“I am sorry,” he said after a long moment. “For all of this. For your family’s treatment, for the storm, for these… compromising circumstances.”
“None of it is your doing,” she replied, finding her voice. “You have been uncommonly kind.”
He made a noncommittal sound. “Basic human decency is not kindness, Miss Bennet.”
“I misjudged you,” Elizabeth admitted, the darkness making her braver than she would have been in daylight. “In Hertfordshire. I thought you proud and disagreeable.”
A soft exhalation that might almost have been laughter. “Iwasproud and disagreeable. I am still proud, though I hope not quite so disagreeable.”
“You are not,” she assured him. “Disagreeable, that is. Tonight, you have been… quite the opposite.”
Silence fell again, but it was a different quality of silence—contemplative rather than awkward.
“May I ask you something?” he said after a while, his voice cautious in the darkness.
“You may.”
“Why did you refuse Mr. Collins? Beyond the obvious unsuitability of his character.”
Elizabeth considered the question carefully. “Because I believe marriage should be based on mutual respect and affection, not convenience or obligation. Because I would rather face an uncertain future than tie myself to a man I could never love.”
His arm tightened fractionally around her shoulders. “I admire your conviction.”
“My mother called it stubbornness and ingratitude,” she said, surprised by the bitterness in her voice.
“Your mother was wrong.”
Four words. Four simple words that somehow meant more than all the elaborate compliments Mr. Collins had heaped upon her.Your mother was wrong.As if her feelings mattered. As if she had value beyond her marriageability.
She turned slightly toward him, needing to see his face despite the darkness. A flash of lightning illuminatedhis features—strong jaw, straight nose, dark eyes intent on hers. For once, his expression was entirely unguarded, and what she saw there made her breath catch.
“Elizabeth,” he said, her name a question and a declaration all at once.
“Yes?” she whispered.
“I need you to know that you matter. Your happiness matters. Your choices matter.”
The simple statement undid her more thoroughly than the grandest declaration could have. How long had it been since anyone had told her she mattered? Her family viewed her as a burden, a problem to be solved through advantageous marriage. Society valued her only for her potential as a wife and mother. Yet here was Darcy—proud, aloof Mr. Darcy—telling her that she, Elizabeth Bennet, mattered as a person in her own right.
“Thank you,” she said, the words wholly inadequate for the emotion behind them.
He reached up, his fingers hovering near her cheek, not quite touching. “May I?”
She nodded, not entirely sure what she was agreeing to but trusting him in a way that would have seemed impossible merely a day before.
Gently, so gently it felt like the brush of a butterfly’s wing, he wiped away the moisture from her tears. His touch lingered, a whisper of connection in the darkness.
“You matter to me,” he said, the words barely audible over the storm.
Neither could have said afterward who moved first—perhaps they both did, drawn together by some force greater than either could resist. One moment they were looking at each other in the lightning-illuminated darkness, and the next, his lips were on hers, soft and questioning.
The kiss was tentative at first, a gentle exploration. Elizabeth had never been kissed before, had nothing with which to compare thesensation, but something deep within her recognized it as right. Her hands found their way to his shoulders, seeking an anchor as the storm raged around them.
He deepened the kiss, his arms drawing her closer, and a warmth entirely different from that of shared body heat flooded through her, chasing away the last of the chill. All thoughts of propriety—that constant companion of her upbringing—scattered like leaves in a gale.
When they finally broke apart, both breathing unsteadily, he rested his forehead against hers. “I should apologize,” he said, his voice rough-edged. “But I find I cannot bring myself to regret it.”
“Nor can I,” she admitted, surprised by her honesty.
