The Letter in His Hand

@darcy

The water at the edge of the Pemberley lake is still cold enough to ache, and Darcy has just come up the bank with his shirt clinging and his hair in his eyes when he sees you on the path. He stops as though struck. In his hand, damp at the corners, is a folded letter — your hand, your words, the one he was never meant to have. For a long moment he does not speak at all; then, quietly: “You are a day early.”