“Goodness, no! None atall.Please do not think that for a moment. It is Jane. She would never begrudge us our happiness, but she has been exposed to the world’s derision for disappointed hopes once before. If we announce our news before she receives an offer from Mr Bingley—and I think it safe to assume he means to make one—it will raise eyebrows, and she will be embarrassed in front of all her friends a second time. I cannot do it to her.”
Darcy looked away to grimace ruefully at the far wall. Miss Bennet’s abandonment was as much his fault as Bingley’s—something of which, he knew, Elizabeth was aware. It was not a request he was going to be able to refuse. He turned back when he felt Elizabeth take hold of his hand.
“Now thisisa wretched beginning. You cannot be angry with me already.”
What a sublime sensation, to have her touch him so boldly and regard him with such open affection. “I cannot presently think of a single thing you could do that would make me angry with you, Elizabeth. I am vexed at Bingley. As far as I know, he does mean to propose. I cannot fathom what the devil is taking him so long.”
“Well, in fairness, he and Jane have not had much opportunity to see each other since he came back.”
“Neither have you and I, and I still managed it.”
She agreed with a delectable little humming sound that was almost a purr. “But not every man would walk through a snowdrift to propose.”
Darcy wished to reply that not every woman was exceptional enough to warrant it, but he could not pay her the compliment without sounding as though he was insulting her sister. He settled for pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead.
“Very well. I shall remain silent a little longer. Foryou.Though if Bingley takes any more than a week, I may have to renege on my word. Disguise of every sort is my abhorrence, andthisis the last thing in the world I would keep secret.”
“If Mr Bingley takes anywherecloseto a week, Imay renege on it for you. Any longer and people will think Iam gone mad, for I cannot keep from smiling.”
Such an admission—pure ambrosia to Darcy’s mind after so much anguish—kepthimsmiling all the way back to Netherfield. Mr Bennet’s complicity in their concealment was attained as readily as was his consent, and all three parted company before the rest of Longbourn stirred.
Darcy arrived back before Bingley, Georgiana, or Anne were yet downstairs, and he spent the time before any of them appeared pacing the rooms of Netherfield, chasing the memories he had heretofore resented, every remembrance of Elizabeth now but a foreshadow of the bliss that was guaranteed to be his when they wed.
17
Were it not for Jane’s sake that Elizabeth withheld her news, it would have been to her eldest sister she ran first. It felt strange keeping such momentous intelligence from her and stranger still to be engaged at all. Elizabeth could not help but think that an alteration of such magnitude ought to produce a more noticeable difference, but her reflection looked the same in the mirror, and though she felt positively incandescent on the inside, none of her sisters seemed to perceive anything different in her.
That everythingwouldalter was indisputable, however. Consideration of what privileges and responsibilities might belong to the wife of Mr Darcy occupied Elizabeth’s thoughts for the rest of the day, though it was only in the privacy of her bath that evening that she allowed herself to dwell on the way he had kissed her. The astonishing, enlightening,sublimeway he had kissed her, the remembrance of which led her to reflect on what else Mr Darcy would wish to do to her once she was his wife and whether it would be equally sublime.
She was forced to sink beneath the water to conceal her furious blush from the maid. It might have been better not to do so whilst laughing at her own lovesick distraction, for she almost drowned on a lungful of soapy water.
* * *
It rained overnight, melting the snow enough to permit visiting at last. Most of the Netherfield party, sans only Mrs Annesley and Mrs Jenkinson, had joined all five Bennet sisters in braving a walk in the rather sodden lanes around Longbourn, though Elizabeth and Darcy were doing their best to outpace all the others.
“It is a miracle I have not been discovered. I am too happy to concentrate on anything. I keep dropping things and laughing at odd moments,” Elizabeth told him. It delighted her to see how well this pleased him, his smile momentarily too broad to allow any response.
“Whereas I have been reproached for being even more ill-tempered than usual, though I hope I shall be forgiven once everybody learns it was only impatience to see you that made me so. I would have come back through the snow yesterday afternoon, had you not sworn me to secrecy.”
“Yes, that might have raised a few suspicions.” She indicated a fork in the lane along which she was certain the others would not follow. “You are very good to humour me.”
“I wonder why Bingley did not suggest walking himself. He was equally annoyed to be away from Longbourn.”
“Take pity. His legs are not as long as yours. Getting stuck in a drift might have seemed a far more plausible hazard to him than it did to you.”
“Perhaps. But at least if hehadgot stuck and died of pneumonia, I would no longer have to wait for him.”
Elizabeth espied a pheasant feather poking out of a bank of half-melted, muddied snow, which was fortunate timing, for her crouching to pick it up enabled her to conceal a smirk. “It must be very frustrating that he is not behaving as you would like,” she said as she tucked it into her pocket. “He is usually far more obedient.”
Darcy frowned. “If you mean when we left in the autumn?—”
“I mean when he came back at Christmas after you wrote to him. That was exceedingly good of you. Though I wish you had told us on Christmas Day that you had done it. It would have cheered Jane immensely.”
“It was because of your sister I said nothing. I do not have such influence over Bingley that I could be certain my letter would bring him back, and I did not wish to raise her hopes.”
His modesty notwithstanding, Elizabeth was assured hepossessed precisely that power, though since he had used it to such good purpose on that occasion, she would not tease him for it.
“Whatever has reunited them, they will be very happy together. But then, they are both of a disposition that makes discontent impossible. They were always assured of a happy marriage, whomever they wed.”
