Page 147 of The Difference of a Darcy
The world held its breath.
∞∞∞
For a long moment he could not move.
Elizabeth stood across the frozen stream, her breath pale in the winter air, her eyes wide with the same astonishment that held him rooted to the spot.
He took a hesitant step forward, unsure whether she was a vision conjured by his desperate mind. She bit her lip, just as she always did when uncertain, and the small, familiar gesture pierced him like light through darkness.
He took another step. She did the same.
When she raised her hand toward him, he noticed that she wore no gloves. Her fingers trembled in the cold.
“Are your hands not cold?” he asked softly. His voice sounded foreign in his own ears, rough and low from disuse.
Then he saw it.
Around her finger—fragile, green, and impossibly real—was the flower.
The snowdrop.
The breath went out of him. He stared, unable to speak, every muscle frozen between disbelief and wonder.
She followed his gaze, looked down—and gasped. Her eyes flew up to his, wide with comprehension.
They stared at one another, the truth dawning between them like sunlight breaking through cloud.
“You remember?” he whispered, taking a step nearer.
“I do,” she breathed, her voice trembling. “Do you?”
He did not answer with words.
In two strides he was across the narrow strip of frozen ground, his hands closing around her before thought could catch up with motion. The instant his mouth met hers, the world vanished.
Every ounce of desperation, of fear, of sleepless longing poured into that kiss. All the nights he had lain awake wondering if their experience together was real, all the mornings he had awakened with her—they found their release now. Her lips were soft, warm, alive beneath his, and when she kissed him back, he thought his heart might burst.
She made a small sound—a quiet, breathless sigh that undid him utterly. Her hands found his hair, sliding through it, holding him to her. He drew her closer still, the ache in him fierce and sweet, every muscle yearning toward her as though to prove she was flesh, not dream.
He pulled her tightly against him, needing her near enough that the chill of the morning could never touch her again—
—and something hard pressed sharply between them.
He stilled.
Confused, he reached down, sliding his hand between them to his front coat pocket. His fingers closed around something smooth and cool.
He drew it out and stared.
The pebble.
The same small, gray stone she had given him beside the river at Pemberley.
∞∞∞
Elizabeth could hardly think. The world seemed to have narrowed to the circle of his arms and the taste of his kiss. When he drew back, she was trembling—partly from the cold, mostly from the force of feeling that still coursed through her.
Then he reached into his pocket, his brow furrowing, and drew out something small.
