The Wedding Guest

Title: The Wedding Guest
Author: ExcentrykeMuse
Fandoms: Pride & Prejudice / Twilight Saga / Death Comes to Pemberley
Pairings: Bella/Darcy, (past) Elizabeth/Darcy, Jane/Bingley
Rating: G
Word Count: 1k
Warnings: stopped weddings, past relationships, misunderstandings, character deaths (prestory), no time travel, no Edward, no vampires, age difference (17/28)

The Wedding Guest

Bella had not planned to go to a wedding that day.  Oliver had rather insisted upon it.  She looked between her muslins and chose a pale blue one and had her maid, Charlotte, readied her and Bella presented herself at quarter past eleven.

Rather tired of being passed around guardians, Bella was now under the guardianship of Oliver Hatfield of Hatfield Orchard in Hertfordshire, and found herself having to unpack her small trunk once again.  She did not believe she was even related to Oliver Hatfield.  He was her mother’s cousin’s stepbrother’s uncle’s fourth cousin once removed.  Bella was living on the charity of others and she knew now she was seventeen, it was her duty to get married as quickly as possible.  The problem was she had only a fortune of three thousand pounds and a cottage in Derbyshire.

Oliver was a gangly young man with golden hair and brown eyes.  She wondered if Oliver was bored enough with her if he would marry her himself once he learned she could bake apple pies.  That was a depressing thought.

They entered the trap together and drove to the Longbourn church.

“Who is marrying?” she asked.

“The Misses Bennet,” he answered her.  “That is, the eldest two Misses Bennet.”

“What?  Both of them?” Bella inquired.  “Together?”

“Yes.  To very wealthy gentlemen.”

Bella was holding her bonnet down on her head with her gloved hand.  “Happy thought indeed.”  They drove in silence for several minutes.  “Who are the gentlemen?”

“Bingley is from the North.  He is renting Netherfield, and his friend is from Derbyshire.  You should like that.”

There were several men from Derbyshire.  Bella did not own the County.

They continued on in silence and when they arrived at the church, the lawns were covered in carriages, traps, with horses tied to several posts.  Oliver found a place to park and hopped down, offering Bella his hand. 

The church was crowded with people and they took a seat somewhere near the back.  Oliver greeted several people, including someone who seemed to be a sister of the brides, if Bella had the right of it.

Bella strained to get a look of the grooms.  They were standing up at the front of the church.  She could see a young man with ginger hair, dressed in a blue coat, but she could not quite make out the taller of the two.

After about half an hour, a boy ran in and cried, “The carriage is here!” and everyone quickly took their places and the organ struck up its chord.  Bella turned to the rear of the church and saw two young ladies in yellow muslin and bonnets enter the church on the arm of a proud man in whiskers.  As the young ladies became level with her, she became aware that she was the subject of someone’s scrutiny and she looked up toward the grooms and her eyes met those of none other than Darcy of Pemberley. 

Her breath caught in her throat.

It was undoubtedly her Darcy.

Happy days of summer spent on the River Derwent with her father, Charlie, flashed through her mind’s eye, and she blushed scarlet.  Glad she was wearing a blusher to hide most of blush, she quickly looked down at her gloved hands before looking up again.  Darcy was still regarding her and not whichever of the Misses Bennet was his bride.  His verdant gaze caught hers obsessively and she thought she saw a glimmer of panic in his eyes.

It was in a blink of an eye that the ladies were at the front of the church standing next to their grooms, and Bella couldn’t bear to look.  She pushed past the lady to her left and snuck out of the church, going and finding the trap and going to stroke the horse’s neck.

She assumed the wedding would take half an hour before the churchgoers would come streaming out of the church, but not five minutes later, there was some sort of commotion, and Darcy came running out of the church, looking about madly, before finding her and rushing up to her and taking her hand.  “Isabella,” he breathed, reaching up and cupping her face.  “I thought you were lost.  That is what Renee told me.”

“Renee?” she repeated, saying her mother’s name.

“When Charlie died in that hunting accident two years ago,” he explained, his green eyes searching hers, “she told me, and I quote, ‘Bella is lost.’”

“No,” she whispered.  “They sent me to live with relatives.  Renee was deemed unfit.”  She blinked.  “Aren’t you getting married?”

“I was,” he agreed carefully.  “Not anymore.”

“There will be a scandal,” she told him carefully.  “Especially as I live here at Hatfield Orchard now.”

He considered a moment.  “I will call on Sir Selwyn Hardcastle.  He has jurisdiction in Derbyshire and I will have you sent to Matlock House where you should have been sent instead of—” 

There was a commotion at the door of the church and one of the brides and the other bridegroom came streaming out into the sunshine.

“I will call in two hours,” Darcy promised and then ducked away toward one of the waiting wedding carriages, getting up into it and telling the riders to go even though he was clearly without his bride.

Bella looked at him in astonishment before climbing into her own trap.

The wedding guests came streaming out of the church, throwing rice, making merry, although there was a subdued atmosphere to the wedding.  Undoubtedly it was because one of the weddings in the dual ceremony had been called off.

Bella could see the second bride, her honey blonde curls pinned to her head under a bonnet, stepping out of the church on the arm of her father, a gaggle of sisters around her.

Oliver came out of the church, tipped his hat to the second bride, and came to the trap where Bella was waiting.

“You rushed out before all the commotion,” he noticed, climbing in himself.  “Are you feeling faint?”

“The crush of the church was a little much for me,” she admitted, trying to smile.  “I saw what happened.  Do we go on to the wedding breakfast?”

“I do not feel like celebrating,” Oliver admitted.  “Poor Elizabeth.  I always knew Darcy was bad news.—Shall we go back to the Orchard?”

Bella looked up at him and was uncertain how to tell him one of the bridegrooms was calling in two hours’ time.  How would he take it?  Would he be angry?  Would he call Bella a homewrecker?  Would he call Darcy a scoundrel?

He backed the trap up and Bella looked out at all the wedding goers.  She couldn’t help but smile a little to herself.  She had thought all these years that Darcy had forgotten about her, but he had not.  He had remembered her and he still loved her.  All was as it should be.

The End