“We so vow,” said Elizabeth. “But I fear I must tell you something.”
“What?” said Caroline, looking shocked.
Elizabeth giggled. “I hate being called Eliza.”
Caroline let out a loud guffaw. “You do? But you have allowed me to call you that only a thousand times, you churl!”
“I know, and I said nothing, and I cannot keep it in. But if we are to vow this solemn vow, I can no longer keep my silence,” she bellowed.
Both girls dissolved in giggles.
“I shall never say it again,” said Caroline, giggling wildly, groping for her glass of wine. “Oh, we must toast to our vow, seal it with a drink.”
“Yes, yes,” said Elizabeth, getting her own glass. She lifted it aloft. “To never calling me Eliza!”
“To loyalty,” said Caroline, laughing so hard that she spilled her wine.
Elizabeth clinked her class against the other woman’s. “To loyalty,” she breathed.
Their laughter died out.
They held each other’s gaze and they both drank long and deep.
There was no sound but the fire crackling beside them.
CHAPTER NINE
HER WEDDING WASa whirlwind. Elizabeth felt as if she barely had any chance to take it all in. It came and went through her, and then the wedding breakfast—held at Netherfield—was all boisterousness and too many conversations to count, and then it was the evening, and then it was her wedding night.
Mr. Darcy himself had been sort of a figure on the periphery all day.
They had stood together in front of the church, of course, but she had mostly looked at the vicar as she had steadfastly repeated her vows. Sometimes, couples kissed at the end of the ceremony, but she and her new husband did not, as Mr. Darcy thought such a thing was improper and vulgar, and he would never engage in anything like that.
So, she had barely looked at him during the entire ceremony. She had walked up the aisle with him afterwards, her hand resting on his arm, but she had kept her gaze forward so as to see where she was walking.
Then, during the breakfast, they had been separated more often than not. She had a few moments in her mind, looking up and finding his gray and stormy eyes resting upon her, and then being called away by some well-wisher who talked to her of how beautiful the wedding had been, how lovely her dress was, how nice the spread was set, and weren’t they blessed with such pleasant weather?
So, now, it was right down to it, and there had only been the kiss at the engagement and then, the kisses by the tree, and otherwise, otherwise very little time alone, let alone touching.
Elizabeth knew what was going to happen, of course, and it was going to be very, well, bare, and she was nervous. She had use of Jane’s maid to get into her shift, a fancy diaphanous thing, for the event itself. Her hair fell down her back and her shift fell over the curves of her body, nothing at all beneath it, and she bounced on her toes as she looked herself over in the mirror.
She was not exceedingly plain, she supposed, but she was no rare beauty.
Something about her had made him want her, and she had no notion what it was. Certainly, she knew how she’d used it to force him to ask for her hand, but that first moment, when he had seen her across the street and started for her, before the sight of Mr. Wickham had stopped him… what had made him want her?
She stopped bouncing to puzzle over Mr. Wickham.
She knew he was still about town, of course. Lydia saw him with Mr. Denny, but Elizabeth had not been in Meryton without the company of Mr. Darcy on any occasions that she could remember, and when Mr. Darcy was present, Mr. Wickham was not, as a general rule.
She wondered what the truth of all of that was.
The fact that Mr. Wickham stayed clear of her new husband could be down to his resentment of the other man, of course, but it also might mean something else.
Oh, why was she thinking about Mr. Wickham at a time like this?
She paced in the bedchamber, wondering if she had gotten the wrong impression of the way the evening was to progress. She had thought her husband was coming to her. Perhaps she was meant to go to him. If that was the case, then she needed to put something on over this shift. She could not walk about the halls in it. It was utterly indecent.
She was about to ring for the maid and ask if she wasmeant to go to Mr. Darcy when there was a hesitant knock at the door.
