Their walk had begun beautifully. They had engaged in pleasant banter, and when they had lapsed into silence, there were still glances and blushes and smiles. Seeing her smile directed at him so frequently was almost as good as having her kisses. Had things gone a bit further—had she reached out for him, touched him—he might have kissed her again.
Then something went awry.
It had taken him two steps to realise she was no longer at his side. He had been speaking of her family at her instigation. He had kept his strictures to a minimum, and for his pains she had accused him of not being gentleman-like! The words had stung him.
He was every inch the gentleman! That was how they had come to be walking to Longbourn together this morning. He had determined that she should be undeceived regarding Wickham. Upon finding himself alone with her, he had exercised great restraint and only proceeded with such displays of affection that she did not object to or that she actually encouraged. Indeed, there had been no want of encouragement!
For all that, he had not swept her up in his arms, put her atop his horse, and ridden off with her to the next town. Nor had he coaxed her away from the path to some secluded place for the purpose of enticing favours from her. He knew more than a few men who would have done the latter without a second thought and maybe even a few who might have risked a kidnapping charge for the former, but he was not that sort of man.
Yet his admission, however succinct, that he had had the reasonable scruples of a reasoning man had somehow drawn her censure.
He squeezed the bridge of his nose. Was he really congratulating himself for not behaving like a villain, for not being an unprincipled ass, simply because he resented the fact that a single remark of his had been judged and found wanting?
Only Elizabeth could affect him this way.
This was the conundrum that was Elizabeth. She attracted him, frustrated him, confused him, surprised him, and sometimes angered him. She inspired, amused, and delighted him.
She moved him.
He could not remember not being interested in her, even when he had thought he was not interested in her. He had kept looking at her until he had wanted to keep looking—until he had wanted her to look back.
Now she was looking back, and it would be the height of foolishness for him to ruin everything in the heat of the moment. He had said enough to achieve an uneasy truce, but he would do well to come up with something better before they reached her home. He would not like her to bid him goodbye at the door with nary a backward glance.
Oh, but he was piqued! He had been hard-pressed to keep the irritation out of his voice, and there had been an edge to his words. Elizabeth had not left his side, however, and she had not tried to rush him along. He was glad of that. He needed this last stretch of the walk to Longbourn to be a slow and thoughtful journey.
He tried to use the time well. He thought of the content of his remark and sought to understand why Elizabeth had taken exception to it. Were not his feelings about the relative stations of the Bennets and his own family, not to mention the behaviour of some of the Bennets, natural and just?
Bingley would say he was being too fastidious, but Bingley was always saying that.
His earlier thoughts about Lady Catherine's behaviour came back to him. He was suddenly dissatisfied with how easily he had forgotten those musings. Had he dismissed them from his mind because he depended on the distance between Pemberley and Longbourn to keep him from having to reconcile himself to the unpleasant aspects of the match?
He considered his parents, education, and inheritance. He had a heritage to make a man proud, and apparently it had made him proud, but did his position in the world really require him to think meanly of others not similarly blessed? He had taken for granted that it did. Now he began to doubt the rightness and even the practicality of doing so.
He glanced at the woman next to him.
She had her pride too, he realised.
Could he not begin, at least where it most mattered, to take people as he found them and to disregard those foibles he was apt to overlook in others when they were gilded with wealth and consequence?
It would be a challenge, but Darcy was not put off by challenges.
His happiness was bound up in Elizabeth Bennet. There was no doubt on that score, but how was Elizabeth to know she could trust her happiness to his care if she feared he might forever reproach her for circumstances beyond her control? Why would she dare trust him with her heart if she could not trust him to tolerate, for her sake, the people she loved?
His eyes were appraising the old, dignified façade of Longbourn House and admiring the prettiness of the grounds when he had an idea.
Elizabeth was on the point of turning her feet towards the front door. He reached out and gently touched her arm. “Will you direct me to the stables, Miss Bennet?”
She started at that, but he could see no advantage to being anything other than bold now, so he continued.
“Elizabeth,” he said, “I mean to shed all claims to gentleman-like behaviour for the present and invite myself in. If I wish your connections to be mine in future, I ought to have a proper value for them. In pursuit of that, I should like to spend some time with them if I may. You were quite right to chastise me. You would not be the woman I lo—” He stopped, impeded by a wave of embarrassment. He had been fooling himself in refusing to use the word. “I suppose I do love you. It is pointless to deny it. You would not be the woman I am at least beginning to love,” he said, smiling at her surprised face, “if you were afraid to tell me when you think I am in the wrong.”
There was so much emotion in her face that for a moment he thought she might cry again, but then she composed herself and, to his astonishment, grasped his hand.
She led him to the stables, and then, when his horse was seen to, she took him into the house. Thereupon followed a flurry of activity during which they separated only of necessity or expedience, and then only briefly. He had not seen much of Longbourn before and certainly did not know his way about the place. It was a whirl: servants' names and faces; inquiries and glances; that lightness in his beloved's voice that sounded like a smile and hovered on the brink of joyous laughter; and throughout, the near-constant touch of her hand in his, At length, she settled him in a well-appointed parlour with a promise to return to him soon.
He did not have long to wait. He stood at her approach and noticed that slight difference in her height that he sometimes did. Looking down, he saw that she had exchanged her half-boots for slippers. She came quite close and said in a low voice, “I had to hide away my precious letter. Come!” She took his hand and led him down the hall to stop before a door. “Oh! You must be hungry. Had you anything to eat before leaving Netherfield?”
He admitted to not having had much of an appetite then but feeling peckish now.
“We shall remedy that, but first, I thought you might wish to speak to my father.”
“Your father?” he said, nonplussed. Then her nod and her smile and the light in her dark eyes cleared away all confusion as to her meaning but not the reasoning behind it. “But you were not ready! You said you wanted time to think.”
“I have been thinking,” she said, that mesmerising mouth twitching on one side during her pause, “and I now think the idea of a little more time to be over-rated.”
He opened his mouth to reply and found himself unable to utter a word. Elizabeth had pressed herself to him and raised her face while lowering his. With a little leap, her lips met his own. It hardly would have been gallant not to assist her and he held her to himself, indulging their mutual wishes, until the enormity of the moment burst upon him. Caressing her face, with the sound of his ragged breath and his pounding heart in his ears, he asked, “You will marry me? That is, will you marry me, Miss Elizabeth Bennet?”
“Yes, I will marry you, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy.”
“Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy?!?”
The exclamation had not come from his beloved. He lifted his face to discover that they had quite an audience. The youngest two Bennet girls admirably prevented giggles from escaping their mouths while their shoulders shook. Miss Bennet looked as if she could not credit what she saw, but her frown of perplexity and Miss Mary's frown of disapproval were worlds apart. Even Mrs. Bennet was there, looking with something like triumph not at him or Elizabeth, but at her houseguest. As for Mr. Collins, who had cried out his name, that man stood staring at him in horror and indignation.
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