Eternal Flame ~ A Pemberley Fairy Tale

Chapter Sixteen

Darcy watched as Liz bid her friend farewell, but he didn’t relax until she settled into the passenger seat beside him.

It had been a long drive down to London, following the small car on the busy motorway. A momentary slip in concentration in the fast moving traffic could have snatched her out of his grasp, but they’d arrived without incident. He leaned over the handbrake, his hand caressing her face as he kissed her.

“What was that for?”

“I missed you.”

Liz laughed. “That’s what Nat said but I didn’t believe her.”

“You’ll have to learn to believe. Did you tell Natalie your good news?”

She blushed and looked down, focussing on fastening her seatbelt. “I mentioned I’d acquired a fiancé while I’d been gone, but I haven’t told her about work yet.”

He knew why. Her employment was the one thing Liz was being stubborn about. “You think I’m being old-fashioned because I don’t want my wife to work. You have to remember I’ve been on my own for too many years. Now I’ve found you I want to spend as much time with you as I can. I don’t want to waste another moment.”

“Being with you doesn’t stop me working. If we’re going to be married I want to contribute.”

Darcy sat back, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “Money isn’t the issue. Even if I never earned another penny I think I can afford to keep a wife in the manner to which she is accustomed, or in your case far better.”

“And I’m a twenty first century girl who is used to paying her own way and not relying on anyone else. Surely we can find some middle ground here.”

Her petulant tone made him smile. He was willing to relent for the moment to keep her happy. “I’ll think about it.”

They set off towards Pimlico, heading for Liz’s flat. Although it was only five miles away they ended up driving around for an extra fifteen minutes until they found somewhere to park the car.

“I’m sorry. Parking’s a nightmare. It’s not too far from here though.”

Darcy glanced at the leaden sky and the darker clouds poised to roll in from the west. He draped his arm around her shoulder, protecting her from the elements. “I can see why you don’t bother with a car of your own. I’m surprised you could afford to learn to drive.”

“I was lucky. One of the girls I worked with in Bristol had an uncle who was a driving instructor. I sat in the back during some of her lessons, because he’d drop us off at work when she was done. After watching Sarah make all her mistakes he let me have a go. In the end, he traded me lessons for babysitting his twins. They were little devils so I was fortunate to pass first time, although I’m not what you’d call a confident driver. Lack of practice, I suppose. How about you? I imagine you had one of the first cars.”

Darcy remembered his first sight of a steam-driven motor car, broken down by the side of the road as the scalding hot contents of its burst water tank ran down the hill. “No, not at all. I thought they were a crazy fad that would never catch on. Of course, the people who bought them lived mainly in the towns and cities. On the estate we found horses more reliable.”

“So, what happened to change your mind?”

He tightened his grip on Liz as the memories flickered through his mind, like those early moving pictures he’d seen in the theatre. “The Great War happened. The army took cars and trucks over to France for moving supplies and men and to carry the wounded back to the casualty clearing stations. Of course, there were still plenty of horse-drawn vehicles alongside the horseless variety, but I realised then that motorised vehicles were here to stay.”