Midwinter in Meryton

by Meg Osborne

  She shook her head.

  “I am sure you think me silly to speak so sentimentally. I dare say I would think so myself, were the words not coming from my own lips!” She laughed. “Anyway, let us speak of other things. Tell me about your sister, Mr Darcy. She is younger than you, is not she?”

  “Yes.” Mr Darcy’s features softened as he spoke of Georgiana, the same way they had done when he recalled a Christmas memory as they walked together, and Lizzy found she rather liked it. He seemed younger, somehow, more carefree than when she had first met him. She wondered what it was that wrought the change, and felt a sudden longing to meet the young lady who would enable such a difference in his character by mere recollection.

  “And so you will return to Pemberley in the New Year? To see her again?”

  Mr Darcy did not answer straight away and Lizzy wondered if he had heard, as she had, the note of wistfulness in her voice as she spoke. She coughed, trying again and hoping she sounded politely interested rather than strangely disappointed, as she felt at the thought of his leaving Hertfordshire.

  “I know but a little of Pemberley, but I am sure you are eager to return home once more and to be amongst your own family.”

  After a long moment, Mr Darcy nodded, slowly, and Lizzy felt as if he might be about to say something more, but in the end, he chose not to, turning his gaze towards the sofa that Caroline had claimed for her own. It was then that Lizzy noticed Miss Bingley had been watching them quite intently, and she waved in an attempt to catch their - or rather, Mr Darcy’s - attention. Lizzy resisted the urge to roll her eyes, but smiled at Darcy, indicating she would not be offended if he wished to see what it was that Caroline wanted from him. He nodded, standing and moving towards his friend’s sister.

  Lizzy tried to distract herself by watching her own sister, but Jane’s happiness was almost too much for Lizzy to bear, as she felt her own strangely absent from her. There was no explanation for it, but still, the feeling was an unusual one and before she could try to understand it, she found her ears straining to hear what Mr Darcy and Miss Bingley discussed, their quiet whispers still not enough to shield their conversation from one who truly wished to hear it.

  “You agreed with me that Jane is a poor match - she is determined to win my brother’s heart through flattery and now you stumble into the same idiocy with her sister!”

  Anger flickered over Mr Darcy’s features, and he glanced to the right and left as if to reassure himself that Caroline’s words would not be overheard. She, for her part, seemed to care little if her guests heard themselves being discussed in so unkind a manner. She smiled, looking more catlike than Lizzy had ever noticed before.

  “Elizabeth Bennet has never once flattered me,” Mr Darcy said, in a low voice. “Quite the opposite. She could never have been less interested in winning my affections and as such she has secured them in spite of herself. In spite of myself.” He knitted his brows into a scowl. “And I think even you ought to be able to distinguish between flattery and true affection. Observe Miss Bennet and your brother for more than a moment and you will see which is most evident. Now, here are the refreshments you wished me to fetch, Miss Bingley.”

  Coldly, he stood and turned away from her. Lizzy saw Caroline’s mouth drop open in shock and outrage at being so summarily dismissed, but she was not quick enough to turn away before Mr Darcy caught her eye and deduced that she had heard every word he had uttered. Lizzy stood too, and fled towards the hallway, throwing over her shoulder the murmured excuse of needing some air, but knowing only that she needed to think, to reflect on Mr Darcy’s words, to make sense of them.

  I have secured his affections in spite of everything? Can it be true? Her heart raced as she stumbled into the deserted hallway. Does Mr Darcy love me?

  Chapter Eleven

  Darcy wished the ground would open up and swallow him whole. It was a feeling he was familiar with, for he was so uncomfortable in social settings he must have wished for such a thing at least a dozen times on any given year. But this evening he wished it most fervently. Idiot! He berated himself. Why had he allowed Caroline Bingley to goad him into confessing feelings he was - as yet - still only slowly coming to understand himself? And, worse, to know that the very young lady about whom he spoke had not only been present in the room but had heard every word he uttered!

  He sank into his seat, glancing anxiously around the room but was gratified that nobody else seemed to notice his discomfort, nor Elizabeth’s hasty departure. Caroline looked at him with something that might have been triumph.

  You see? she silently crowed. You may feel however you wish about Miss Elizabeth Bennet, but it does not mean you shall win her!

  Darcy wrenched his gaze free. If there was one thing he did not need at that moment it was Caroline Bingley’s spite and wounded pride. Checking once more that each of his companions was engaged in their own conversations, or in Mary’s case, bent once more over her book, he took a steadying breath before stepping lightly into the corridor.

  He saw Elizabeth straight away, the curve of her shoulders, her body angled away from the door, from him.

  “Is something the matter, Miss Bennet?” he asked, taking a step closer to her. She flinched at the sound of his question but did not turn around. Shaking his head, Darcy tried again.

  “Elizabeth.”

  His use of her Christian name in place of the formal Miss Bennet seemed to do what his first question could not, and she turned back around to face him. Her features were unchanged, and yet entirely different. Her face was radiant – there was no other word to describe it, and when she smiled, though it was tentative, he could do nothing but smile back.

  “Did you mean what you said to Miss Bingley?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.

  Darcy frowned, casting his mind back over their conversation. His heart sank. She could not mean Caroline’s accusations about Jane, surely? She could not think that he still stood opposed to the match when he had done all in his power to reunite the pair, to undo the damage his interference had already caused?

  “I want my friend to be happy,” he replied, cagily. “I am not as opposed to your family as Miss Bingley -”

  Lizzy let out a delighted laugh, and Darcy held his breath, certain that, this time, she was laughing at him, but it was not meant unkindly.

  “I meant what you said to Miss Bingley about me.”

  Darcy’s mouth was dry, and it took him a moment to find the courage to speak again. At least, he took a breath and decided there would be no avoiding the truth. Come what may, mockery or dismissal, he must at least tell Elizabeth the truth he had only recently come to appreciate himself. He nodded.

  “I meant every word of it. I tried not to care for you, but it was folly on my part. How could I have ever thought escaping to London would be to escape you when you were in my thoughts every moment we were apart?”

  Elizabeth’s eyes were wide, shimmering with what might have been tears. Darcy felt a pang of fear that she regretted his confession, but when she blinked, and her smile grew, his worst anxieties disappeared. She was not sad, but happy, so very happy. Encouraged, he took a step closer to her, reaching out his hand. Wordlessly, she slipped hers into it, and he marvelled at how well they fit together.

  “You must forgive me whatever errors I have made in regards to your family, and, most importantly, to you. I do not - I have not - had cause often to feel any more than passing admiration for any young lady. To not only admire, but to come to love one such as yourself was not at all what I expected to come from my winter in Hertfordshire. I can only hope that you will overlook any misunderstandings from our first acquaintance and trust me when I confess, now, that I love you, Elizabeth, with my whole heart.”

  LIZZY, WHO VERY RARELY found herself without anything to say, was stunned into silence. She had not dared to imagine Mr Darcy could care for her. At first, the idea did not disturb her beyond wounding her pride. She swallowed a laugh as she recalled how ve
hemently she had dismissed him upon their first meeting. Arrogant, rude, opinionated! She had made a vow, to herself and to Jane, that she should never choose to care for such a man. It was bravado, at least in part, for it was at Netherfield, not any ball or assembly, that she had glimpsed the truth of Mr Darcy’s character, or begun to understand him a little. Still, her first opinion was not easily done away with, and his actions in separating Jane shored her up against him. Until now.

  “You need not say anything,” Mr Darcy muttered, relinquishing his hold on her hand.

  Lizzy realised, with a start, that a long moment had passed without comment and he clearly took her silence for rejection. She squeezed her hand around his, refusing to be let go of.

  “Mr Darcy,” she murmured. “Forgive me. I am not used to being unsure of what to say!”

  That was enough to provoke the smallest hint of a smile in the features she was beginning to love for the character they concealed, as much as for their own inherent beauty.

  “You may laugh!” she allowed, her own voice ringing with amusement. “You speak of love as something you are unused to experiencing. I confess silence is strange for me. Yet, let me see if I can make some progress in fashioning a response, and you must forgive me my lack of eloquence.”

  She wet her lips and tried hard to shuffle her racing thoughts into sense.

  “We were not friends from the beginning, you and I, but I think that we are friends now. More than friends.” She swallowed. “I am not as accustomed to romance as you seem to think, but I know my heart and mind well enough to say that I saw myself in you, or rather, something in me recognised something in you that was alike. I am glad you returned to Hertfordshire. Not because you have now done what I could not, and reunited my sister with Mr Bingley, but because you came back. I missed you before I even knew that I cared for you at all. I...” She fell silent, forcing herself to speak the last words in little more than a whisper. “I love you.”

  “Lizzy!”

  The door behind them crashed open and Lydia barrelled through it. “Where have you got to? Mary is being beastly, and - oh!”

  Mr Darcy took a step away from Elizabeth, letting go of her hand, but the movement was not quick enough. Lydia read the scene in an instant and clamped a hand over her shocked mouth.

  “Are you?” She turned to look at Darcy. “Did you? Oh, my goodness! Mama! You’ll never believe it!”

  “Lydia!” Lizzy lurched towards her sister, but Lydia had already danced out of reach and back into the room. She heard her declare, triumph ringing in her voice.

  “I do believe Jane and Mr Bingley are not the only couple in love under this roof at present!”

  Lizzy let out a low groan of embarrassment, colour flooding her cheeks. She looked up at Mr Darcy, surprised to see an amused smile tugging at his lips.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “My sister...she will draw whatever conclusions she wishes, and I am afraid that now everyone will have decided to think the same way.” She drew a shaky breath. “I am sorry.”

  “I am not.” Darcy - for she could not think of him as Mr anybody, now he was her own dear love, leaned close enough to seal the matter with a kiss.

  “Lizzy!” Mrs Bennet’s cry of alarm and delight was what ended the moment, as the door was flung open once more and half of their party scrambled out of it. “Is this true?”

  Darcy enfolded one of Lizzy’s hands in both of his and turned to greet her family with a courage she could not help but admire.

  “My dear Mrs Bennet, it is indeed true.” His eyes met Lizzy’s and he smiled. She could see her own happiness reflected in his face, and felt, at last, that this had been the very best Christmas season she could have hoped for. She was even grateful for the snow, for it had been snow that brought Mr Darcy back, snow that brought them together again.

  She shivered, wishing she had not been so quick to leave behind the warmth of the parlour hearth.

  “Come on,” she murmured to Darcy, tugging him into motion. “Let’s go and sit by the fire.”

  “As you wish, my dear Elizabeth.”

  Epilogue

  Spring came quickly after the dreadful winter that had kept so much of Meryton under a blanket of snow, or so it seemed to Elizabeth. It could be that it only felt quick because they were now caught in a whirlwind of planning not one but two spring weddings and both she and Jane were quite swept up in it.

  “Look, Jane, recall only a few days ago this road dip would have been quite impassable!” she remarked, as the two sisters took a short walk together on a quiet afternoon a few days before their joint wedding. “Now it is so bright and green it is as if it does not even know what snow is!”

  “How quickly things can change,” Jane mused, linking her arm through her sister’s and strolling contentedly beside her. “To think, but a few weeks ago we were both complaining over how miserable the snow had made us in keeping Aunt and Uncle Gardiner away.” She smiled. “I do not think either of us could have imagined we would be looking at the first rays of spring sunshine with weddings on the horizon!”

  “No, indeed!” Lizzy laughed. “I was quite determined you should, although I confess I was at a loss as to how to reunite you with poor Mr Bingley. My own love story caught me quite unawares!”

  “That is so often the case,” Jane mused, her eyes sparkling with fun. “Why, Mr Bingley and I were quite convinced you and Mr Darcy would make a very fine couple, if only you could see it for yourselves.”

  “Mr Bingley and I?” Lizzy scoffed. “I see, so all those times I spied you whispering sweet nothings to one another you were not falling desperately deeper in love with each other, but busily discussing how best to manipulate Mr Darcy and myself into a similarly blissful state?”

  “Indeed!” Jane laughed. “But you see, we did not need to manipulate a thing. You can hardly accuse either of us of arranging the weather, Lizzy dear, and yet we must be grateful for it. I think Providence had a hand in it and was determined, one way or another, that she would have her happily ever after for each of us, whether we expected it or not.”

  The faint sound of Mrs Bennet’s cries reached both girls’ ears, and they turned, reluctantly, towards home.

  “I confess I shall be pleased when the weddings are over and Mama ceases from perpetually trying to poke and prod and make us pretty.” Lizzy winked at her sister and broke into a skip.

  “You may find such beauty comes naturally, but for others of us, it is a trial indeed. How grateful I am that Mr Darcy has witnessed me both drenched and covered in mud, and red-faced and freezing in the midst of a snowball fight. He shan’t expect me to be pretty always, and I dare say he shall have quite a shock at the church. Come on, Jane, let’s hurry, and the sooner we are done with our jobs, the sooner Mama will let us go free.”

  Laughing, both girls hurried towards home, their hearts and minds filled with the joy to come and hopes of the happy futures that awaited them.

  The End

  Author’s Note

  Thank you so much for reading Midwinter in Meryton. Once I’d had the thought of Darcy interrupting a sisterly snowball fight, I couldn’t resist writing the whole story. It also had the odd nod to my own personal seasonal favourite, Little Women, which made it all the more fun to write and (I hope) to read!

  Please do consider writing a review if you enjoyed this book and signing up to my mailing list where I send new release news, sneak peeks and freebies. I am already working on my plans for next year and it’s going to be a good one. Make sure you don’t miss anything by signing up or following me on twitter. I’d love to say hi!

  Also by Meg Osborne

  Pride and Prejudice Variations

  Pathway to Pemberley Series

  The Collins Conundrum

  The Wickham Wager

  The Darcy Decision

  A Convenient Marriage Series

  Longbourn’s Lark

  Three Weeks in Kent

  Suitably Wed

  A Visit
to Scotland

  The Consequence of Haste

  A Surprise Engagement

  Three Sisters from Hertfordshire Series

  A Trip to Pemberley

  An Assembly in Bath

  An Escape from London

  Standalone Titles

  A Very Merry Masquerade

  The Other Elizabeth Bennet

  In Netherfield Library and Other Stories

  Mr Darcy’s Christmas Carol

  Such Peculiar Providence

  A Chance at Happiness

  Persuasion Variations

  Love Remains Series

  Reacquainted

  Rediscovered

  Reunited

  Love Remains Omnibus

  Fate and Fortune Series

  Too Fond of Stars

  A Temporary Peace

  Standalone Titles

  After the Letter

  Half the Sum of Attraction

  About the Author

  Meg Osborne is an avid reader, tea drinker and unrepentant history nerd. She writes sweet historical romance stories and Jane Austen fanfiction, and can usually be found knitting, dreaming up new stories, or on twitter @megoswrites

  Read more at Meg Osborne’s site.