The silence between them grew unpleasant, but she did not know what to say.What shall I do with my life now, married to a man of consequence who does not love me?It was all the more painful because he was never truly hers to lose.
As she sat with her fingers tightly laced in her lap, her back straight, her lips pressed into a hard line, she saw Darcy watching her. He took a few steps closer. “This condition where your anxieties and fears make your heart ill . . . will it kill you?”
“Likely not, if I am removed from the sources of my agitation, such as Jane’s mother-in-law who thought me useless since I did not marry at sixteen, my mother and Lydia’s inappropriate behaviour, and, far worse, Mary’s cruelty. As the impoverished relation, I went where I was directed and did as I was told in order to have a home. My hopelessness and the misery of living amongst people who oppressed me and ill-treated me brought on my pain.”
Darcy looked wretched. “But even after you made your home here with us, you suffered.”
He thought she would be miserable here as she had been with her family and therefore still die. “Ihavehad paroxysms since then?—”
“Yes, at the ball after you danced and?—”
“At the ball after Mary and Mr Collins humiliated me!” Darcy stilllooked incredulous. “And after Georgiana’s funeral when they showed you no compassion. I think I would have suffered another heart paroxysm when you and I dined at Longbourn had I not known that I need not remain there. Their behaviour is often outside the bounds of propriety. They resent me and do not understand my character. They were such a tax on my spirits that they made me ill.”
A look of pure shock crossed Darcy’s face, and then he swore softly. “Your paroxysms began after your father died when your home moved amongst relations who begrudged you, and because you had little hope for a happier life?”
“Yes.” What was distracting him so much that a normally clever man struggled to understand this point?
“Presuming you are not forced into a situation where you are troubled by deep melancholy or kept in anxiety”—his voice was low and quiet, and he spoke slowly—“and are happy with your situation . . . you are expected to live?”
Elizabeth threw up her hands. “Mr Jones said in that case the episodes will stop.” Did he so dislike the thought of having her as his wife indefinitely that he could not accept that she was not fatally ill? “Yes, I am going to live, and now what shall we do?”
After this utterance, he was pale and silent for a long while. “How do you mean?”
“My heart is well.” She spoke slowly, as though he were simple.
Darcy took quick steps toward her. “Yes, your heart will be well. But mine isbreaking.For weeks, I have known that however long we had together, I would always love you.”
She could scarcely draw breath, let alone speak. Darcy fixed his eyes on her and said, “And now, when I could have my dearest wishes realised, I am too late. My lies of omission have cost me my future happiness.”
He spoke with a sinking voice and a heavy sigh, and Elizabeth tried to comprehend the exact truth of the whole of what he said. “I . . . I thought you were disappointed that I am not fatally ill,” she managed to say.
“Disappointed! That you are going to live?” Darcy knelt in front of her and clasped her hands. “I went to town to change my will andsettle money on you in the event of my death, even if you outlived me but a few weeks, and whilst I was there, I sought a physician who specialises in the heart who might give us—give you more time.”
She shook her head at such a foolish errand. “Why did you trouble yourself to consult a physician?”
“I was wild to find a way to give you a chance for a longer life. I would send to the world’s end for whatever treatment might aid you, and if none would undertake the task, I would go there to fetch it myself.” He looked at her in earnest, and her heart was now pounding for an entirely different and entirely wonderful reason.
Darcy raised himself from the floor to sit next to her, and looked at their joined hands for a moment before releasing hers. “No matter how just I once thought my silence was, or how afraid I was that you would hate me, I ought to have told you sooner, and I am sorry.”
“I am in an extraordinary situation,” she said to herself as she felt tears of joy forming.
“Yes, you must, of course, be relieved to learn that you are healthy. How you must hate me for not being honest with you. And you would have made a different choice for your marriage had you not thought you would die.” He looked devastated. “Those feelings of distrust and regret would be natural.”
“It would also be natural for you to resent being married to someone you wed for convenience and with the knowledge that it would be a short union.”
“Elizabeth, you now have the expectation of a long life, and I cannot presume, given the nature of our arrangement and my deception, that you would wish for me to have any part in it. If you want an immediate and eternal separation from me, to have as much freedom as I can grant you, I will see it done. I love you too well to see you made unhappy, even if being with you is what I want most.”
By now, Elizabeth’s spirits were fluttering in private rapture, but she could not yet speak from such happiness. Darcy said, “I do not know what I can do in the future to do away with the past enough so you can forgive me. No matter what your feelings are, I will always love you and aim to make you happy, even if you can never say the same.”
A few joyful tears fell as she comprehended how little she had said of her own feelings and wishes. “Darcy, the assurance of your affectionate feelings for me is the realisation of all of my hopes.”
“Are you in earnest?” A tentative smile lit his face. She had never before seen an expression of such dawning expectation and delight. “I want your happiness above anything else. You know that I would never command you to stay with me? I would never command you to submit to anything.”
“What will make me happy is if you tell me everything and keep nothing from me.” He readily agreed. “Then I can lay open my own secrets in return. I will submit to anything you may command me—but cease to respect you, to adore you, to love you, I never can or will.”
He closed his eyes in what she understood to be exquisite relief. She felt the same relief deep in her own heart. Darcy opened his eyes to meet her own in a silent question, which she answered by dropping her gaze to his mouth. He leant forward infinitely slowly. Elizabeth curled both hands around his neck and pulled him the rest of the way to her lips. Darcy tilted his head, nudging her lips open with his. His breath shuddered as she deepened their kiss, and he rested both hands gently around her waist. Darcy kissed her with exquisite tenderness, almost reverence. It was more intimate than the fierce, passionate way he had kissed her a fortnight ago.
“I am desperately in love with you,” she whispered against his lips.
