Page 112 of Twice Chosen

Elizabeth laughed harder.

Darcy considered whether killing one's best friend immediately after a wedding would create unnecessary paperwork.

The wedding breakfast offered its own opportunities for disaster. Mrs. Bennet cried into Lady Lucas's shoulder, Lydia insisted Georgiana dance with an officer she had never met, and Mr. Bennet told Bingley that Darcy looked as though he were attending his own execution.

Darcy heard.

"Sir."

Mr. Bennet smiled. "You are pale."

"I have just married your daughter."

"Precisely."

Elizabeth slipped into the exchange. "Papa, leave my husband alone."

The word husband changed Darcy's face.

She saw it.

So did Mr. Bennet.

His humor softened. "Very well. I shall save him for Christmas."

Later, when the carriage finally carried Darcy and Elizabeth away from Longbourn, neither spoke for several minutes.

Elizabeth watched the hedges pass.

Darcy watched her.

"You are staring again."

"I am married. It is permitted."

"Is it?"

"I have waited fifty-five years and several months for this journey."

Elizabeth laughed. "We made a similar journey before."

"Not like this."

She knew what he meant.

The first time she had left Longbourn as Mrs. Darcy she had loved him, but much of their shared life remained unknown. This time she knew the sound of his footsteps when tired, how he would look holding a newborn child, which jokes would still make him laugh at seventy, how he grieved, how he forgave, how he grew old.

And yet she did not know what this life would make of him.

That uncertainty was unexpectedly thrilling.

Elizabeth rested her head against his shoulder. "Do you think we shall quarrel differently?"

"Almost certainly."

"Good. I disliked several of the old quarrels."

Darcy kissed her hair. "So did I."