“I had no idea that you were half in love with me, let alone that your heart was irrevocably mine.”
She felt her heartbeat quicken and smiled. She need no longer fear that every beat could be her last.“When did you first know that you loved me?”
“I never had the talent of affecting sensations foreign to my heart, so I trust you will believe me when I declare that when we married, I had no idea that I should ever love you as I now do. I could not say what set me off for loving you in the first place.”
“Did you love me before your cousin visited us and we learnt where Mr Wickham was? Or perhaps it was after the accident at the toll gate?”
“I suppose your generous behaviour toward my sister helped to laythe foundation, but I was in the middle before I knew I had begun.” Upon seeing her frown, he laughed and said, “Do you need to know the date and the hour? Will you check your journal and answer for the same? Does it say, ‘Thursday, called on Charlotte Lucas, ordered two pounds of sugar, acknowledged to myself that I am in love with Darcy’?”
“I might have recorded it, but I would have writtenMr Darcy.You have been formal with me, after all.”
He looked a little ashamed. “A first name is a powerful thing, and Georgiana was the only one who called me by it. For years, she held its exclusive use, and then she was no longer ill but dying and I . . . In the beginning, I think I had too much anger and too much grief, and I wanted to keep you at a distance.”
“And now?”
He leant closer, and she felt the heat of his warm breath on her neck. “And now, I want to call you Elizabeth.” She sucked in a breath as his lips grazed the skin behind her ear. “My dearest, loveliest Elizabeth.”
“How familiar of you, Mr Darcy.” She tried to sound sportive as his lips moved down her neck, but doubted her own success given how breathless her reply was.
Darcy pulled away to look into her eyes. “I should never have told you my name was only for family, because that is precisely what you are. Once I knew how much I wanted a relationship where you called me by my name . . . I have done everything wrong.” He hung his head. “Will you give me my name whenever we are alone? Will you be the only person to use it, the only person I would wish to use it?”
Elizabeth was shocked to understand that he had not been prepared for the intimacy of their relationship, and when he was, he thought there was no hope that she would return his feelings before she died. “Fitzwilliam, I love you.”
Darcy gave her such a heartfelt smile that Elizabeth responded with all the passionate tenderness of her lips. He embraced and kissed her with eagerness, pulling her toward him to set her on his lap. She put her arms round his neck and, for a while, was distracted by a nearly ungovernable longing.
But if our marriage is to be a truly happy one, I need to know why he left my room that night.
She drew back, and he asked, “What is the matter, Elizabeth?”
He ran his hand lightly up and down her arm, and looked at her with such concern that she hated to upset their newfound happiness.
Elizabeth shook her head and ran her fingers through his hair. “Nothing that cannot wait, but we ought to have some conversation about what to do now. Shall we go to the Lakes, or do you intend to show me this Pemberley, of which I know nothing?”
Darcy smiled warmly. “You must be careful to ask me such a question. Pemberley is a subject on which I cannot tire.”
“When you married me, you never thought I would see the place. I suspect your noble relations did not expect you to make such a union. You love me, but I hope it is enough to want me as the mistress of such a home.”
His smile fell. “I know that I have disappointed you with my deception, but you must not think thatIam in any way disappointed inyou. Some of my friends and relations may think I made an unsuitable connexion, but now that you will truly be mine for the rest of our lives, I want nothing more than to bring you home.”
She felt a thrill at these words that almost did away with her worry over why he rejected her that evening. “It is still not a promising beginning if most of your family will be against you.”
“For you to have value in some of their eyes, I would have had to make a brilliant match with wealth and connexion, without any regard for affection. My true friends will rejoice in my having made a match with the one woman who can make me happy.”
“I feared that once you learnt that I was not going to die, you might resent your situation. If you did decide to keep me as your wife, I was afraid you would have to be talked and finessed into an affection for me.”
“I may not have confessed my love and devotion as soon as I ought to have done, but you must have known how highly I admire your abilities and esteem your character.” Elizabeth shifted off his lap, still wondering why he walked away from her that night if he had an ardent affection for her. “Can you not forgive me after all?”
“I can—although I reserve the right to tease you about being able to live on less than your income for the rest of our lives. Can you imagine my absolute shock, Fitzwilliam, to learn what you truly are? Will you tolerate my sporting with you about it?”
“In return for having a lifetime with you, I can tolerate your teasing manner, or anything at all.” He gave her a searching look. “Your heart is well! I am full of joy at the news. Why are you not?”
“I suppose I have not yet reconciled myself to having everything that I wanted.” She gave him a warm smile. “You have not answered my question: are we to go to the Lakes, or to Pemberley? I suspect you will say the Lakes for my sake, but you must want to go home, and I do have a great curiosity to see Pemberley.”
“Would you like to see Jane before we travel anywhere? Since you are perfectly healthy, there can be no harm in strengthening your connexion with her.”
“Yes!” She did want her sister to meet the man who had come to mean the world to her. “What a lovely idea.”
“If we spend a fortnight in town, you can have a few mornings at home to entertain Jane and also to meet my friends.”
