Page 5 of Twice Chosen

Her eyelids felt impossibly heavy. "Fitzwilliam?"

His voice softened immediately. "Yes, my love?"

"If there is another life... find me sooner."

Something broke briefly in his expression. He lifted her hand to his lips and kept it there. "Always."

Elizabeth smiled. Her breathing slowed. Outside the windows, snow continued falling over Pemberley.

Her final thought was absurdly ordinary.

She had forgotten to tell Mrs. Harold, the new housekeeper, that the chimney in the blue room required inspecting.

Then there was nothing.

Darcy remained beside her until evening. Georgiana's eldest daughter came to the door twice. The first time Darcy merely shook his head. The second time he said quietly, "Not yet, Anne," and she understood and left him.

Someone lit the candles. Someone brought a tray. Darcy touched none of it. At last he lay down beside Elizabeth and placed his hand over hers. Her fingers were cold. Impossible.

Her spectacles remained on the little table beside the bed. Her embroidery rested in its basket near the window. The ridiculous china spaniel she had purchased in Bath because he had called it hideous still sat upon the mantel. How could a room contain so much of a person when the person herself had gone?

Darcy closed his eyes. "Find you sooner," he whispered.

A pain spread through his chest. He drew one breath, then another. His hand remained over Elizabeth's. His thumb moved once, twice, three times.

I am here.

The darkness came gently.

Chapter Two

Four Days Before the Assembly

Fitzwilliam Darcy woke because someone was pounding on a door.

"Darcy?"

His eyes opened. Bright sunlight streamed across the bed. No snow. Darcy stared at the ceiling. The knock came again, followed by Charles Bingley's unmistakable voice. "Darcy? Are you awake?"

The door opened before he could answer and Bingley entered.

Young Bingley.

Twenty-three years old. His hair was thick and bright, his face completely untouched by age, and the coat he wore was one Darcy vaguely remembered Bingley ruining after falling from a horse during their first autumn at Netherfield.

Darcy stopped breathing.

Bingley's smile disappeared. "Good God, Darcy. You look dreadful."

"Charles?"

"Yes?"

Darcy looked down at his hands. Young hands. No swollen joints. No age spots. The scar across his left knuckle from a hunting accident at forty was gone.

He threw back the covers.

Bingley stepped forward. "Darcy?"