“No! It—” He stopped and rubbed a hand over his face before reluctantly admitting, “There is some truth to it. My mother and aunt did speak of it at one time, when Anne and I were first born, but I never took it seriously, and neither did my mother or father. Lord knows they proposed enough alternatives in my formative years to remove all doubt of that. But—” He sighed deeply. “It seems Anne believed it.”
Elizabeth did not respond straightaway. She only frowned as she considered this new information. He took heart from the fact that her eyes never left his for one moment of her deliberations.
“Believed?” she said at last. “In the past?”
“Yes! All misunderstanding between us has been well and truly resolved, and she led me to believe that she had clarified matters for you, also. Little though I liked the discovery that she had come here on Thursday, or how she spoke to you, I thought I understood that amongst all her insults, she did at least relay the information that she and I are not engaged.”
“She did,” Elizabeth replied, still frowning, “but she did not tell me that you neverwere. I thought you had broken the engagement. She seemed so very angry.”
Darcy wanted to crow. Finally, he comprehended Elizabeth’s reluctance! He constrained himself to a smile. “Annealwaysseems angry. It is a family trait, I am told.” That earnt him a grin, though Elizabeth attempted to disguise it. “Do you see now? There never was any union planned for us. I have never aspired to combine our fortunes or our estates. Anne is neither angry nor distressed about it. She scarcely could be, considering it was she who attempted to break the blasted engagement.”
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow in exactly the same manner her father had moments before.
“That is how we discovered our mutual misapprehension,” Darcy explained, somewhat chagrined. “She told me on the way back from Kent that she no longer wished to marry me.”
Elizabeth’s eyes danced with mirth. She looked absolutely lovely. “That must have come as a bit of a surprise if you knew nothing about it.”
“Just a bit. I understand it was something your mother said about our dispositions being ill-suited that decided her.”
“Oh Lord, yes! On Christmas Day, Mama told her that you needed a wife who could teach you some liveliness, and Miss de Bourgh was not qualified. Goodness, I think you had better forgive your cousin her every injustice towards my family, for we seem to have matched her insult for insult.”
“Youdoenliven me, Elizabeth,” Darcy said with impassioned urgency, closing the gap between them and taking up her hands. “I have never known happiness such as I feel when I am with you. I have never laughed as much or worried as little. You lift my spirits merely by being in the same room. I cannot imagine my life without you, except that it must be the most miserable state of existence, and I have no desire to acquaint myself with it. What Iwantis for the chance to make you as happy as you make me. Every day, every hour, for the rest of my life. I want you to agree to marry me. Will you, Elizabeth?” He lifted her hands and kissed them, tenderly, reverently. “Will you agree to be my wife?”
Hope hammered out a desperate rhythm on his heart as he watched her. She continued to stare at him for what felt like an age until, to his vast confusion, she released a flurry of opposing sentiments at once. She nodded in the affirmative, and though she smiled, it was as tremulous as it was broad and largely eclipsed by the pitiful, shuddering breath she took, and the tear that spilled down her cheek.
“Yes, I will marry you.” She nodded and wiped the tear away with the heel of her palm, only for another to drop over her lashes in its wake. “Nothing would make me happier.”
The heartfelt delight this reply produced might have been such as he had never felt before, had it not been tempered by uncertainty. “Are you aware you are crying?”
Her smile broadened further still, and she gave a delicate sniff. “Yes, forgive me.”
“I thought you said you laugh when you are happy.”
“I do, usually. But I have never been thishappy before.”
She laughed then, and Darcy thought he had never been more in love with her. He gently wiped away her tear with his thumb. “Neither have I.”
She beamed at him. “Then I must tell you, it becomes you very well.”
That was a compliment he had not anticipated. It made him profoundly aware of how admiringly she was regarding him and how closely they were standing. He had not intended to kiss her, not here with her father on the other side of the door, but he could think of no other way to express what he felt. And he knew enough of the world to recognise desire when he saw it.
He heard it in her rapid breathing, saw it in the unblinking fervency of her stare, felt it in the heat of her breath on his lips. She held herself still, as though she ought to be ashamed of feeling it, yet it seemed that if he touched her, she would melt into his arms more readily than lamp oil soaks into a wick. He was not resilient enough to withstand it. And he wanted, with alarming intensity, to see how hot she would burn. He kept the kiss brief, for her sake. It was enough time to leave them both breathless and for him to correct his estimation from wick to touchpaper.
“That was quite the revelation,” she whispered with a shy grin that did nothing to cool his ardour.
“Youare the revelation, Elizabeth. When we have more time, I shall tell you all the lessons that loving you has taught me.”
“Oh dear! You make it sound as though it has been rather hard work.”
He held her gaze steadily and tried not to let his voice betrayallhis desire, lest he alarm her. “It has been torture from beginning to end.”
She blushed but did not look away, and his heart soared, for he knew then that she comprehended him perfectly. He traced her cheekbone as he had envisaged doing more times than he cared to recount.
“Thank God you have relieved my suffering. I could not have survived another day keeping these feelings to myself.”
“I wonder if we ought to keep them to ourselves a little while longer, though.”
“Why? Pray tell me you have no doubts.”
