I'll make this unlucky chapter number lucky by finally thanking reviewers, both those who have stuck with me for more than a year while I've been posting and those newbies that have joined the party to make it even more fun! As is frequently the case, my #1 reviewer for this story is Jansfamily4 with 11 reviews (She is amazing, isn't she? I don't know how she has time for anything but reading PP FF and writing reviews. You rock Jan!), followed by Guest with 9 (though I am guessing it is more than one person), and Sooty85 and liysyl tied with 7 (yay!). Then we've got M, nancyjeanne and Levenez with 4; and ArnetteinCA, mangosmum, gabyhyatt, MerytonMiss, and Windchimed with 3; thanks so much for being a four-timer or a three-peat. Then a ton of you have 2 comments: DW.618, Leslie E, Shelby66, mariantoinette1, abujoe, and SunriseImagination (Double the pleasure, double the fun. Are you all old enough to remember the commercials for Doublemint gum?). And those with 1 review, some of whom faithfully seem to read everything I write and some whom I don't remember reviewing my stories before, I appreciate you: katrianine, Jacjac, TillySnape, ElizColl, TLeighF, LizzieJS, MissImprudente, MusicAusten, PPgirl, associatedbears, Colleen S, ECM85, PixieKayGirl, Kiwipride, Debu and Motherof8.

Up next, the moment you have all been waiting for!

Chapter 13

Darcy was thrilled that he and Elizabeth escaped the Bingleys' home without anyone else trying to go on their walk. It was mostly sunny with some puffy white clouds but with some darker clouds off in the distance near the horizon. It was cool but not too cold, with a light breeze, so his medium weight coat provided plenty of warmth, although Darcy anticipated he might have to unzip it later. Elizabeth was wearing a fleece coat in a raspberry color and they both had on good athletic shoes.

Other than her mentioning, "We should keep an eye out to see if the weather turns," and his "Okay," both of them were content to be quiet as they walked. As they weren't talking, they were just hearing the crunch of their feet on the few leaves that still had some crunch in them, and the normal outdoor noises as they walked down the sidewalk, a squirrel here, a bird there, an occasional car meandering down the road.

Darcy didn't know where they were going and he wasn't sure that Elizabeth did, either, but he planned to let her take the lead if she wanted to turn off of this particular route; he had his phone in his front jeans pocket, so there was always GPS (assuming he could get a good signal out here), but he had switched it to vibrate as he didn't want distractions, but wanted to be reachable if some disaster happened. They walked for a mile or so past various pastel colored houses until the scenery changed to just grass and trees and the sidewalk ended.

Elizabeth turned right to follow the side of the road up a hill. Darcy noted the name of the road they turned off of, Pine Avenue, and the one they turned onto, Meadow Creek Road. He thought it might be helpful for finding their way back. Elizabeth handled the uphill walk with ease, seemingly walking as quickly as ever, while Darcy found himself having to push himself to keep up. How does she do this so effortlessly when she is so much shorter than me? he wondered.

Darcy still wasn't sure where they were going, but Elizabeth seemed decisive in her choice of a destination when the road forked and she followed the narrower left branch, which was labeled Little Lane. By now, Darcy had unzipped his coat and he was pondering whether to remove it and just carry it for a bit, when Elizabeth slowed.

Darcy could see her dilemma. The road had ended. Just before the end, there was a turn off to the right in the form of a thin paved strip just wide enough for a single car that appeared to be the long driveway of a house in the distance and ahead, past the squared off end of crumbling blacktop, there was what might be a thin path through what appeared to be a natural forest. The path, if that was what it was, was completely covered in leaves.

Planted to the side of the trail head was a squared off wooden post; if a sign had once been attached to it, which seemed likely from the stains on the post, it was missing now. The trail wove between tall trees with thick trunks. As the trees were bare of leaves, Darcy could still see for a bit until the path curved up toward the hill.

"Shall we?" Elizabeth asked.

Darcy wondered if they would be trespassing on private property by following the path, but he didn't want to be that guy, the stick in the mind that Gigi sometimes complained he was. He also didn't want to remain standing there if Elizabeth decided she wanted to keep exploring on her own. "Okay."

There was only room to walk single file, so Darcy followed after Elizabeth. He regretted that her fleece coat covered so much of her, so there was less view to admire, although her jean clad legs were rather nice.

The crunch of the leaves was much louder than before and within a couple of minutes it seemed to Darcy that they were completely alone in the world. They walked onward at a slower pace than when following the road. He was glad for that, because there might be hazards concealed by the leaves.

Elizabeth seemed very certain of the path she was taking and Darcy noticed that while the path seemed to veer this way and that, seemingly based upon the inconvenient placement of some of the largest trees, that the path was more or less a straight-shot, although it curved a little to the right. He was reassured that they would not get lost, at least not as long as they stuck to this path.

It seemed to Darcy that the trees were starting to thin, when Elizabeth slowed and then pulled up, ahead of him and to the right. Darcy quickly caught up, moving past two trees to find there was indeed a clearing up ahead. Darcy didn't know what he had been expecting, but what they found was not it.

In a roughly square area inside the larger irregularly shaped clearing, there was a short spiked fence of perhaps three feet of height. It was rusty and parts of it seemed to be in danger of collapsing. Elizabeth was paused right outside the fence, looking in. The space was immediately identifiable as a small graveyard, likely a family one. There were perhaps a dozen stone markers in various states of disarray. Darcy guessed the markers were more than one hundred years old.

When Darcy reached Elizabeth, he noticed that she was right in front of the gate. Apparently the purpose of the path was to lead to this very graveyard. He noted that the gate wasn't locked, although there was a latch and loop where a lock might have once been placed. Elizabeth said, "I want to get a closer look." She pryed the latch and loop apart, but even after that, the gate rattled with the fence, rather than opening. "I think it's rusted together," Elizabeth opined.

"Let me try," Darcy suggested. Elizabeth moved out of the way for him. She watched as he grasped the gate with one hand and the fence with the other. Darcy's jaw was stiff with determination and effort as he pushed and pulled. Finally, with a screechy groan, the gate pulled open.

Elizabeth walked through, with Darcy right afterward her. He left the gate open.

Elizabeth paused and looked up at the sky. "We shouldn't stay too long, I think we have rain clouds heading our way." Darcy looked up and noticed that now there were far many clouds than before and they were darker, too.

Elizabeth turned her attention to the markers and asked, "Who do you suppose these people were?"

Darcy walked toward the nearest marker, making sure to pick a path between the likely graves, knowing it was poor etiquette to walk on someone's grave. Between two stones, he bent down toward the newer looking stone. He pulled dead long pieces of grass and weeds away. The letters were slightly crooked, as if carved by hand, but the blackened stone was in good shape and he was able to make out the inscription. "Adam Eugene Brown, 1872 to 1918."

Elizabeth squatted down to the side of the marker to the right of his. It was slightly smaller and tipping backwards. She went to work pulling dead plants away. "If I'd known we were doing yard work, I would have brought some shears and gloves, maybe a nice little spade, too."

When Elizabeth had cleared the marker, which roughly matched the other stone, she read, "Mary Beth Brown, 1880 to 1918." Elizabeth then commented, "That's sad. She wasn't even forty. Didn't you say he also died in 1918? I wonder what happened."

Darcy cast his mind back to a history program he vaguely recalled, "I think that might be when the Spanish flu was going on. It was a terrible epidemic at the time."

"Huh," Elizabeth pondered, "do you suppose they were a married couple or brother and sister?"

"I guess they could be either, but if Mary Beth was Adam's sister, she was an old maid."

"She wasn't that old," Elizabeth defended.

"She was for the time," Darcy explained, feeling like he was getting off on the wrong foot with Elizabeth once again. "When marriage was still about having kids, having help to run your farm, you were expected to marry young enough to have plenty. But I would bet they were married, and those smaller stones back there are some of their children."

Elizabeth, who saw Darcy's point and didn't want to be disagreeable, said nothing else on the topic. Instead, she stood up and walked back to a second row of smaller markers, this time walking along the small space behind them which was thickly piled with leaves, to reach the first marker in that row. Her steps crunched and squished. Darcy followed, mindful of not hitting either the stones or the fence. Elizabeth and Darcy began clearing away more grass, leaves and other debris. As each stone was cleared, they told the other what they uncovered.

"Beth Anna Brown, May 18, 1888 to May 23, 1888," Elizabeth read. "Poor baby."

"Beth Ida Brown, December 3, 1890 to December 10, 1894," Darcy read.

"John Edward Brown, September 12, 1898," Elizabeth read. "Do you suppose he was still born or died on his birth day?" She shivered a little. "I'm not creeped out, just getting cold," Elizabeth defended.

"I don't know, but either way it is awful," Darcy said, thinking about how horrible it would have been had Gigi died as a baby. "Thank goodness I'm on the last of the little markers," Darcy said as he began clearing the next gravestone of some kind of climbing vine. "Maybe we should go after this if you are getting cold."

"No, you're wrong, about it being the last of the kid markers." Elizabeth noted, ignoring his comment about leaving. She had spotted a tipped over stone with brown leaves covering all of it but a corner edge. She brushed the leaves away and then started prying off the moss.

Darcy noticed he was having more trouble making out the name on his current marker and glanced up to see that the sky was now filled with grayish clouds, with the sun now hidden. He bent a little closer and read, "Frank Arthur Brown, 1911 to 1918." Darcy opined, "He must have been a victim of the flu, too."

"Beth Cora Brown, 1915 to 1918," Elizabeth read. "Enough with the 'Beths' already. It was obviously an unlucky name for them. Do you suppose we can right this stone?"

Darcy came over to investigate. "Maybe. But not without proper tools or at this time of the year, with the ground so hard. Definitely not when the sky looks like rain. It would be easier to fix it if we came back in late spring."

"Okay," Elizabeth said, "It's a date." Elizabeth was trying to lighten the mood, but also hint about where she wanted things to go with Darcy. There might be some women that had no trouble just asking a man out, but Elizabeth had never done that and didn't plan on starting now. She wanted the guy to be, well, the guy, and it was the guy's role to ask the woman out.

"Well," hedged Darcy, still thinking about the problem rather than Elizabeth's wording, "there are laws about such things and we'd need to research to make sure we weren't doing anything illegal. While I think the public is generally allowed in family graveyards, this land belongs to someone and it is probably their responsibility to maintain it. We wouldn't want to mess with it, without permission, especially if someone else should do it and has the means to do it properly."

But then Darcy thought about exactly how Elizabeth had phrased it. His mind flashed back to how Elizabeth had fed him tomato seeds and how he had tried to feed her a biscuit, which had turned out to be a complete failure. He wondered, Am I blowing it again? Does she mean something by calling it a date?

Darcy turned his head toward Elizabeth and did his best to backpedal. Darcy straightened himself up (Elizabeth did the same) and explained, while rubbing his hands together nervously, feeling the slight stickiness of damp earth clinging to them and a little grittiness that might be little bits of rust from prying the gate loose, "It is not that I wouldn't want to come back here with you, Lizzy. If it is important to you, I would do anything I could to fix it. But we should get going back now."

When Darcy looked over at Elizabeth, his face so earnest and open, eyes wide and soft, vulnerable, more like a boy than a man, Elizabeth's breath caught. Yes, she wanted to see the forgotten burial ground put right, to have this tragic little family rest in a place that looked as if someone cared, but before today she hadn't known it existed, and it would go on existing without her. Really Elizabeth had been trying to lighten the mood when she called a future, hypothetical meeting to fix the family plot a date.

Elizabeth wanted to make things clear for Darcy but just as she was considering just how to do it, her mind was also considering his wording ("I would do anything I could to fix it.") Suddenly, something her uncle had said to her a few months earlier clicked with Darcy's words. Uncle Edward had said, "It is a good thing that the cops got that tip that led them to Lydia, otherwise who knows what would have happened to her. It was like someone was really looking out for us."

At the time, Elizabeth had thought Uncle Edward was talking about providence, or the hand of God, but who would have been able to find George Wickham and also known that Lydia was missing and with him? She suddenly had a feeling that the tipster must have been Darcy.

Romance forgotten for a moment, Elizabeth just asked without preface, "Darcy, did you have anything to do with the police finding my sister Lydia when she went missing?"

"Did your uncle say something? I told him not to." Darcy tried to explain. He felt embarrassed. He knew he didn't really have the right to take such an interest in Elizabeth's life, that it was out of the ordinary, might seem almost seem like stalking.

"Not really," Elizabeth replied. "He just gave me a little hint that I was too stupid to see until now. But when you said you would do anything to fix it, that's exactly what you did for Lydia, isn't it? And you just pretty much admitted it now."

Darcy stayed silent, but gave the barest of nods. Elizabeth surprised them both by launching herself at him. The force of her attack pushed him back a couple of inches and as he adjusted his footing, all too aware that he didn't want to trip over a gravestone, he felt her arms reach around to his back and her face press against his chest. It took a moment for him to return the hug, even tentatively.

Elizabeth explained, "When I didn't hear from you after we left New York, I wondered what on earth you must think of my sister and my family. But still, I thought I would see you at Jane's and Charles's wedding. Then when you didn't show, I thought you for sure had decided that my family was no good. I know now that Anne was your cousin who was sick, that it was a real and serious thing, but at the time . . . ."

"I didn't want to intrude," Darcy responded, tightening his hold on her and tentatively, gently, pivoting his right wrist back and forth to rub at Elizabeth's back through her fleece coat. "I hoped we were at least friends by then, but as for more, there just wasn't enough time to sort that out before you had to leave. When that happened, I figured you had a lot to deal with, with Lydia and the whole uproar. I didn't want you to know that I had interfered. You see, I had a very selfish motive for tracking down George. I didn't want you to have to cry or worry anymore. Of course I didn't want anything bad to happen to Lydia, but all I did, it was for you far more than her. I kept seeing your face and how upset you were. I wanted you to be happy again."

Elizabeth said, "I'm sorry I've always been so quick to think the worst of you. I think it all started at the party where I first met you. Everyone's entitled to a bad day and shouldn't be judged for it forever more."

"Can today be a good day? Without misunderstandings of any sort?" Darcy asked, gathering his courage. "Can it be the best sort of day?"

Elizabeth pulled back a little to look up at him, although their arms were still around each other. "What would make it the best sort of day?"

"If . . . if . . . this," was all Darcy could get out as he took his right hand off Elizabeth's back and swept her curly bangs to the side and held them there. He then tipped his head down to kiss the very top her forehead, where her hairline met her forehead. Elizabeth responded by tilting her head up and back, angling it toward him.

Next, Darcy kissed the spot just between Elizabeth's eyebrows, sweeping the hand that had held her bangs around the side of her head to cradle the back of her head as she tilted her head further, his left hand now more supporting her back than hugging her. Darcy kissed the tip of Elizabeth's nose and then moved just a little further down to kiss her lips.

Darcy's first kiss was tentative, just a slight brush of their lips together, barely enough to feel her lips at all. He pulled back a little, just enough to see the expression in her eyes. He was making sure this was alright, even though the tilting of her face and body should have been enough to tell him that. But the look in her eyes told him it was more than alright.

A second or two later, Darcy dipped in again, this time moving his lips more firmly against hers. Elizabeth's lips were cooler than his, but the air that issued from between her lips was hot, hot-tub hot, and all he wanted to do was to dive in.

But it was Elizabeth that pulled him closer, one of her hands sliding up his back to tangle in his waves and bringing his lips more firmly against hers. Then it was all lips and tongues and joy.

Darcy and Elizabeth kissed for a long time. They were so focused on each other that they didn't notice the buzzing in Darcy's pocket or the sky darkening further with storm clouds or even the first drops of rain. It was only as the rain started to fall in earnest that Elizabeth pulled back and said, "It's raining."

"Yes, it is," he acknowledged. By mutual agreement, they leaned into each other for a tight hug. A minute or two later, Darcy released Elizabeth. With regret, Darcy said, "We need to get going now."

As they began walking toward the gate, Elizabeth noted, "We didn't finish clearing the markers. There are two or three larger stones left."

"We'll be back," Darcy promised, pulling the gate shut behind them with another loud screech. "We'll get it taken care of, one way or another."

He paused and asked, "Should I call and see if Charles or Q can pick us up? One of them could probably get to the end of Little Lane by the time we got there."

"Don't bother with that," Elizabeth responded. "I don't mind getting wet. I'd rather have a bit more time alone with you."

Darcy shrugged, "Okay. But I can't have you getting wet and cold and coming to regret that decision. He took off his coat and offered it to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth held her hand out in the "stop" position and said, "I have a coat."

"Yes," Darcy agree, "but the rain must be going straight through that fleece and it is only going to get worse. Please let me do this. What kind of a boyfriend would I be if I let you get wet while I stayed dry?"

"Boyfriend?" Elizabeth placed her hands on her hips. "Aren't you being just a bit presumptuous?" Any slight sting from her words was eliminated by her playful tone and waggling eyebrows. "I don't remember being asked, or agreeing to date you."

Darcy draped the coat over Elizabeth's shoulders. The grey coat that only came to his hips, fell nearly to her knees. Darcy thought she looked adorable in it, nevertheless.

Darcy considered how to respond. Elizabeth hadn't taken the coat off, but neither had she placed her arms into the sleeves or zipped it up. He thought, I can tease, too. "So, Miss Bennet, are you in the habit of letting random men kiss you in graveyards with no intentions toward them? Do you really use men in such a dastardly way? Trying to get the . . . " he struggled to think of the right analogy, "steak for free?"

"The steak?"

"You know, because I can't be the cow with the milk. Okay, so that doesn't quite work," Darcy acknowledged before going back to making his point.

"You see, I only kiss women that I am dating, so if we aren't dating these lips are off limits." Darcy tucked his lips into his mouth and closed his mouth so that his lips were no longer showing. He did his best to make his face look grave and impassive. The effect was ruined by a little amused crinkle by his eyes and a mouth that somehow still had a bit of a smirk.

Elizabeth laughed and gave him a playful little shove. Darcy broke character and chuckled back.

Elizabeth responded with mock solemnity, "Well, if you are going to withhold your favors, I suppose I might be forced to date you. You understand, only for the kisses."

Darcy ignored the cold rain sluicing through his hair and dripping down between his shoulder blades. He resisted the impulse to shiver as he didn't want Elizabeth insisting that he take his own coat back.

"Ah, I understand mademoiselle." Darcy gave Elizabeth a little bow, which made his wet hair flop down on his face, grabbed her hand from under the side of the coat and kissed the back of it." After he released her hand, Darcy watched bemused as Elizabeth drew it back under the coat and then thrust that arm down into his coat sleeve and then did the same with her other arm. She had trouble shoving the sleeves up enough for her hands to emerge, but once they did, she grabbed the zipper and zipped the coat up. The coat dwarfed the rest of Elizabeth, the collar itself coming up past her ears and the zipped up neck still much too loose.

"Aren't you missing something?" Elizabeth asked him and then started trudging back along the path.

"What is it?" Darcy asked. He was following closely behind Elizabeth. The path was too narrow to walk beside her.

"In order to be my boyfriend, first you have to ask to date me. But not just in a 'I think we should date' way, like you did before," Elizabeth referenced how Darcy had asked her out during their dance at the charity ball, "but with more pomp and circumstance. And you have to actually ask," she emphasized.

"As you wish," Darcy replied, "but to properly ask, I need to have you where I can see you, perhaps where the path meets the road."

"Very well," said Elizabeth, hurrying a little too quickly down the path for the conditions including the darkness and the rain. Fortunately, both of them safely made it to where the road began and she paused there.

While Elizabeth's body was mostly dry, Darcy's coat had no hood and neither did hers, so Elizabeth's face was streaked with rain and her hair stretched lower than Darcy had seen it before. Darcy, in contrast, was at least half wet. His blue t-shirt was soaked, especially around the shoulders and while his jeans had thus-far kept most of his legs dry, the section by his knees and the bottoms of them were fairly wet from the rain that ran down him.

"Okay, you are up," Elizabeth told him.

Darcy had used the past few minutes to plan the big ask. He decided it would be fun to mirror a marriage proposal. Darcy was hoping that the ridiculousness of it would appeal to Elizabeth.

Darcy suddenly dropped to one knee right there on the crumbling pavement, grabbed Elizabeth's hand through the fabric of his coat sleeve, kissed it through the coat sleeve and said, "Dearest, most lovely, most date-able Elizabeth. It cannot have escaped your attention how much I adore you. I dearly wish to have you take on the mantle of being my girlfriend. I wish to be with you for wetter and drier, in graveyards and at weddings, for as long as you might wish to date me. Please say that you will make me the happiest of men by letting me be your boyfriend, until someday when we both might be ready for more. I have already given you a token of my regard by way of my coat. I cannot help but think that this means you intend to accept my suit."

Darcy waited and when she said nothing within the first few seconds, he released her hand, placed his other knee down on the pavement, and clasped his own wet hands together beseechingly as he begged, "Please take pity on me, most beautiful and fair Elizabeth, and give me your answer right away."

Although Darcy gave his speech in a rather jokey manner, Elizabeth found herself charmed. She could imagine someday, if things went well, Darcy kneeling down to actually ask her to marry him. She could also imagine welcoming such a proposal and saying 'yes' to it, although of course it was way too soon to even begin thinking that way.

With Darcy down on his knees, for once he was shorter than Elizabeth and she decided to take full advantage of his state. Elizabeth pushed the sleeves of his coat up once more so that her hands were poking out, the material bunching around her arms and then took two steps forward towards Darcy. Elizabeth swept the wet hair back off of his forehead with one hand and tilted his chin up with the other. She leaned down and kissed his forehead, murmured "Yes," kissed the middle of his nose, murmured "Yes," and finally moved on toward his lips. Elizabeth gave Darcy a quick kiss and said, "Yes," before it was swallowed up with another heartfelt kiss.

While Darcy's knees hurt and were feeling cold being pressed against the wet pavement, he ignored that feeling in favor of the bright happiness burning within him as he kissed Elizabeth. They only kissed for perhaps a minute or two, but it was long enough for Darcy to know that he wanted Elizabeth in his life for good.

Then Elizabeth pulled back, her little hand still caressing his face. He let her do it, as content as a dog being pet. All too soon, she said, "You'll be soaked to the bone if we linger any longer; we have got to get back." He nodded, acknowledging the truth of what she said, but he couldn't care about that. The only thing that mattered was being with her.

Elizabeth helped Darcy up and once he was up, kept holding his hand on their whole walk back. Somehow, although Darcy's stride was far longer than hers, they happened upon a rhythm of steps in which they stayed perfectly matched. They talked of small things as they walked, none of it was particularly important or memorable. What they both remembered was the feeling of contentedness, of rightness. Although Darcy was getting wetter and wetter, he didn't want their walk to ever end.