“Elizabeth,” he began, then stopped, aware that he had spoken her name aloud.
She did not rebuke him. “I was wrong about you,” Elizabeth said quietly. “In ways that matter.”
His heart beat so loudly he was certain she must hear it.
“I believed your concern for my reputation arose solely from honour,” she continued. “I told myself that you wished only to be free of me, and that this plan was proof of it.”
Darcy shook his head. “Never free of you.”
The words escaped him before restraint could intervene.
Elizabeth inhaled sharply, colour rising in her cheeks, but she did not look away.
“Then let me be equally clear,” she said. “I cannot attend your aunt’s party under the terms we agreed. Not because I fearspeculation, but because I have come to understand that I care for you.”
For a moment, Darcy could not speak.
“You care for me,” he said at last.
“Yes,” Elizabeth replied, her voice steady despite the emotion she no longer concealed. “And I will not, cannot assist in convincing the world that I do not.”
The certainty he had sought for so long settled upon him all at once, profound and unmistakable.
He crossed the space between them, then stopped himself, restraining the impulse to reach for her only with great difficulty.
“You must know,” Darcy said, his voice low but unwavering, “that I love you.”
Elizabeth’s expression softened, the last of her guarded composure giving way. “I hoped you might,” she replied.
Darcy exhaled, a sound that was almost a laugh. “I believed you indifferent,” he said. “I believed myself resigned.”
“I believed the same of you,” Elizabeth replied.
He shook his head slowly. “Then we have both been very wrong.”
She smiled. “So we have. And I am glad beyond measure that we have found out the truth in time.”
Darcy took her hands then, gently, but already feeling in his heart as though they were his to hold. “I came prepared to surrender myself to whatever judgement awaited me,” he said. “Instead, you offer me more than I ever dared to hope.”
“I offered only the truth,” Elizabeth murmured, her great dark eyes shining up at him.
“Then let me offer you a truth of my own,” Darcy breathed. “Elizabeth, I had not known you very long before I began to feel that I was in the greatest danger of losing my heart to you. Each time we have met has only increased my admiration for your intelligence and perception, your sweetness and the greatness of your heart. You and I have failed at what we set out to do, but I believe we have won something much greater. I never wish to be parted from you from this day forward. If you will make me the happiest man in London, even the days before our wedding shall be long to me. Elizabeth, will you marry me?”
She answered him without hesitation. “Yes,” she said. “With all my heart, for I love you even more than I could say.”
Relief, joy, and gratitude surged through him at once. He bowed his head briefly, overcome, then lifted it again, unable to suppress his smile.
Outside the office, the sounds of the warehouse continued unchanged: carts passing, voices calling, the world proceeding with indifferent steadiness.
Darcy scarcely noticed. Everything that mattered stood before him now.
Chapter 12
Elizabeth Bennet arrived at the Countess of Matlock’s party with an outward steadiness she did not entirely feel.
The carriage rolled to a stop beneath a blaze of lantern light, the glow reflected in polished windows and the gleam of fine equipages lined along the drive. Footmen moved with practised efficiency, their livery crisp, their expressions composed. The house itself rose before them in quiet splendour, its symmetry imposing without ostentation, its warmth suggested by the light spilling from every window.
Beside her, Mr Darcy descended first, offering his hand with a calm assurance that would once have unsettled her beyond measure. Tonight, she took it without hesitation. His fingers closed gently around hers, firm and familiar, and the simple contact grounded her more effectively than any effort of reason.
