November?She stared at him, aghast to discover that his feelings were of such long duration. As though refusing him were not already the most painful thing she would ever have to do!
“You are the most provoking man I have ever met!” she exclaimed in a furious whisper. She jumped clear of the ground when the library door abruptly opened, and her father stepped into the hall.
“Is anything amiss, Lizzy? Mr Darcy? I heard you both talking out here and thought I might leave you to it, but matters do not appear to be progressing in the direction I anticipated.”
“I was simply attempting to explain my position to Mr Darcy, but it is difficult to speak with conviction when one is whispering,” Elizabeth replied.
With an annoyingly knowing look, Mr Bennet pushed his door open wider. “Should you like the use of my library? You ought to be able to raise your voices to suitably persuasive levels in there.”
“Thank you, yes,” Darcy answered at the same time as Elizabeth replied, “No!” in a voice she could no longer even pretend was quiet.
“Thank you. But I do not need to be in your library to tell Mr Darcy that I will not marry him.”
Her father raised an eyebrow. “If that is what you mean to tell him, I suggest you not only go in but barricade the door, because if your mother should overhear you, I cannot vouch for your safety.”
“That is easily resolved,” Darcy replied, his eyes fixed on Elizabeth. “Do not refuse me.” Then he turned on his heel and strode into the library, leaving her with no choice but to follow him.
* * *
He had lied.
It was, without a doubt, the most—possibly theonly—impetuous thing Darcy had ever done, but he could not have prevented it. Trapped at Netherfield, unable to go to Elizabeth to see what damage had been done, he had passed the whole of the previous day in torment as he pictured Anne abusing her so abominably to her face. He had attempted to assuage his disquiet by reminiscing about those precious few moments in Meryton on Wednesday, when they seemed to have made such a momentous advancement in their understanding.
Alas, by the evening, his recollection of that encounter had altered until Elizabeth appeared to look up at him with less admiration and more abhorrence. He had been reduced to stalking impatiently through Netherfield’s rooms, reminded at every turn of the early days of his acquaintance with Elizabeth. Days when desire had flared hot and then, instead of dwindling as desire more commonly did, continued to burn, allowing deep and abiding admiration to creep in beneath the flames and catch him unawares.
Impatience to see her, to remedy whatever injury Anne had caused, to salvage whatever chance he had left of making Elizabeth love him, had kept him awake half the night listening for the sound of rain to wash away the snow. That same impatience had summoned a stream of curses from his lips when he opened his curtains at dawn to discover the landscape unchanged and brought him traipsing across fields of snow at an indecently early hour to present himself to a woman who, for all he knew, might not even like him.
Impatience was fast ceding to hope, and hope to exhilaration, however, as she inadvertently revealed more and more of her feelings, for they looked nothingakin to dislike.
“This is a wretched beginning,” Elizabeth said once the door was closed.
“You concede it is a beginning, then?”
“That was not my meaning, as well you know. Mr Darcy, no matter how used you may be to getting your own way, you cannotforceme to marry you against my will.”
“And never would I attempt to. But Icandiscover your reasons for continuing so obstinately to insist that you do not wish to.”
“That is not what I said. I said Iwouldnot marry you.”
Darcy’s heart turned over in his chest, though he did his best to conceal it from Elizabeth, lest she grow so vexed that she ended the interview. “Why not?” he enquired evenly.
She shook her head, and her brow creased with dissatisfaction. “It is frankly reprehensible that you should even need to ask. I am sorry if you do not wish to marry your cousin, and I can quite comprehend why you might not, for I have rarely met a more disagreeable woman, but you cannot forsake her after five-and-twenty or six-and-twenty years or whatever it is.Youmay be able to walk away unscathed and marry where you will, but as a woman,shewill be ridiculed and scorned if you break with her now. Miss de Bourgh will not find it easy to secure another suitor at her age or with her indifferent health. Therefore, you will be abandoning her to a life of loneliness, with neither partner nor children to keep her company. And all this to say nothing of her feelings. It is simply not right!”
She was all but panting with indignation by the end of her speech and seemed braced for some sort of reprisal, but Darcy could scarcely keep the smile from his face.
“Do you have any idea how much I love you, Elizabeth Bennet?”
Her surprise was almost comical. “What did you say?”
“You are the most admirable, compassionate,passionate, and beautiful person I have ever met. And I love you.”
She blinked at him a few times and appeared unable to catch her breath. He thought she was about to smile, but instead she exhaled heavily and shook her head.
“But you must still marry Miss de Bourgh. If not for her sake, then for mine, for how many years would it be otherwise before you came to resent me for the fortune you sacrificed to marry me? You are too much of a gentleman to mention it, but Mr Wickham had no such qualms, and he told me that the engagement with your cousin was planned to enable your estates to be combined. Can you promise you wouldnevercome to regret forfeiting Rosings Park for my one-hundred pounds a year?”
Appalled, Darcy stared at her. “You would bring up thingsGeorge Wickhamhas said at such a moment as this?”
“Yes, because it is true, is it not?”
