At the altar, Mr Darcy placed his sister’s hand in Lord Lofton’s. He inclined his head to the bridegroom, murmured something to his sister that drew a small bright nod from her, and stepped back. He walked to the front pew and took his seat beside Lady Catherine, on Anne’s other side.
Anne reached for her father’s hand, and Mr Darcy took it without looking. Lady Catherine did not react. The three of them sat in a row, and from Elizabeth’s pew at the back of the church the arrangement was perfectly symmetrical and perfectly false.
The rector began.
Elizabeth heard the words without hearing them.
The rector pronounced them married, the newly-weds turned, and the organ swelled. The couple began their procession back down the aisle with the slow, grateful pace of two people who had survived a ritual designed to unnerve them. Lord and Lady Matlock followed, then Mr Darcy, with Anne’s hand in his, and Lady Catherine behind them.
They passed Elizabeth’s pew.
Mr Darcy did not turn his head this time.
Anne did. She had been instructed not to, but her small, serious face lifted, and her eyes found Elizabeth. She offeredthe tiniest, gravest nod, the way one professional acknowledged another across a crowded room.
Elizabeth nodded back.
The Pulteney Hotel in Piccadilly was the finest in London, the same establishment that had hosted the Tsar four years earlier. Its private salon, engaged for the Darcy-Lofton wedding breakfast, glittered with crystal and silver. Eighty guests moved through the room in a slow, elegant current of silk and superfine, their voices rising and falling beneath the high ceiling. Champagne flowed from silver coolers, and the long tables groaned under platters of lobster, quail, and early strawberries arranged with mathematical precision.
Darcy performed his role solely out of habit. He accepted congratulations from men whose names he forgot the moment they were spoken. He smiled when required, inclined his head when addressed, and raised his glass with the appropriate frequency. The champagne was excellent—dry, golden, imported at considerable expense—and he drank too much of it on an empty stomach. He felt none of it.
Richard remained at his side for most of the morning, a solid, reassuring presence. He read Darcy with the ease of lifelong familiarity.
“You are elsewhere, cousin,” he murmured during a lull between well-wishers.
Darcy did not deny it. “I am precisely where I am required to be.”
Richard’s mouth curved. “Physically, yes. Mentally, you are in Grosvenor Street. Or perhaps in a certain nursery. Or perhaps simply with her.”
Darcy’s fingers tightened around the stem of his glass, but he made no comment.
Across the room, Lady Matlock watched him. She raised her glass in a small, private toast that was also a small, private warning. Her eyes held his for a moment longer than courtesy required, then she turned back to her conversation with the Duchess of Rutland.
Lady Catherine sat at the head table like a monument in black silk. She spoke to no one unless spoken to, and even then, her replies were brief, clipped, delivered as if she were granting an audience rather than participating in one. She had not touched her champagne.
Darcy excused himself at a quarter past two, claiming the need for air. He stepped onto the hotel balcony overlooking Piccadilly. The street below bustled with carriages, pedestrians, and street vendors calling their wares. The noise rose in a pleasant, distant hum. He rested his hands on the stone balustrade and breathed.
His thoughts drifted, unbidden, to Darcy House. Elizabeth would be there now, probably in the nursery, reading to Anne after the morning’s excitement. The image settled a fragment inside him that the champagne had failed to reach. He could almost hear her calm, patient voice, laced with that quiet humour she reserved for his daughter. He could almost see the way she tilted her head when Anne asked one of her impossible questions.
The balcony door opened behind him.
Georgiana stepped out, still in her wedding gown, the white satin shimmering in the afternoon light. She was radiant, flushed with happiness, but her eyes were sharp when they found him.
“Brother.”
She crossed to him and laid a hand on his arm. It was not a long speech, she was a bride and she had to return to her guests, but the words were simple and direct.
“Be happy, Fitzwilliam. For once, be happy.”
She squeezed his arm gently, and then she was gone, the door closing softly behind her.
Darcy remained on the balcony a few minutes longer, letting the breeze cool his face. Then he straightened his coat and returned to the salon.
The breakfast wound down with the graceful inevitability of such occasions. The bride and groom departed for Bath in Lord Lofton’s travelling carriage, showered with rice and rose petals by the assembled peerage. The guests lingered for a final glass, exchanged final compliments, and began to disperse.
Darcy returned alone to Darcy House in the late afternoon.
The entrance hall was very quiet. The staff moved with the subdued efficiency that followed a major event. Anne was asleep upstairs, exhausted, Alice reported, from the morning’s grandeur and the weight of behaving like a miniature adult for several hours.