mirrored within the panes—two people, merged and entwined, becoming one.
“I…see us,” he replied.
She tilted her head up to brush her lips against his jaw. “Let us hold no rehearsals for some possible, imagined future tragedy. We will look at what we have here and now, right in front of us, and rejoice instead.”
She was right, of course. And ever so fortunately, right here, and he was the man who held her. “I could…look at you…at us…forever,” he told her.
Elizabeth turned within his arms, her soft, sweet hands tantalising upon his bare chest. “Then look. Touch. Love me again now. And press on with me, always.”
And so, he did.
The End
