Page 42 of Twice Chosen

Her teasing vanished.

"I was holding your hand. I knew I would not remain long after you. I did not particularly wish to."

Elizabeth's eyes filled. "You should have called someone."

"Why?"

"Because you should not have been alone."

Darcy looked at her. "I was not."

She understood.

For several minutes they said nothing.

Then Elizabeth asked the question neither had wanted to approach. "Do you remember the children at the end?"

"All of them."

"Anne's hands had begun to look like mine."

"Thomas still cheated at billiards."

"He did not cheat."

"Elizabeth."

"He interpreted rules creatively."

Darcy laughed through grief. "Henry's youngest had your eyes."

"And Margaret still wrote twice a week even when she lived twenty miles away."

Their children had grown old too. Some had died before them. Their memories contained grandchildren, funerals, Christmas mornings, quarrels, reconciliations, people who now had no certainty of ever existing.

Elizabeth pressed both hands to her face. "What have we done?"

Darcy moved closer. "Nothing yet."

"But if we change things--"

"We already have."

She looked at him.

"I danced with you," he said. "That alone changed something."

Elizabeth gave a watery laugh. "Perhaps our children depended upon you insulting me first."

"Then I regret nothing."

She laughed harder.

Darcy took her hands. "Listen to me. We cannot spend this life arranging every breath to reproduce the old one. Even if we tried, we would fail. We are not the same people."

"No."

"We know too much."