Page 70 of Darcy's Guarded Heart
Elizabeth grinned. “I’m not so certain Caroline Bingley includes us in her family circle.”
“Then I shall consider that a blessing,” he said dryly. “I have all the family I want and need.”
Her smile softened. “Fitzwilliam… I do not merely admire you.”
He looked at her with gentle wonder.
“I love you,” she whispered.
He took her face in his hands and kissed her, gently but with every ounce of feeling he had tried to restrain for months. And she kissed him back, her heart full.
Epilogue
Pemberley, Derbyshire
Two Years Later
It was spring at Pemberley. The trees had burst into bloom, the garden beds glowed with tulips and daffodils, and the soft breeze carried the scent of freshly cut grass. The hills in the distance were lush and green, and the sky was the kind of blue that rarely lasted long in Derbyshire—but when it came, it transformed everything.
Elizabeth Darcy sat on the veranda with a cup of tea in one hand and a letter in the other, sunlight warming her shoulders as she looked out over her estate—hersnow, for this was her second spring as mistress of Pemberley. She had once thought the place too grand, too intimidating. But she had grown into it, and it into her.
At her side sat her husband, reading a newspaper—though not aloud, as the scandal sheets still occasionally made unfounded remarks about their family, and Elizabeth had no patience for nonsense before her second cup of tea.
The letter she held, however, had nothing scandalous in it—at least, not intentionally. She smiled and set it down.
“You are amused,” Darcy remarked, setting his paper aside.
Elizabeth nodded. “Charlotte writes. She is with child at last, and Mr Collins is overjoyed. Though Lady Catherine continues to interfere with alarming regularity.”
Darcy gave a dry chuckle. “It sounds like an exhausting arrangement.”
“Entirely so,” Elizabeth agreed. She reached for her tea. “She says that Lady Catherine is now offering advice on nursery colours and insists the baby be named after her.”
Darcy raised a brow. “Catherine Collins? I cannot think of a child who would deserve such a fate.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Charlotte is far too clever to allow it, I’m certain.”
They sat for a quiet moment. Birds chirped in the hedge nearby. Somewhere in the distance, a gardener called to his boy. Elizabeth breathed deeply, letting the scent of honeysuckle and lemon balm fill her lungs.
“Do you miss her?” she asked softly. “Your aunt?”
Darcy looked thoughtful. “I was greatly angered at first,” he admitted. “And then… simply disappointed. But I’ve come to believe that time will settle what pride refuses to acknowledge. Change is rarely accepted easily by those who fear it.”
Elizabeth looked at him. “And yet it hasn’t settled. Not with her.”
“No,” he said. “But I did receive a letter from my uncle the Earl last week.”
She turned towards him fully now, brows raised.
“He has invited us both to Matlock,” Darcy said evenly. “No mention of scandal or shame—just an invitation. He wrote that he had heard how ‘charming little Margaret is’ and would like to meet her.”
Elizabeth’s face softened. “Well, he isn’t wrong. Anyone would be charmed by her.”
Darcy took her hand and squeezed it gently. “I thought… if the next child is a boy, we might name him Henry, after my uncle. As a gesture of reconciliation.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Henry is my father’s middle name. It would suit perfectly.”
They sat quietly for a moment more, content.
