Author's Notes

I have an adverb problem. Seriously.

In Remembrance

They had hardly been at Pemberley a se'nnight after returning from their honeymoon trip, but this was something which Elizabeth had been thinking of for some time.

That morning, she approached her husband's study just as his steward, a sheaf of papers tucked under his arm, was taking leave of the room. With a small bow in her direction, the man continued on his way and discreetly closed the door behind himself while Darcy stood from his desk, smiling brightly as he came closer to kiss her.

He looked so happy that Elizabeth quailed in her resolve to finally say anything at all about it.

Brushing another kiss at her temple, Darcy murmured against her hair, "Have you any plans for the day?"

Delightfully distracted she admittedly was as he began to nuzzle the delicate skin of her throat and ear, but of their own accord, her eyes fell on the pair of miniatures which sat upon the mantelpiece.

"Fitzwilliam." Her uncharacteristically serious tone must have given him pause; Elizabeth felt him draw away to see her face, though he did not release her entirely from his embrace. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she went on hesitantly, "I was hoping you might take me to...pay my respects."

As she said it, her gaze wandered to again stare fixedly at the small watercolor portraits above the fireplace until he followed her line of sight. The smile slipped from his lips then, and the guilt Elizabeth experienced over causing it, for bringing him pain, made her heart quiver.

There was a time, hard as it was to imagine now, that his expression would have been indecipherable to her, or worse still, wrongly understood. Watching him, she could easily see the initial surprise flicker over his features as he took in the meaning of her request before giving way to a curiously tender and vulnerable look that softened both the line of his mouth and his eyes.

Elizabeth saw it all, and with gentle deliberateness, lifted her hand to cup his cheek.

.*.

The fragile, muted crackle of frost underfoot echoed through the otherwise still Lambton churchyard as they wended a path among the scattered tombs.

Darcy guided her to a secluded corner of the grounds, partially enclaved by high stone walls which were covered in holly and ivy, until they came before a white marble headstone bearing two names etched side by side.

George Darcy

15 March 1758 – 2 October 1807

Anne Darcy

3 June 1764 – 21 August 1799

Lightly squeezing his elbow, Elizabeth slid her hand from Darcy's arm and knelt to lay the knot of deep violet windflowers she had brought to rest against the shared headstone. Letting her bare fingertips trace the engraving of his father's name on impulse, she stood beside her husband once more and took his hand in her own.

There was nothing to be heard but the thin skirl of the wind. Their frozen breaths curled together wispily in the air. The impenetrable valance of clouds veiled even the faintest rays of late winter sunlight, and for an instant, it almost seemed they were the only two souls on earth.

"I wish I could have known them."

To Elizabeth's own ears, even her soft-spoken utterance sounded much too loud for this place, this moment.

Darcy bent his head towards her, and suddenly there was the feel of his wet lashes pressed to her neck. She reached up to stroke his hair with soothing, featherlike passes of her fingers while her other arm encircled his back to hold him to her tightly.

When he spoke at last, his voice was nothing more than a whisper. "So do I."

End Author's Notes

To all of you I wish nothing but the best as this year draws to a close and a new one begins. Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice—no matter what you celebrate, may it be happy for you and yours.