Darcy's eyes opened wide. Elizabeth's eyes were shut tight.
It was his fault, and well he knew it. He ought to feel ashamed of himself for what he had begun. He had wished their closeness to exist, physically exist, outside his imagination. He had wished for more than a fleeting brush of cloth upon cloth at a crowded dinner party.
He should have known an independent young woman like Elizabeth Bennet would never tolerate the man's having things all his own way. She would make her own move rather than stand—or, in this case, sit—idly by. Yet he had quite literally limited her possible moves by putting her in this position.
So if he was left wishing they had progressed past all this to the part of their lives where they were cosily situated on a sofa not at Netherfield but at Pemberley, where it would not signify in the least how boldly Elizabeth's hand roamed his lap, he had no one to blame but himself.
She looked so beautiful.
There were several ladies he had met who would be considered more beautiful than Elizabeth Bennet, the eldest Miss Bennet included. However, Darcy had never encountered one that appealed to him in all the ways Elizabeth did. With each meeting, each newly glimpsed facet of her character, she had somehow become dearer, and that fact had cast its own immutable charm over her already pleasing features.
He pulled her hand from between them, placed it on her knee, and briefly pressed it. Then he gently shifted her to the side so that her legs were draped across his own, and he could better see her face. He reached over to caress her at the waist. He would have let his hand rest there, but she was not composed. Her eyes remained closed, her lips parted, and she took shallow breaths.
He knew his intentions were not nefarious, but did she? Her eyes would tell him. He reached up and touched her face, running a thumb across her cheek.
Elizabeth did open her eyes then, and he knew. She was afraid, but he would swear there was no fear of him in her look. She was afraid of herself.
“I am shocked by my behaviour,” she said very quietly, confirming his thoughts. “I do not know what to say.” Her eyes glistened.
“Oh, my dear,” he said. He had almost called her his love. He wanted to tell her not to cry. His experience in saying that to Georgiana in moments of distress, however, had long ago impressed upon him the futility of the command. He could handle a few tears. As for his own feelings, he felt like grinning. Unsure whether he would be able to keep a smile from breaking out, he decided not even to try to suppress his feelings. “If,” he asked, “I were to assume from your words that you do not often find yourself in situations like this, that perhaps you have never found yourself in a situation like this before, would I be correct?”
She swallowed and said, “You would.”
He said, “Then maybe you will believe me when I tell you this is a rarity for me as well.” He wiped one of her tears. “Your eyes are pretty even when you cry.”
“You must say that to all the ladies who sit on your lap in libraries.”
“Yes, all one of them.” He lifted an eyebrow and watched her blush. “I have less experience in these matters than you might think. Bingley is always going on about my fastidiousness. He is not wrong.”
“You make me curious.”
“As long as I do not make you uncomfortable.” His voice had gone up at the end, making it more question than statement.
“Not in an unpleasant way,” she replied after a palpable silence. She regarded him with a serious, steady look, as though waiting for more. “I am still curious,” she said at length.
He never talked to people about his private business, but this was Elizabeth, the woman who was very quickly becoming his private business. And he liked talking to her. “Do you truly wish to know?” he asked.
She nodded.
“When I came of age, my cousins grew weary of merely teasing me about my innocence and decided to introduce me to an acquaintance who might...relieve me of it.”
“Oh.”
“Things did not go according to plan that evening. In the strictest sense, I returned home as innocent as I had been when I arrived. I found, despite adequate temptation, that I did not wish to share a woman with one of my cousins. I did not even know if my cousin was still in the habit of visiting her. When I admitted this to the lady, she was kind. She agreed to explain certain matters to me and even answered my awkward questions so that my time would not be wasted.”
Darcy was quiet then, remembering the woman who had neither ridiculed nor resented him when he was vulnerable, and who had apparently been so discreet that his cousin never knew a thing.
“And after?” Elizabeth asked.
“There was no after. I had fleeting thoughts of finding another widow, someone unacquainted with my family, but I never did. My father fell ill. Instead of spending my money on mistresses, I spent it travelling between London and Pemberley. Rumours of my father's health circulated, and I withdrew from society to a degree. I did not have the time or patience to fend off fortune hunters. I had a sister to care for.”
“What of your mother?”
“She had died years before.”
In an inkling, he was lost in memories: the late Lady Anne Darcy—Mother—a woman with an almost regal bearing and a distant air, who nevertheless conveyed warmth and affection when she smiled at him; escapades at Pemberley in his youth; carriage rides with his parents and baby sister; the great pleasure his maternal grandfather took in calling him Fitzwilliam and treating him as if he were his heir simply because he bore the family name; riding to the far reaches of the estate with his father; visits to Rosings and the inevitable, lingering pity for Anne, whose mother was not nearly as pleasant as his own.
He was brought out of his musings by the gentle touch of Elizabeth's hand on his face. He looked into her eyes. Why had he ever thought he would be able to forget her? Those eyes of hers would always have drawn him back. He had felt his danger this morning, but now he was entirely lost. There was nothing for it.
His uncle would rant. His aunts would be in high dudgeon. Lady Catherine, in particular, would spew her fiery anger like an ill-bred volcano.
He was going to have relations in trade, near Cheapside.
He would be brother to those giggling geese, Misses Catherine and Lydia Bennet.
He could not bring himself to care about any of those things, and that fact astonished him.
Darcy looked at the woman with whom he wanted to share not just the remainder of this day, but as many days as possible for many years to come. He leaned into her and nestled his head against her bosom. “Sweet Elizabeth,” he whispered. “What have you done to me?”
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