“It was a shock. I had never imagined she might behave in such a way.” Darcy liked the excuse of a different topic to delay themoment.
“And you hated to have your business spoken of widely. You have that sense of privacy that must have despised every whisper.”
“I do.” Darcy took a deep breath. “But what is to be done?”
“And might you tell me of your sister?”
“At least she did not marry him. And at least he did not…” He paused. It was not a matter he was used to speaking of.
“This will eventually be… not forgotten,” Elizabeth said, “but I do not imagine that many will despise her in five years for a thing which happened when she was so young.”
“And her dowry remains thirty thousand pounds. A great sum with which to purchase friends from the mercenary sorts.” Darcy grimaced.
“Are you concerned that only such persons will have an interest in marrying her when the time comes?”
“I do worry.” Darcy tilted a hand back and forth. “She insists that she plans to never marry. But I do not take such a saying when she is still heartbroken seriously.”
Something in the way Elizabeth looked at him made him flush.
He had said something that could be applied to his own case. And it could, as he had determined to ask her to marry. His own protestations had proven to not be worth much. But Darcy was not heartbroken. He’d never cried, he’d just known that he had not treated Anne as he ought.
“It is us women who judge other women the most harshly in such matters.” Elizabeth half laughed. “Amongst gentlemen your sister can play the role of one who had been a helpless girl, but who has learned her lesson, and who is wholly different now — there are of course men who will flinch away, but not most, and I do not know that those who have such scruples would be the best matches in any case.”
“I do not think her virtue was fatally compromised onthatroad. Not from her words to me and my aunt — the wife of my uncle, the Earl of Matlock, not Lady Catherine. By no meanswould I have ever subjected Georgiana to Lady Catherine’s harangues upon the matter.”
“I know.”
“I nearly fought a duel with Wickham, but I remembered Emily — even if my father’s godson is not a sort of man who can shoot well, there would have been some chance of a mischance. I could not risk it, not even for a matter of honour. Do you despise me for that?”
Elizabeth was silent. Darcy looked at her closely, with a sort of anxiety.
She suppressed a smile. “Mr. Darcy, it is gentlemen who consider such matters so seriously. Most women wish that their gentlemen woulden masseleave off the practice of shooting at each other. I do not doubt your bravery. Nor that you are honourable.”
Darcy nodded. He tried to make himself start to speak. To begin to make his offer.
“And Emily has become so much taller. That is your influence. Neither Lady Catherine nor your cousin are particularly tall. And she speaks so much! So many sentences, and she learns new words so easily. Half of what I say to her she imitates nearly perfectly.”
“I was disconcerted,” Darcy replied, “when she began to say ‘no’ clearly. Specifically, when asked her if I might flip her upside down, as I had habitually done. She usually replies, ‘no, no’.”
Elizabeth laughed. “But she always giggled and grinned.”
“I wonder. Perhaps she never liked it so much. Sometimes though she still deigns to permit this, her humble servant to flip her upside down when he requests the boon, so I suppose it is only that she prefers to determine when it shall happen.”
“The perfect father.” Elizabeth’s smile was warm.
“Permit me to express my gratitude once more for your kindness in helping to care for Emily. It made me feel far easier when I heard of it. And at a difficult time.”
“It was a pleasure to be there.”
Their eyes met.
The gaze held, and it was impossible to speak while looking into her eyes in such a way. Darcy was suffused with tension, a sense that now was a turning moment in his life. He stepped forward to Elizabeth, and he brushed his finger against her cheek. “Elizabeth, I cannot resist, I cannot stop myself. No matter what I intended or wished, I need you. I—”
She backed away from him shaking her head.
Pale.
“No, no, no.”
