“I would not say I delight in it, though neither shall I say I am sorry. I shall miss you. Though, if you remind yourself often enough what a vexing creature I can be, you might not miss me at all. Then only one of us need be miserable.”
“That will not work,” he replied with a soft chuckle. “I decided almost from the first moment we met that you were the most maddening woman of my acquaintance. It did not prevent me from pining for you for the half a twelvemonth ’til we met again.”
She twisted her head to kiss his cheek. “Then we must be thankful only you have improved in civility since. If you fell in love with me because you enjoyed being vexed, you might fall out again if I suddenly learnt to be agreeable.”
His lips curled into a wonderful little smile, and he shook his head. “Maddening.”
She turned back to the window and hugged his arms to her.
“Have I improved in other ways?” Darcy enquired after a moment. “Am I still proud?”
The question threw her completely. “What makes you enquire?”
“A passing comment of Bingley’s. But it has been troubling me, as you will comprehend.”
She tried to turn around, but he resisted it, his arms stiff. “I would have you answer frankly.”
Her heart went out to him. He was ever as unforgiving of his own defects as he was of other people’s. “A little, then,” she said gently. “Very occasionally. But I do not blame you for it.”
“So youhavemerely learnt to tolerate it?”
She did turn around then. “Yes, I daresay I have, but is that not what love is—tolerating, accepting, even holding dear one another’s imperfections?” She placed her hands on his chest. “I would have you know your imperfections are better than most other people’s finest merits, and I love them very much.”
He cradled her face with both hands and fixed her with the full force of one of his inimitable gazes. “If my imperfections are tolerable, it is because you have made them so. I would be nothing without you.”
“As would I be without you.”
He shook his head. “You have no imperfections.”
She slid her hands around his neck. “I love you more dearly than I knew it was possible to love, Fitzwilliam.” After that, the view from the window was forgotten in favour of the unseen pleasures of the darkened bedchamber, and though Elizabeth could not see him, she felt his gaze as intimately as she felt him love her, and she knew he felt the same.
“God, I shall miss you,” he breathed into her hair as they lay together in bed some time later.
“I am sorry I shall not be there to comfort you,” she whispered.
“Knowing I have you to come home to will be comfort enough.”
“I shall be here, growing fat and relying unreasonably on others to relieve the tedium of waiting.”
“Voila,” he murmured sleepily.
“What?”
“I forgot your impatience when I said you had no imperfections.”
She smirked, and for his benefit, because he could not see her expression in the dark, poked him in the ribs.
He caught her hand and brought it to his lips. “I do not think you ought to rely much on Bingley for company. I am not sure asking him to remain was wise.”
Elizabeth delighted in the turn of events that had Darcy bemoaning Bingley’s solemnity. “He might be in a better humourwhen you are gone, for I begin to suspect our felicity is contributing to his wretchedness.”
“Yes, he has said something of that sort to me,” Darcy replied, yawning. “It has much to do with his reasoning for leaving—if one can call it reason.”
Elizabeth had given considerable thought to Mr Bingley’s professed intention to leave the country. Though both Darcy and she were convinced it was a foolhardy scheme, neither of them wished to interfere so far as to tell him outright he ought not to go. In truth, there was only one person who could. “Fitzwilliam, if I write to Jane, will you deliver the letter to her while you are in London to make certain she reads it?”
She felt him adjust his head to look down at her, though he could not have seen much in the darkness.
“Have you not had your fill of being shunned by your sister?”
