“Your friend relies upon your judgment.”
“He is most unaffectedly modest, and in nothing is judgment more important than in matters of the heart. It is perhaps unfortunate that he should only have me to turn to.” Another long silence followed.
At last Elizabeth sighed. “My perceptive powers are no better. I have been racking my brain for some evidence of goodness in Mr Wickham, and now that I consider it, I find nothing to lay to his credit. Charlotte advised me some time ago that Jane should make her feelings for Mr Bingley more obvious. Not only did I disagree, but I never told my sister of the conversation, that she might decide for herself how best to act.”
“We are protective of those we care for.”
“Yes.” It was her turn to hesitate. “It is not only that.”
She peered up at him through her lashes and he wished with all his heart that they weren’t speaking of Wickham or Bingley,but of her, of his feelings for her—and of any possibility of her feelings for him. All he could do now, however, was listen, and pray listening was enough. He tried to show her, through his very posture, that every word she spoke was important to him.
“Not only?”
“No. I probably should not admit this but…but as you have shown your willingness to, hm, take risks, I will take one as well. It is my family—undoubtedly you have noticed that we are not the most appropriately behaved. I love them, but I grow very frustrated at times with their conduct, and I believe my sister is so upset by some of it, that she tries—perhaps even harder than she ought, if that is possible—to act, always, in the most decorous manner possible.”
He tried to think how to respond, finding words in remembering the colonel’s. “You have not met all my family members yet. Take my word for it that if you do, we would be able to trade stories.”
She grinned at this, and he felt as if he had presented her a bouquet of roses. He could not help but press for whatever tiny advantage he might have gained.
“I do not wish to offer further embarrassment, and one word from you will silence me on the subject forever but…may I have the opportunity, Miss Elizabeth, of calling upon you? Or have I wrecked any chance of redeeming myself in your eyes?”
She looked at him for a long moment, and in the time it took her to reply, he lived and died a thousand lifetimes, alternating between hope and despair.
“As it happens, you have not embarrassed me at all, sir. Yes. Yes, you may call.”
CHAPTER SIX
Mr Darcy had been a regular caller, every day, for the last ten. He had dined at Longbourn for five of them. Mr Bingley had, as predicted, immediately returned to Netherfield and promptly reopened the house, at which point he had moved from The George and joined his friend in the calls. Mrs Bennet waited daily, with increasing impatience, for an announcement of betrothals.
Elizabeth could admit that she waited too.
“It is amazing, is it not? A couple of weeks ago, I hated Mr Darcy, and now I stand at our drawing room window like an eager puppy, looking for any sign of his appearance,” she said drily to her sister.
Jane smiled; she was smiling more often and more widely these days, and it only added to her great beauty.
“I do not think you hated him, Lizzy,” she chided gently, not willing to ascribe any faults to a most beloved sister. “You did not know him well enough to hate him, and had been misinformed of his character.”
“You mean, I listened to ill-natured gossip from a stranger, a relative stranger, and provided him with more of it.” Really, it was amazing how easily Darcy had forgiven her for herculpability. Thankfully, Mr Wickham had utterly disappeared from these parts, and good riddance.
“I think that whatever your feelings of the past, they are vastly different now.”
Elizabeth found her own smile, the one thoughts of her former belief in Mr Wickham’s lies had chased away.
“They are indeed.”
“Do not you find him…somewhat…intimidating?” Jane asked.
“Not at all. I have found that his usual sober expressions seldom reveal anything he is really thinking. Besides, how can anyone be intimidated by a man who would rush into a church, hatless and sopping wet, to try to stop the wedding of the wrong bride? That loss of dignity is not easily forgotten.”
“Oh, Lizzy, surely you do not tease him over that?”
Elizabeth laughed. “You are wrong, dear sister, if you believe that Mr Darcy does not enjoy a bit of teasing.”
Jane’s brows rose, but then she smiled. “What I think is that there is nothing you could say that he does not like.”
It was probably true.
Astonishing, that such a man as he had decided, somehow, to love an impertinent country miss; at first, however, she had only agreed that he could call due to his obvious embarrassment. It was undeniably flattering, to have attracted such attention from him.
