“You were very young,” he sighed, leaning impossibly closer, his forehead nearly resting on hers. “And very prescient. I suppose that means, if you ever deign to inform me of your feelings on the matter, I should plan to yield to your superior intelligence for many years to come.”
“I do not recall you presenting me with a matter to consider,” she said, meeting his intense brown eyes once again. In teasing him, she found her footing. “I have no doubt that in the years to come, as your friend, I will indeed be able to offer you my wise and discerning advice on many matters.”
His dark eyes sparkled. “Did not your imagination present you with the question that would come next?”
“It certainly did,” she confessed, thinking of all the ways Fitzwilliam Darcy had proposed to her in her dreams. “Perhaps you are right. The reality might not live up to the fantasy.”
She made to move away but did not make it more than a step before his hand on her arm drew her back to him. In truth, she likely would not have gone an inch further.
“I understand you take delight in vexing me—”
“And you me.”
“It is true,” he admitted. “But now let us be serious. I have told you I love you and I do. As my friend, as the beautiful, captivating woman you are and as the one I want by my side always, but I do not want to burden you with expectations if your feelings are not equal to my own, or if you are not ready to hear my intentions.”
His words filled her with warmth and a feeling of absurd happiness that seemed to want to consume her. Until his final words.
“Not equal to yours!” Her indignation was apparent. “Fitzwilliam Darcy, I have loved you for nearly half my life.”
“Elizabeth, this is not me trying to vex you, I promise. Please hear me out.”
“If you want my full and focused attention, you should desist with the use of my name and refrain from touching me.”
His hands, which had rested on her upper arms, dropped immediately, and he stepped back from her. Though she had experienced his touch for the first time only moments ago, she missed it as if it were an essential thing. Worse still was his stricken look.
“I apologise for my presumption. Please forgive me.”
“For someone who is not trying to vex me, you are remarkably good at it,” she huffed. “I only meant that being so close to you, hearing you call me by my given name—these are not helping if you hope to elicit coherent thought from me, which seems a prerequisite for the conversation we are attempting to have.”
Somehow, his smug smile was more endearing than annoying.
“Very well, in the interest of resolving the matter at hand and hopefully removing any barriers to my being able to hold you once again, let us continue.” He indicated the bench behind them and they both sat, several inches apart. “I did not mean tochallenge your feelings. If you will say you love me, if you do love me, I will be the happiest of men. However, I am only asking you to consider that the love of a young girl for a stranger she spies from a tree is not the same as the love of a woman for a man she hopes to marry.”
“That is true, and to be frank, my love for you has been a part of me for so long that it would have been hard to discern the moment it changed from a girlhood whim to a real and lasting affection, but for John Robertson.”
“John?” he jumped up and began to pace. “He certainly showed an interest in you last summer. Are you saying you return his affection?”
She took a deep breath. How could he be both so wise and yet so very foolish?
“Yes, as I accept your words of love and demonstrations of your own affection, I am secretly harbouring a tendre for another man, whom I plan to wed once I can be rid of you!” She stood as well and put herself in his path as she spoke. “How can you be so ridiculous?”
“I am as reasonable as a man in love can be,” he answered defiantly, then softening, he reached for her. With one hand resting on her cheek, he went on.
“Can you not imagine how it felt to have only just begun to see you as a woman, a desirable and confounding woman, and then watching an old friend dance attendance on you—without any evidence of your objection?”
“I had not thought of that,” she said, covering his hand where it rested on her face and reaching to hold his other hand.He laced their fingers together. “I mentioned him because of that very thing.”
“That thing being his interest in you and you not objecting to it?”
“Mr. Darcy, will you not allow me to finish a thought?”
“My apologies, please continue.”
“Mr. Robertson did pay me attention and made me understand that he had intentions. He is a handsome and eligible gentleman whose company I enjoyed.” She ignored Darcy’s fierce scowl and went on. “But when he all but declared his hope to make me an offer one day, I knew my feelings for him were not love at all. I could not picture a life with him. Not because he was not good or intelligent or amiable or because we were not compatible, but because he was not you. And I thought not of the you of my childish fantasies—Mr. Robertson might have won out against the mirage of you I created in those early years. But I knew then that the you of our years of friendship, the you of long rides across the fields of Pemberley, the you of chess matches and book discussions, the you of dark brooding looks and curly boyish hair would vanquish all other suitors, past or present, real or imaginary. Because I love you, Fitzwilliam Darcy, the woman I am today loves the man you are today, and for quite a few yesterdays. I would like it noted—I did love you first.”
“My dearest, loveliest Elizabeth.” He swept her into his arms, twirling her about before setting her down and taking her hands in his once again. “Marry me, my darling friend, be my wife and my companion in all things.”
“Yes!” she nearly shouted. “I will marry you.”
