Elizabeth found this plan agreeable and spent the first day pleasantly engaged with her husband. She could not say she loved him yet. Circumstances had been too strange, emotions too raw, and her own nature too distrusting to love him so quickly, but she did feel a soft sort of tenderness toward him. It was a warm feeling that filled her with a gentle sensation when he was near and made her fondness for him grow rapidly. He was a good man, she had realized that long ago, but the longer she was near him, the nearer she was to him, the more obvious it became. And the more ridiculous she felt for her previous bad opinion.

Never one to focus on mistakes of the past, she brushed it aside and focused on today, on her growing respect for the forthright man who would be her companion throughout her life.

The morning of the third day, Elizabeth awoke to find she had begun her courses, a very inconvenient thing to have happen while traveling such a long distance. She grumbled at her ill luck and lamented the absence of her maid, who had gone on ahead of her to prepare the cottage where they would be staying. Grateful it had at least begun while she was at an inn and not on the road where she would have had to ask her husband to stop and the whole thing could have been mortifying, she gathered what she needed and prepared to leave. She asked the maid at the inn for some sleeping powders, knowing it would all be so much simpler if she could rest through it, then stepped outside to await her husband.

Darcy collected his wife and led her to the carriage, happy to be on the way and that much closer to their destination. Today would be their last day of hard travel. He was enjoying being in Elizabeth’s constant company, but he missed spending nights with her. They could not share a bed in an inn; it was unseemly. It would be especially awkward for Elizabeth who was so new to such activities and still very shy with him. The last week had taught them much about each other and acclimated them somewhat to the marriage bed, but it was all still quite novel.

After the first day, he no longer came to her during the day. He limited such things to the evenings after his complete mortification at witnessing her examining herself for injuries at his hand—well, at his something. He had barely been able to restrain himself, but the anticipation made the nights that much sweeter.