“Is something amiss?” He moved closer, his eyes scanning her as if to assess her well-being.
“Yes?”
“Shall I escort you to your family?”
“Yes, or I mean no.” She pursed her lips and closed her eyes for just a moment before looking up at him. Had he moved even closer? Her hands came to her heart as if that could slow its pace.
“No? You do not wish to go to your family? Are you certain you are not ill?”
“Truly, I am well,” she assured him in a surprisingly calm voice.
“Good, good,” he said, his distraction evident even before his hand slid through his previously well-groomed curls. “I should perhaps take this opportunity to …that is to if you do not mind hearing me out …I would like to …if you are or if you can …”
He seemed to have finished.
“If I can or if I will what?” she asked with a laugh. His nervousness calmed her. “I would be happy to hear whatever you have to say. If you need a moment to gather your thoughts, please feel free to take it.”
She certainly knew how that felt, and though she had never wanted anything more than to know what he had to say, she did not want him to feel agitated or discomposed.
“Thank you.” He took a deep breath, closing his eyes. When he opened them, he regarded her for a moment, his gaze softening, a small smile slowly forming. “I don’t think I told you how lovely you look this evening.”
“Thank you.” She returned his smile, finally allowing the frantic anticipation and hope she was feeling to break through into her expression. “Is that what you wanted to say?”
“Yes. No?”
“No?”
He laughed; his hand went to his hair once again.
“Yes, I did want to tell you how beautiful you look tonight. How beautiful you are,” he added absently. “More than that . . . You have long been an important person in my life. I have valued you for the love and loyalty you have given my sister from the start, for the happiness you brought my father, but more than that, for these many years, I have counted you among my dearest friends.”
He paused once again as if collecting his thoughts.
“I have always been thankful for your friendship,” she offered.
“When I arrived at Pemberley, for your birthday, and saw you in the lilac grove, I did not recognise you.”
“Yes, I remember,” she said, confused by the direction of the conversation. “You were quite put out that I had dared to age without your consent.”
“I was, I suppose.” He looked away for a long moment, then his eyes connected with hers again. In them she saw the determination she often glimpsed when they argued or faced each other across a chessboard.
“Before I knew it was you, I was, I was so struck by your beauty that I thought you were a figment of my imagination or a creature of myth or fairy tale.”
Her cheeks flushed and her whole body seemed to warm. She could not think how to respond. Darcy continued with his memories from that day.
“But then it was you, and I had a hard time reconciling the captivating woman before me with the girl I knew. When you spoke, it was you, the same you I had always known, but still not quite the same.”
“Not the same?” she whispered.
Darcy looked down, then reached for her hands.
“I was not angry you had aged as you so impertinently put it.” His laughing eyes met hers again as his thumb ran along her gloved hand. The teasing tone was familiar; his touch was not. “I was unprepared for the woman you have become. Unprepared but not unhappy. It simply took me some time to realise that it was not primarily astonishment I was feeling.”
Once again, he paused and looked down, his eyes tracking the progress of his thumbs along the sides of her hands.Through two pairs of gloves it seemed impossible she was feeling as much as she was, but judging by his expression of wonder, he felt it too.
“What was it you felt in addition to a great deal of astonishment?” she asked with an arched brow.
His smile grew.
