“Run!” she mouthed silently at her sister, and so the two flew silently down the hall and up the stairs. When they reached the top again, the sound of their voices safely subsumed into the music, both girls burst out laughing. “If she stays in there with him long enough,” Lydia said with a final hiccupping giggle, “she will have to marry him!”
“Let us go tell Papa we do not know where she is and that we are worried about her,” Kitty said with a delighted giggle.
“Did you hear that?”Elizabeth asked.
“It sounded like someone latched the door.” Mr Darcy went to it, attempting to open it.
“Perhaps it is merely stuck?”
He applied his shoulder to the door, to no effect. Then he turned slowly and met her gaze. “It seems we are locked in.”
“Mrs Nicholls or one of the footmen must have come by and done it, not realising I was still in here,” she said.
He turned back to the door, pounding it with the flat of his hand. “Halloo! Is anyone out there?” He repeated it several times more, but not a sound was heard without.
“Save your voice, sir,” Elizabeth said at last. “And your hand. I do not hear anyone out there. Someone must be…playing a trick, perhaps.” She believed she had heard a giggle, quick and instantly muffled, right after the sound of the latch.Probably Lydia,she thought, exacting her revenge.
Mr Darcy nodded and ran his hand across his mouth, a gesture that he did, Elizabeth had noticed, when he was thinking. He came back to where she still sat and took his chair again. “We may be trapped in here for some time,” he said gravely.
She nodded.
“Will your mother miss you?”
“I am not certain. At some point later in the evening, Jane was meant to make an excuse for me to return home—so that I might sew her gown without my mother knowing. And you?”
He grimaced and shook his head. “Likely the first I would be missed would be by my man, much later tonight.”
“We are well and truly trapped, perhaps all night.” She chuckled weakly, but it turned into a sigh. “So much for my good reputation.”
“Obviously I would…” He frowned, shaking his head, and uttered a little groan. “I want so much to marry you, but the last thing I wish for is your father to force you to accept me.”
“Then perhaps we ought to get ahead of him.” The words just came out of her, with no forethought whatsoever, but as soon as she said them, she knew it was right. Her boldness made her flush, even as elation made her heady and weak-kneed.
“Get ahead of him?”
Her mouth had gone very dry. There was too much within her to know how to say what she wished to say; indeed, she was only just beginning to know it herself. She took a breath, then another as the first did not seem to perform its office. “If we were engaged first, then my father would have no cause to do anything, except maybe scold me a little.”
He stared at her. “What do you mean?”
She laughed and looked away, suddenly shy. “I mean…you know what I mean.”
“Do you mean that, perhaps, if you were forced to marry me, it would not be too much of a punishment?”
“I mean that I do not require forcing. The only thing which forces me to marry you is…is the leanings of my own heart.”
He extended one arm, so she put aside the gown and the needle and the thread and reached her hand to join his. He used it to pull her towards him, and she found herself nestled against his chest, halfway onto his lap.
She could hear the rapid pounding of his heart, and it made her soft inside, thinking that she had caused it to do that. “What I mean to say,” she said softly, “is that I have fallen in love with you.”
He took her face in one hand, holding her tight with the other, and kissed her deeply. It surprised her, and thrilled her, and took her breath away, particularly when he punctuated his kisses with words of love and devotion, spoken against her mouth and cheek.
She hardly knew how long it was until they stopped kissing and resumed speaking. He wished to know how it was that her feelings for him had changed.
“Do you remember at Hunsford Parsonage when you said that you liked me against your will, your reason, and your character?”
“I said many foolish things that night.”
“No, but I have at last understood you! You meant to say that sometimes the person who seems to suit us the least is the very person who in talent and disposition is most perfect for us.” She smiled. “And that person, for me, is you. You may be quiet while I am lively, and serious when I am gay?—”
