When Elizabeth entered the library, she was unaware she was not alone. Her ignorance did not last long.
A familiar voice emanating from the corner of the room murmured a barely comprehensible string of words. The experience was frustrating for three reasons: the voice belonged to Mr. Darcy; the voice had a rather appealing tone despite the unfortunate identity of its owner; and the volume was too low for Elizabeth to make sense of what was being said.
She came to a stop near him. He was so absorbed in his reading that he had not heard her at all, apparently. She feigned a delicate cough, and he started and rose. Muted greetings were exchanged.
Just after she had taken up a book and sat down, Elizabeth heard Mr. Darcy's voice again. She waited a moment for it to quieten. When it did not, she interrupted him. “Do you enjoy reading aloud?” she asked, drawing attention to the fact that she, too, held a book and hoping the expression on her face eloquently conveyed her feelings.
“I often find myself alone here,” he offered as an excuse.
“You are not alone now.”
“Pardon me, madam. I shall endeavour to contain my literary enthusiasm.”
Elizabeth smirked.
A few minutes later, she heard his voice again. This time it ceased quickly, and once more she immersed herself in her own book.
After checking her laughter for the third or fourth time, well entertained by Shakespeare's whimsy, Elizabeth stole a glance at Mr. Darcy and wondered how he would tolerate a taste of his own medicine, She read a line loudly enough for him to hear and was not disappointed with the result.
“I thought you did not approve of reading aloud in company.”
Elizabeth looked up. “Oh, did I ever say that, sir? Besides, when I do it, it does not keep me from concentrating on the words before me. Would you like me to endeavour to contain my literary enthusiasm?”
Mr. Darcy glared at her.
Elizabeth thought she heard a mumble that sounded suspiciously like “Exasperating woman!”
“Did you say something, sir?”
He did not answer.
“Is that your yes glare or your no glare?”
Mr. Darcy still said nothing, but the glare changed. Elizabeth could not determine what the change meant.
After a moment, Mr. Darcy lowered his eyes to his book.
They had been silent for some minutes when Mr. Darcy yet again lapsed into reading aloud. Elizabeth looked up in annoyance to find him already looking at her. So he had caught himself at it; all the better. She thought he would resume reading, perhaps quietly this time, but instead he got up and walked over to her.
“The only solution to this quandary,” he said, “is for us to read the same book.”
“Are you saying your solution must be the only solution?” Elizabeth retorted. “Why am I not surprised?”
“The other way is for one of us to leave, but on that point I fear you may be as stubborn as I.”
“If you think you will force me to leave because I would rather not admit to stubbornness, you are mistaken, You shall not be rid of me so easily as that.” Elizabeth was determined he would not chase her away. Let him leave if he felt separation necessary.
“As I thought.”
Elizabeth sat still, unwillingly enthralled. How could a man's smirk be repulsive and attractive at the same time?
Mr. Darcy opened his volume to the first page and held it out to her. “Will you not begin?”
Elizabeth continued to stare at him.
He hmphed, stared, and at last sighed and commenced reading aloud. Then he put the book into her hand and waited.
Elizabeth set the book down and picked up her own, turning to the beginning and reading the first lines of Twelfth Night.
“I wonder if I should bother to ask,” Mr. Darcy said, holding out his hand for her book when she stopped.
She gave it to him. “Had you not left for me the lines of that villainous Tybalt, I might have complied. You have read the best part of the play—that is, the prologue—with the exception of Mercutio's speeches. As for Romeo, I have no patience for him. First he loves Rosaline, and then he loves her cousin Juliet. It is a rather flimsy love that can be overthrown by one glimpse of a thirteen-year-old girl, in my opinion.”
“Perchance his was a...what did you call it? A thin sort of inclination, starved away by Romeo's own iambic pentameter.”
She watched the edge of his mouth twitch. She was hard-pressed not to laugh at his jest herself, and she imagined her eyes gave away her amusement.
His look softened. “Your choice is more entertaining.” He took a moment to find the place where she had stopped, and he continued from there, walking as he did so. Then he handed the book back to her.
She read more. They took turns, walking and stopping, eventually drifting over to the sofa.
The last scene of the first act was long. They decided to split it. With each turn, they lingered nearer after handing the book off. They went on that way, back and forth, through more of the play. Eventually they sat quite close, heads bent over the volume.
It was quite sensible what they were doing, Elizabeth thought. The words had been penned to be spoken before an audience. A full cast might have been ideal, but she and Mr. Darcy were acquitting themselves well enough. He even made each character's voice different—not dramatically so, but one could tell he had the talent for it. She could picture him reading to his young sister by the fire. Perhaps this was one of his accomplishments, a certain something in his manner of reading. She laughed, and he looked up at her and smiled before going on.
Spending time with Mr. Darcy in this way was far less unpleasant than Elizabeth would have imagined. In truth, it was not at all unpleasant.
It was lovely.
Elizabeth was pondering this revelation during one of their pauses when Mr. Darcy, instead of reading the next part, hesitantly said, “Miss Bennet, would you mind standing up just a little?”
The sofa was very accommodating. Elizabeth wondered why he needed her to move, but she did not question him. She began to rise and suddenly felt him sliding under her—and then he pulled her to himself until she was partially on his lap and in his embrace!
“Much better,” he murmured. He held the book in front of them both and began reading his part as if it were the most natural thing in the world for them to be pressed up against each other.
That sonorous, mellifluous voice, so close to her ear, made her shiver.
Was she mad? Was he? This was Mr. Darcy, Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley in Derbyshire! The tall, proud man who insulted her at their first meeting, who looked at all her acquaintance to find fault, held her close as if he had every right to do so.
She ought to object. She knew she ought. To her bewilderment, she realised she had no wish to do so. When her mind insisted that this...arrangement was improper, that she ought to remove herself from this situation, her body insisted just as vehemently that she had better stay right where she was.
His body seemed to agree. She detected less tension in him now than in all the time they had spent together in the library so far this day.
Elizabeth could not be at ease. In her nervousness, she reached behind her to smooth her skirt. As she ran her hand along the fabric, and by necessity between her person and that of Mr. Darcy, she heard a hiss. She turned quickly to look at him.
“Elizabeth!” Darcy whispered, releasing the book and grasping her arm carefully but firmly to stay her movement. “Take care.”
Later, Elizabeth would wonder what she had been thinking. In the moment, however, whether impelled by curiosity, defiance, or something she could not name, she simply moved a part of her that she could move. Her arm stayed where it was, but she slid her hand back and forth a little and heard Darcy's breathing change.
She did not know how she was going to look him in the eye ever again, but she knew she must.
Just not yet.
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