Blinded By Prejudice by KaraLynne Mackrory

Epilogue

Iawoke from the dream with a gasp, my heart beating out of my chest in that unnatural manner one experiences after a night terror. It was startling to go from restful to alert so swiftly, and my chest felt as if I could not accommodate the wishes of that beating organ with enough oxygen to sate it. Instinctively, I reached for the warmth beside me, and my mind began to see reason.

Although the events at Bodden Chapel had long since lost their usual strength to distress me, I was still occasionally plagued with their phantom arms reaching into my dreams. In the unreality of a dream state, none of the healing sentiments that had long replaced the terror could help my disillusioned mind to remember all was well. Only in waking was I able to escape those moments.

Strong arms pulled me closer, and a sleepy voice crooned in my ear.

“Be at peace, Elizabeth. I am here.”

Lips, warm and caressing, punctuated his tired words with presses to my fevered temple. I ran my hand along the contours of his arms, marvelling at the masculine dips and curves. The first time these arms surrounded me once again faded into a pleasant memory while the remnants of the dream, distorted and ugly, drifted away.

We had been married a month complete, and I had never tired of the feeling of security and peace in my husband’s arms. I felt him settle against me, his breath against my neck. He was likely already halfway under Morpheus’s spell, though I could not, and would likely not be able to be for some time.

Absently, I ran my fingers along the length of his arm and through his tousled curls as I allowed my wakeful mind to marvel at my good fortune. It was full dark, and even though I could see nothing, I felt safe despite the night terror that had woken me. In the course of my short marriage, I had learned that my husband was a sweetly sentimental man.

The necklace he gifted me upon our marriage, and that never left my person, was just one such example. I thought back, with a smile in the dark, to the time I found a small yet familiar red leaf pressed in the pages of the book he kept by our bed. It had dried to a deep crimson, rich in its hue. I had asked him about it then, incredulous to see he had preserved the leaf I had given him on that first visit to Netherfield after the accident. I remembered the urgency with which I had rescued that pile of leaves, and thought how silly it was that I had attributed any living emotion to them. Upon my return to Longbourn, I had discarded the rest of the lot and forgotten that Fitzwilliam had requested one.

“It was the first gift you gave me after the gift of your hand. There was something in your voice that day that puzzled me, and since I had not the courage to ask you about it, I settled for asking for one of your treasures.”

I continued to think on the various other proofs of his sentimentality, now in daily evidence as we proceeded through the newness of married life. My husband often wrote me notes, hiding them in unexpected places for me to find. They were only a short line or two expressing his love, but I relished the discovery of each, and always warmed to see my name written in his distinctive handwriting. Jane may have received her share of missives during her engagement, but I now had nothing to pine over.

I was lost in contemplation and did not at first notice the change in the rhythm of my husband’s breathing. But I became quickly aware of the hitch of my own when I felt the gentle press of his lips to the hollow at my neck where the stone on my necklace sat tucked against my skin.

My hands stilled in their absent journeying to give the proper attention to the sensations elsewhere.

“If you will not sleep, my love, then I might have another suggestion to pass the time until day.”

A slow smile grew at my lips, though I proceeded to act as though I did not understand his meaning. He was not fooled and pinched lightly at my side, making me squirm and laugh quietly. All the while, he pressed gentle kisses along the length of my neck towards my ear. I held my breath to see whether he would neglect the spot behind it that I favoured most.

I sighed and melted into the soft pad of the mattress, for he had not neglected it in any way, rather giving it the utmost attention.

“It is perhaps a good thing you did not wake me this way at Bodden Chapel,” I teased, the fragments of the dream drawing similarities to our position now and those we used back then. The dark shrouded us, and the heavy cover pane created a tomb of sorts just the size of our bodies.

Fitzwilliam lifted up on his elbows, presumably to look down at me, though given the blackness of the night, I could not see his expression and was sure he was equally blind to mine.

“I imagine you may not have been so receptive then as you are now.”

I laughed, picturing how I might have reacted had he kissed me like this.

“Though I cannot say the thought did not cross my mind. It was difficult to resist.”

“I do not believe you. You were knocked senseless!”

“Elizabeth, you are quite mistaken. Senseless or not, I had by that time long wished to kiss you.”

When he said such things, even after the knowledge of his feelings for me, they still had the power to surprise me. I always marvelled at how blind I had been to his true feelings all those months. Both during the majority of our engagement and, it would seem, the months before.

“The thought of kissing you had crossed my mind at one point while we were trapped in the rubble,” I confessed.

“When?”

The eagerness in his voice made me smile into the darkness.

“When I watched you take my father’s flask to your lips.”

He groaned then and lowered once again to resume his earlier pleasant attentions. I was mistaken earlier when I had woken from the dream. That ugliness ought not to be called a dream. It had none of the magic of this—this reality was more dream than those contorted imaginings of my sleep-filled mind.

“Your memories of that time astound me. I wonder whether you ever told Jane you believed it was she who was sleeping beside you at one point in the night.”

I froze, embarrassment flushing through me at the memory. I had always hoped he was too senseless to remember. I, however, remembered all too clearly snuggling up to him, thinking he was my sister.

“That is not fair, sir. You have never revealed that you recall that mistake.”

“It is one of my cherished memories. I pity poor Bingley if Jane is the blanket stealer you accused her of being that night.”

I laughed, half-heartedly pushing at him. “I wish you had been senseless to my sleep-driven actions.”

“It was pure torture and bliss beyond compare. Shall I show you how senseless I really was rendered at the feel of you next to me in those ruins?”

The seductive murmur of his words as he ran his hands through the locks of my hair, settled low in my stomach. The delicious spread of warmth that filled me from head to toe thrummed in my veins. I succumbed willingly to his ministrations, allowing my hands to curve against his strong jaw as I lifted up to kiss him.

Fitzwilliam Darcy, my protector, my husband, my greatest love, then proceeded to prove that some things did not need the benefit of sight.