He showed her a few sketches of her father outside the cottage. In one he was in profile, looking at the sea; in another, he was reading in his favorite chair on the terrace; in the final sketch he was next to her mother and the two of them were laughing, her mother’s hand on her father’s arm. She reached out and touched the picture, suddenly missing her family and unbelievably touched by her husband’s gesture.

“He will come to Pemberley and sketch you once the rest of your family is completed,” he said quietly.

“Will he sketch you, too?”

“I am not a Bennet,” he said.

“But you are my family. If it is to be my family portrait, I would wish you to be in it. And Mr. Bingley, too, if he would like.”

“If you wish it, my love, consider it done,” he said thickly.

She fell into his arms and held him tight. “Thank you, Fitzwilliam. It is absolutely perfect.”

Chapter 30

In what was a surprising turn, though perhaps it should not have been, Bingley and Jane announced they would like to wed as soon as possible, right there in Margate. He said he did not care if his family or friends were there, as long as he was married at the end of it. He could invite a friend in London to stand up with him and preferred his sisters not attend.

Jane agreed. They had spent enough time waiting and thinking about each other; she was ready to begin their life together. She would have liked Lizzy to be there with her, but she knew her sister was in the middle of her wedding tour and very far away. It would take her a week to get to Margate, only to return north after a few days. Not wanting to subject her sister to such rigors, she sent a letter asking if Elizabeth would mind terribly if she married without her, and she and Bingley would visit Pemberley after their tour.

Mr. and Mrs. Bennet had no choice but to agree with the young couple. Mrs. Bennet bemoaned ever being able to decorate the chapel at Longbourn and have all her Meryton friends see one of her daughters wed. She was resigned to it soon enough, though, when Lydia blithely suggested it was much less likely Mr. Bingley would disappear again if they married quickly. After that, Mrs. Bennet threw herself into planning a simple but beautiful wedding, and Mr. Bennet was pleased to save the cost of a lavish affair. He only wanted to see his very worthy daughter well settled.