perhaps fifteen years with you before you became suspicious. That is more than five thousand days, over a hundred thousand hours, greater than two million minutes, and every one of them precious. But it was selfish of me.’
‘Not at all. I am flattered you wanted me so much,’ she said happily.
He kissed her softly on the lips.
‘Then I cannot regret it,’ he said. ‘I cannot regret anything, because everything in my life has led to this perfect moment with you.’
They lay there in companionable silence until the sun went behind a cloud, then they gathered up the picnic things and they returned arm in arm to the hunting lodge. Elizabeth played the piano. It was an old instrument and out of tune, but she found the familiar activity pleasurable and Darcy liked to listen to her.
Afterwards they settled down to write letters, Elizabeth to Jane, and Darcy to Georgiana. But as Elizabeth took up her quill she remembered something she had forgotten and turned to him in consternation.
‘When I was in the Prince’s carriage, I wrote a letter to Jane and threw it out of the window in the hope that one of the local people would see that it was sent. It said that I was being abducted and begged Jane to ask my father to enquire after me.’
‘Only you could have thought of such a thing at such a time!’ said Darcy with admiration.
‘If the letter arrives, my family will worry,’ said Elizabeth in some perturbation of spirits.
‘I will send the servants to look for it at once. Where was it?’
Elizabeth told him as well as she could.
‘If it has already been posted…?’ she began.
‘We will worry about that later. But for now, we will see if it can be found.’
He walked across the room to the fireplace and pulled the blue bell rope that hung next to it. The familiar jangling noise reached them from far off and soon one of the lodge servants appeared, quiet and respectful.
‘Mrs Darcy dropped a letter in the forest,’ Darcy said, giving the man directions. ‘Find it, if it is to be found. If not, make enquiries in the village. Bring it to me as soon as it has been discovered.’
‘Yes, Old One,’ he said with a bow, and departed.
‘Old One?’ said Elizabeth, her eyes widening. She put down her quill in surprise. ‘Then they know you for what you are?’
‘Yes, they do.’
‘But they don’t mind,’ said Lizzy wonderingly.
‘No,’ said Darcy. He walked over to the desk and took a seat beside her, sitting down on the battered but comfortable chair. ‘I did them a service once, long ago, when I saved the life of the head man of their village. He was travelling between two villages, arranging a marriage, when he was set upon and attacked by bandits. I drove them off and then saw him safely back to his village. He thanked me for my actions and invited me to make a home here, and when I accepted, he set his people to serve me. For many years I lived here and protected the village from attack. The hills and forests hereabouts are mostly safe now, but they were riddled with bandits at the time.’
‘There is so much about you I don’t know,’ said Elizabeth. ‘You are not the man I thought you were.’
‘I wish I was. I would like nothing better than to take you to Pemberley and for us to live out our lives as you wanted, as you expected… as you had every right to expect.’
The mood had become more sombre. The subject they had so carefully avoided had risen despite their best efforts to keep it down and now it would not be denied.
‘What are we going to do?’ asked Elizabeth, looking at him sadly.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I only know that I want us to be together.’
‘You no longer want me to go away?’
‘No, I could not bear it if you did. But you, what do you want? Do you still want to come home to Pemberley?’ His voice was controlled but she could hear the emotion underneath. ‘I will release you from our marriage if that is your wish. You did not know what you were marrying in the church all those months ago in Meryton.’
‘The church,’ said Elizabeth, remembering. ‘How were you able to enter it? And how are you able to wear the cross I gave you?’
‘It is not my weakness,’ he said. ‘Every vampyre family has a different weakness.