Snow crunched beneath their boots, and the sky was impossibly blue. The world was waiting for them, and for the first time in her life, Elizabeth Bennet was not afraid of what it held.
15
FAMILY
Mrs. Bennet had calculatedthe value of ten thousand a year against the scandal of two nights spent unchaperoned before Elizabeth had crossed the threshold.
The mathematics had clearly come out in favor of celebration.
“My dear, Lizzy!” She swept forward in a rustle of skirts and nervous energy, pulling Elizabeth into an embrace that smelled of lavender water and barely contained triumph. “We have been so worried! But here you are, safe and sound, and with Mr. Darcy himself to thank for your rescue!”
She released Elizabeth and turned to Mr. Darcy with a curtsey so deep it threatened to unbalance her. “Sir, we are forever in your debt. Forever! Hill! Hill, bring tea. Mr. Darcy must be famished after his ordeal.”
Elizabeth caught Mr. Darcy's eye over her mother's head and saw the corner of his mouth twitch. That shared glance carried the weight of everything they could not say in this room. Two nights. The fire. The conservatory glass. His mouth on her skin and her hands in his hair, and the promises they had made in thegray light of a winter morning. She looked away before her face betrayed her.
By luncheon, her mother had told the story four times, each retelling more flattering to Mr. Darcy and more dramatic in its particulars. Elizabeth suspected that by evening, Darcy would have wrestled wolves and carried her across a frozen river.
Mr. Collins, who had followed the party back with the persistence of a man who refused to accept his own irrelevance, attempted once to insert himself into the conversation with a speech about the proper conduct of young ladies. Mrs. Bennet silenced him with a look that would have frozen the Thames in July. He retreated to a corner of the parlor and sat there, radiating resentment like a stove.
Mr. Darcy navigated it all with a patience that surprised her. He answered Mrs. Bennet's intrusive questions without encouraging them. He met Mary's philosophy with gravity that managed to be kind rather than dismissive. And his hand found Elizabeth's beneath the table whenever her mother's effusions grew too overwhelming, a secret touch, a silent reassurance that they were still the people they had been in the cottage, even here.
He was trying to become part of a family so different from everything he had known. The effort touched her more than any declaration of love could have done.
It wasearly afternoon when her father summoned her to the library.
The room smelled of old books and pipe tobacco. He was seated in his usual chair by the window, and he did not rise when she entered. He gestured to the chair opposite and waited.
“Well, Lizzy.” His voice was mild, but his eyes were sharp behind his spectacles. “It seems you have had quite an adventure.”
She had rehearsed this conversation. Had prepared justifications and arguments. But now that the moment had arrived, she could only offer him the truth.
“I love him, Papa.”
The words came out simpler than she had intended. Stripped of qualification.
“I know how it must appear. But what I feel for him is not the product of a single night or a compromising situation. It has been growing since before I understood what it was, and I cannot pretend otherwise.”
Mr. Bennet was quiet for a long moment. He turned his spectacles over in his hands, a habit she recognized from childhood.
“Are you happy with this?” he asked. “Not resigned. Not dutiful. Are youhappy?”
“Yes.”
He studied her face. Searching for the flicker of doubt. The shadow of obligation. The resigned practicality of a woman settling for the best option available.
He did not find it.
“I failed your mother,” he said.
Elizabeth had never heard him speak of his marriage so directly.
“We failed each other, in truth. I married for beauty and liveliness, and when those qualities proved an insufficient foundation for lasting respect, I retreated rather than fight for something better. I have spent twenty years paying for a choice made in haste.”
His grip tightened on the spectacles. Elizabeth saw moisture in his eyes that she had never witnessed before.
“If you tell me this is different, Lizzy. If you believe that what you feel for this man is built on something more substantial than attraction and circumstance.” He looked at her. “Then I will trust you. You have always been the wisest of my children. I will not insult that wisdom by doubting it now.”
Elizabeth crossed the small space between them and wrapped her arms around him.
