Chapter Text
Elizabeth Darcy struggled to open her eyes. They felt heavy, the attempt wearied her and when accomplished she remained confused. Turning her head, which caused tremendous pounding in every part of her, she realized she was in her chambers. Since becoming Mrs. Darcy, Elizabeth had rarely slept here. It was a waste really. The large opulent room was used only for dressing and the accommodating of a rather large wardrobe. The bed was comfortable and yet served as a resting place only on the exceptional occasion she ignored that holy admonition to not let the sun go down on her anger.
Presently, she was uncertain as to why she was awakening here. She did not remember fighting with William. In fact, she struggled to remember much at all and nothing she could recall justified the sight before her. Stephen Fitzwilliam, her husband’s beloved cousin and their dearest friend, was sleeping in the chair next to her bed. With no energy to raise her head, Elizabeth tried to lift her hand to get his attention. Her body seemed singularly unwilling to cooperate and the effort was making her sleepy. Focusing her mind once more to try and remember what could possibly have brought both she and Stephen to her room, Elizabeth thought back to his most recent arrival at Pemberley. She was fairly certain he had come that morning, but then hazy memories of his being there longer made that seem unlikely. He was to visit for several weeks having been unable to come for Christmas the previous month when the Gardiners and Bingleys along with Kitty, Mary and their new husbands had spent the holiday.
Elizabeth recalled her almost melancholy farewells with her younger sisters and feeling both hope and sadness as she watched them drive away. Hope, for they were both at the start of new lives with husbands who clearly loved and valued them. Sadness, because now that they were married, she knew she would see less of them. Since the start of her marriage, Mary and Kitty, sometimes together sometimes separately, had spent at least a season with her at Pemberley. It was thanks to this that Kitty had met her husband, a friend of the Darcy family, at a small gathering at a neighboring estate almost two years earlier.
Mary was to go to her new home near Meryton where her husband held a living and was beginning service as a vicar. Kitty and her husband, the viscount Hargrove, were to begin their yearlong wedding tour on the continent. She remembered William offering her his arm to escort her back into the house. She remembered his smiling brown eyes and the crinkling lines around his smiling lips. She remembered . . .trying to recall more Elizabeth faded off to sleep once again.