“You have ten minutes,” Mrs. Bingley said warningly. “Do not waste the time.”
The door clicked shut behind her. Darcy stared at it and then at Elizabeth. “You and your sister are more alike than I had guessed.”
Elizabeth’s lips twitched, and a strangled sort of mirth burst out of her mouth before she gave in and began to laugh. It was like music, her laughter, and he could not help but chuckle, too.
“May I see my letter?” she inquired boldly when she had done. She stretched out her hand and then withdrew it. “Itisfor me, is it not?”
“It is.” Darcy held out the note, but just before she took it, he lifted it above her head, quite out of reach. He smiled roguishly. “I would like to seemyletter as well, Miss Bennet.”
Her cheeks flushed, but she moved resolutely to her little wooden box and lifted the lid. With exaggerated care, she placed the tattered letter she had been holding inside and removed a newer one.
Shyly, she held it out to him, and he offered his in return.
There was absolute silence for a few of their precious minutes as they read. When he reached the closing of Elizabeth’s letter to him, Darcy’s heart beat a little harder.
If you cannot give your heart again to one who did not value it rightly the first time it was
offered, I will think you wise. However, if you were willing to be foolish instead, I can promise you
that it would be received with the love and care that it deserves.
“If I am willing to be foolish . . . Elizabeth Bennet!” he cried, delighted. “Are you proposing to me?”
She gazed up at him, her eyes a little glossy. Had she been crying over his words? “Do not be ridiculous,” she told him impertinently. “It is not my place to propose to any man.”
He laughed with delight and held up the letter in his hand. “You are, and I have the proof!”
Her adorable face collapsed into a pout. “Give it back, Mr. Darcy.”
“You will never have this letter back. I accept, by the way.”
“I have not asked.”
“You have.” He waved the letter at her, then folded it and put it in his breast pocket.
“Is that the safest place for such a letter?” she inquired pointedly, folding hers and locking it in the wooden box. She glanced at him askance and folded her arms across her chest. One slender eyebrow rose as she stared impishly at him.
He reached for her hands, gently tugging at them until she uncrossed her arms. She did not remove her hands from his. Rather, she trained her eyes on where those hands were joined.
“I have been teasing you, and now I wish to be serious,” he told her. She glanced up at him. “You will think me vain and presumptuous.”
She lifted her chin haughtily. “As if I do not think you those things already.” Her eyes sparkled when she spoke. It gave him courage.
“Very well,” he replied directly. “When I think of you, I do not call you Miss Bennet or even Miss Elizabeth. You are Elizabeth to me, and you have been since Pemberley. In my heart, you are mine.”
An almost unbearable silence descended. He could even hear the clock in the hall. Had he gone too far? Tick. Tick. Tick . . . He could hear his life draining away as he waited for Elizabeth to speak.
“Itispresumptuous, sir,” she said at last.
Darcy closed his eyes in defeat.
“But no more than I, for I consider you mine as well.”
His eyes shot open. “You do?”
She smiled and laughed quietly. “If you will be mine, I will be yours. That is, if you will have me.”
“IfIwill haveyou? What do you think I have been . . . I cannot believe that . . .” Words failed him. This was neither unusual nor unexpected, for powerful emotions often rendered him mute. But Darcy’s feelings could not be contained merely by not speaking of them, and the very staid, very respectable Mr. Darcy of Pemberley in Derbyshire released his joy by embracing the woman he loved, picking her up and swinging her around once, twice, three times.
