“You care for me,” he said.
Elizabeth did not deny it. The color that had receded from her cheeks returned, a becoming blush that spread across her features like sunset across Pemberley’s lake.
“I have come to…” She hesitated, then seemed to gather her courage. “To love you, I think. Enough to wish for your lasting happiness, even if that requires temporary separation.”
The confession, offered with such vulnerability, struck Darcy with its sincerity. She loved him. Not merely cared for him, not merely regarded him, but loved him.
“Elizabeth. My dearest, loveliest Elizabeth.”
He leaned forward, drawn by an impulse he could not resist, his gaze dropping to her lips. For a moment, it seemed she might not pull away, might allow the kiss that every fiber of his being craved. But then she placed a gentle hand on his chest, halting his advance.
“Not yet,” she whispered, her eyes communicating what words could not—that she wanted this as much as he did, but that wisdom dictated restraint. “When you return, perhaps. When we are both certain.”
“I shall write to you from Pemberley,” he said, reluctantly releasing her hands as he heard approaching footsteps on the garden path. “And I shall return to claim what you have all but promised me today.”
“I shall await your letters,” Elizabeth replied, a hint of her familiar spirit returning to her expression. “And perhaps, if they are particularly persuasive, I shall even respond in kind.”
“I shall make them irresistible,” he promised. “You will find yourself reaching for pen and paper before you’ve finished reading.”
“Such confidence, Mr. Darcy,” she teased, though her eyes remained soft with emotion. “Some things, it seems, never change.”
“While others,” he countered, “change profoundly.”
Their eyes met in perfect understanding, the moment suspended in time like a dewdrop on a spider’s web—fragile, beautiful, ephemeral. Then Bingley appeared on the garden path, his expression apologetic.
“Forgive the interruption,” he said, “but Mrs. Bennet is becoming concerned about the heat affecting Miss Elizabeth.”
“A mother’s concern is never unwelcome,” Darcy replied, rising from the bench with more effort than he cared to display. A wave of dizziness washed over him, and he swayed slightly, his vision darkening at the edges.
“Mr. Darcy!” Elizabeth was instantly at his side, her arm slipping around his waist to steady him. All pretense of formality vanished in her concern. “You should not have exerted yourself so. Mr. Bingley, help me get him back to the house.”
Darcy wanted to protest that he needed no assistance, but his body betrayed him. His knees buckled slightly, and only Elizabeth’s support kept him from an ignominious collapse.
“I’m fine,” he insisted, though the words came out weaker than he intended. “Just a moment of lightheadedness.”
“You are not fine,” Elizabeth countered. “You are pale as death and burning with heat. Come, lean on me.”
He had no choice but to accept her support, his arm draped across her shoulders as Bingley took his other side. Her strength surprised him—this slip of a woman bearing his weight without complaint, her concern overriding any consideration of propriety.
When they reached the drawing room, Mrs. Bennet rose in alarm at the sight of Darcy’s pallor. “Gracious! Mr. Darcy, you look positively faint. Lizzy, what have you done to the poor man?”
“Nothing, Mama,” Elizabeth replied, helping Darcy to a chair. “The heat has overcome him; that is all. He should not have ventured out in his condition.”
“Hill, bring water and smelling salts,” Mrs. Bennet commanded. “Lydia, fetch a fan. Jane, open the windows wider.”
The flurry of activity around him was humiliating, yet Darcy could not summon the strength to protest. Elizabeth remained at his side, her hand cool against his brow as she checked for fever.
“You are overheated, not feverish,” she murmured, her voice pitched for his ears alone. “But you should return to Netherfield immediately. You have overtaxed yourself.”
“Worth it,” he replied, too weak for pride. “To hear what you told me.”
A soft smile touched her lips, intimate despite the audience of her family. “Rest now. We will speak again before you leave for Pemberley.”
The promise sustained him through the embarrassment of being all but carried to Bingley’s carriage, through the jolting journey back to Netherfield, through Georgiana’s worried scolding and Mrs. Porter’s dire predictions about relapses.
Elizabeth loved him. Not yet enough to accept his proposal, but enough to admit the feeling and promise a different answer when he returned.
He would return much sooner than later.
