Page 151 of Twice Chosen

"Would you say it again?"

She studied him.

Then shook her head. "No."

Darcy's brows rose.

Elizabeth took his hand. "You already did."

His eyes filled.

She stroked his knuckles once, twice, three times.

I am here.

Darcy died two days later in his own bed with Elizabeth beside him.

No sudden darkness took her.

No younger body waited.

Elizabeth remained.

At first she was angry.

Then she laughed at herself for being angry.

"You always did ruin my expectations," she told the empty side of the bed.

She lived another year.

Long enough to see spring.

Long enough to watch the hawthorn finally come down after a storm split the trunk.

Matthew asked whether she wished to save the wood.

Elizabeth smiled. "A small piece. Your father will complain otherwise."

Matthew laughed. "Father wanted it cut down for sixty years."

"Longer."

He gave her a curious look.

Elizabeth merely smiled.

A craftsman made a small box from the soundest part of the wood.

Elizabeth kept Darcy's last letter inside it.

She did not read it often.

She knew every word.

On her final morning she sat by the library window rather than in bed. Clara was with her. So was Eleanor. Matthew had gone to fetch a shawl and returned to find his mother smiling at something outside.

"What is it?" Clara asked.