Hey, this is the second and last chapter of my story.

Because of some of the reviews I got, bringing my errors to my attention, I edited Chapter 1 and fixed it.

I hope you like my story.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own the story Pride and Prejudice

ENJOY!

Chapter 2

Time passed and I slowly began to heal. I didn't heal by much but it was enough to stop my health from completely failing on me. For the first couple weeks, my health deteriorated to the point where even I wasn't certain if I would wake up the next morning or if my body would give up and succumb to death. My mother was furious for the longest time, refusing any kind of contact with them. But life went on and we soon returned to our routine, careful not to bring up their names.

The peace was nice but it was short lived. My mother decided it was high time to get rid of my single status and soon I had a new fiancé, this time it was a legitimate one where the actual party actually agreed to it not just my mother planning out our life, spitting out what she thinks instead of what is true, and getting peoples hopes up on false assumptions.

It seems that my mother was determined to marry me into the family, not wanting to let another blood into family, even if said family member wasn't as rich as Mr. Darcy. My mother told me my fiancé was my other cousin colonel Fitzwilliam. He is a good man though I never paid him much attention for it was always Mr. Darcy to whom my attention laid, but from what I recalled he had an amiable persona and an easy sense of humor. I remember Mrs. Darcy seemed quite taken with him. Even though I knew this, I still would rather have married Mr. Darcy.

My mother soon invited him to the estate again so we could further our acquaintanceship, though even if we did not find the other party agreeable, the marriage would still commence. The marriage of the rich was more of a political thing to keep the money in the family instead of for love. It was her choice as my mother who I could marry, but my mother never cared for my feelings, so he could be the worst most disagreeable man and my mother would tell me the marriage would still happen and to preform my duty. Duty . . . how I hate that word yet now have nothing else to cling to.

He soon arrived with his normal genial personality. I took the time in which he was greeting my mother to examine him. He is tall and dark haired, his features were quite pronounced, but not too much, he was quite muscular but not overly. All in all he was quite handsome but he was not as handsome as Mr. Darcy.

He was soon done greeting my mother and came over to me. He greeted me with all the expected greetings and gave me a hug. Mr. Darcy never gave me a hug not being a very affectionate person. I guess colonel Fitzwilliam was a physically affectionate person. He pulled away soon, having hugged me more than politely normal. He kept his hands on my arms and took a nice long look at me like I did him evaluating his future wife; at least I had the courtesy to do it discreetly as was socially accustom. I looked away in shame knowing exactly what he was seeing.

He was seeing what I had to live through every day. Because of my sickly constitution I look quite sickly, even more so now that ever. My body was overly thin and not in the good was that men like, I was so skinny I looked malnourished. I was unusually short unlike my towering mother, most likely due to my sickness. My face was gaunt and too prominent due to my inability to consume much. My skin was extremely pail because I am constantly bed written and am not allowed out of the house much except on the rare occasion by the over protectiveness of my mother.

I felt his hands start to loosen, so thinking he was done examining me I turned back to him. Apparently he was not done for he was still looking at me. He looked me straight in the eye, and while I expected to see disgust and disappointment, that's not what I saw. I saw something I could not quite interpret, I saw pity. Why did he pity me? Why would he care for me enough to pity me? I knew he was just marrying me for my money. I know all about it, it was not kept a secret from me. Everyone knows the youngest son must marry for money. He wasn't poor and he was going to get a good sized inheritance, but apparently his kind were extravagant spenders and would run through their money quickly. So he needed to marry a woman who came with a big inheritance that could support his kind of life style. So he actually caring about me enough to pity me was befuddling.

He surprised me by asking for my arm and he led me onto the house. When he got into the house, he left to unpack but quickly came back to spend some time with me. Why was he being so attentive to me, so nice? I never had anyone treat me with such care before. It was shocking and surprisingly nice.

He did a lot of little things that most people wouldn't have thought much about because they were accustomed to it. For me the experience was new, exciting, and left with good feelings because no one else has ever done these things for me before. Mr. Darcy paid no attention to me; he never had any interest in me. Mr. Darcy was always so standoffish, always more interested in spending his leisure time with books than attending to me. I was just too blind and misinformed to notice that before.

He paid me a lot of attention. He greeted me every time I came into the same room as him or him coming into the same room as me. If there were other people accompanying me, he would make sure I was the first one whom he would greet. Whenever there was another girl in the room, he never looked towards them, giving me his full attention, even if they were more handsome than me. He spent most of his time with me, asking me questions about myself, telling me about himself, basically acquainting ourselves with each other. He also took me on a lot of walks around the estate, getting me out onto the trails of the estate. I think I have been out of the estate longer than I have ever been during his stay, than I have ever been during my whole life.

I came into the knowledge that he was a sincerely a nice man and was really trying to make this relationship work. I really did find pleasure in his company more so than I have ever enjoyed anyone's company, including Mr. Darcy. He actually made me feel like I was worth something, that I am more that the sickly girl, more that the girl who is going to inherit a lot of money, and more than my mothers shadow. Our relationship wasn't built up on lies and false assumptions.

Even though I liked him, I did not love him yet. It was too soon and I was still weary having just had my world come crashing down on me not too long ago. I am a little bit harder now and not as naive. I had learned to hardly ever listen to whatever comes out of my mother's mouth and to check the veracity of what sounded even close to feasible. The incident had matured me, made me grow up from my sheltered little world.

I also learned to forgive. I was in town by myself except for a servant or two accompanying me, when I saw Mr. Darcy and Miss Bennet, now Mrs. Darcy, walking together down the street. I later found out from the gossips in the town he was here on business so that was why I was not aware of his arrival here or my mother. They had their arms interlocked and were as close as they could politely in public be towards each other. Mrs. Darcy had a huge smile on her face and seemed to be laughing about something for her eye's shined with mirth. Mr. Darcy had a slight smile and looked as if he was holding back laughter. But overall, I could see the overbearing amount of love they had for each other that just seemed to ooze out of them into the surrounding air. They looked at each other in a way I have rarely seen couples look at each other, and I could not begrudge them their happiness. it was not their fault for my mother's obstinacy. I forgave them for falling in love.

I never told anyone about that surprise encounter, but it was a life changing experience for me. That day I realized I wanted what they have, to love and be loved, to be cherished and to be happy with the person who will stand by my side until death do we part. I didn't want the love from Mr. Darcy, I wanted my own love. That day gave me a whole new perspective and goals to reach for.

Colonel Fitzwilliam stayed for about a fortnight before he had to leave for a business trip. My life went back to the way it was before he came. I found out that, surprisingly, I missed him. I missed the company and happiness he brought with him. I was a bit surprised because I never missed Mr. Darcy even when he was gone for extensively long periods of time. I found myself waiting until the day he would come back.

He didn't spend too long on his business trip and was back to the estate in a few weeks. This time I was the first one to greet him and it was a warm greeting. I embraced him like a lover would do with the man she hasn't seen in a while, and then quickly broke away, looking away as a heavy blush settled across my face. When I looked back at him he was smiling like I had just made his day. He brought me back into the embrace and whispered into my ear that he missed me, making me blush even more.

I spent the majority of my time with him during his stay, he really was good company. He has to be the most amiable person I have ever had the pleasure of being acquainted with and he doesn't treat me like a porcelain doll that could break at any second because of my sickliness. He treated me like a normal person; encouraging me to eat more and to get out more. I found myself liking him more and more and was reluctant and displeasured every time we had to part and go our separate ways for extended periods of time.

Also during his stay with us, I found out he was a romantic. He remembered everything I had said to him and used it to show his affection. He, on several occasions, bought me my favorite flower, said affectionate phrases that made my heart skip a beat, and wrote the sweetest poems to me that made me cry in happiness and had me wanting to jump into his arms. Although all of this stuff is cliché and over used, it is still sweet.

My mother choose not to wait any longer and announced out wedding would take place in a fortnight. I was nervous, but more than that I found I was actually looking forward to the wedding. Yes, I was still not in love with him, but my feelings for him were stronger than anything I have felt for anyone. When I looked at him to see how he took the news, I found him smiling as always. Since he was always smiling, I didn't know how to interoperate how he was feeling, that made me start to grow even more nervous. What if he didn't really want to marry me? What if we ended up in a miserable loveless marriage?

I decided to gather up my courage and ask him how he felt about this marriage. When I asked him I think I saw his serious expression for the first time. He said he was glad that the wedding would take place. He said with all the time he had spent with me he had fallen in love with me. He said he loved me. I couldn't believe it. I never expected him to love me, only to tolerate me and maybe at most enjoy my company at times. After the confrontation, the time flew fast and soon we had our marriage ceremony and got our marriage license.

After the wedding we stayed with my mother for a week before we moved into our new house. The estate wasn't as big as Rosenberg's, but it was still big and comfy and it was far away from Rosenberg's. I found the interior design to my tastes and we had a good sized property, enough for a good walk. I have found myself to enjoy walking immensely.

I loved the married life. I found that without my mother's influence and all the stress she gave me, I grew healthier and actually put on enough weight that my figure filled out and all my features became softer. For the first time, when I looked in the mirror I liked what I saw, I could actually be considered handsome. I didn't gain too much weight with all my husband forced me to eat because of all the walks I took alone and with him. I grew the voice that my mother never allowed me to cultivate, becoming a true lady of the house, overseeing every aspect as a lady is supposed to.

Living with my husband everyday drew us closer together instead of separating us, as some married couples tend to do because of seeing too much of each other. He is still romantic and does a lot of stuff for me. He is the best friend I could have ever had except in the form of a lover. I am so happy my mother did one right thing and decided to arrange our marriage. He is the best man I have ever had the pleasure of being acquaintance to.

Within the first month of our marriage my feelings for him grew so much that I was forced to acknowledge that I loved him. When I realized this I was so happy that I could recuperate his feelings and we both wouldn't be stuck in an awkward one sided love. The feelings that I have now are so much more than I have ever felt for Mr. Darcy. They made me realize that I never really loved Mr. Darcy; it was only a childhood crush, an illusion I used to cope with reality.

When I told my husband one night before bed what I had realized, a big grin spread across his face, so big that I was surprised his face didn't split apart. I have never seen anyone so happy before. He took me into his arms and kissed me passionately, pouring all his feelings into the kiss. The kiss made me weak in the knees and dizzy. I too poured all my emotions into the kiss.

That night was a passionate night that set the example for a loving happy marriage. In a way I am glad my world fell apart. My newly built world is much better than my destroyed one. My husband and I love each other to the end of the world, I couldn't have asked for anything more. He is my savior, my friend, my heart, my love, and my forever.

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