He left. Darcy sat down for the first time in hours and put his head in his hands.
Elizabeth arrived at Netherfield at noon, accompanied by Jane, whose gentle face was a study in sympathetic distress. The sisters were shown to the morning room, and Jane was tactfully led away by Bingley, leaving Elizabeth and Darcy alone for the first time since the library.
She stood near the window, as far from him as the room allowed. The autumn light was unkind to both of them: it revealed the shadows under her eyes, the rigidity of her shoulders, the way her hands were clasped so tightly her knuckles were white. She was wearing a morning dress of paleblue, simple and high-necked, as though she had deliberately chosen the most modest garment she owned.
"Miss Bennet --"
"My father tells me you have offered marriage."
"I have."
"Out of honor."
"Out of obligation to your reputation, which I damaged through my inexcusable --"
"Yes, you have used that word. Inexcusable. Several times, apparently." She turned from the window. Her eyes were dry and fierce. "Let me be clear, Mr. Darcy. I am not accepting your proposal because I wish to marry you. I am accepting it because the alternative is ruin, not merely for myself but for my sisters, whose prospects will be destroyed by my disgrace. I will not allow Lydia's future or Kitty's or Mary's or Jane's to be sacrificed because I was foolish enough to be alone with you in a dark room."
Each word landed like a blow, precise and unhesitating, and Darcy absorbed them because he deserved them.
"I understand."
"I do not think you do." She stepped closer, and he saw the tremor in her hands that her voice concealed. "I do not think you understand what it is to have your future decided in an instant, by an act you did not initiate, in a circumstance you did not choose."
"You did not push me away." He said it quietly, without accusation, because it was a fact, and facts were all he had.
Her color rose. For a moment, something flickered behind the anger -- shame, perhaps, or the memory of how it had felt to be kissed by him, or something more complicated that had no name. Then it was gone, shut away behind the fortress of her composure.
"No," she said. "I did not. And I will live with that failing. But do not mistake my body's response for my heart's consent, Mr. Darcy. They are not the same thing."
The words carved something out of him. He nodded.
"Very well. We are engaged, then."
"We are engaged."
They stood in the morning room at Netherfield, two people bound by scandal and pride, and the distance between them was approximately twelve feet and immeasurable.
The news reached Longbourn before they did. Mrs. Bennet's raptures could, Elizabeth reflected grimly, be heard from the lane. When they arrived, her mother descended upon them in a flurry of exclamations, wedding plans, and involuntary calculations of Darcy's income, all delivered at a pitch that made the dogs bark.
"Ten thousand a year! Oh, my dear Lizzy! I always said you were a clever girl. Jane, did I not always say so? And Pemberley! They say the grounds are magnificent. Oh, Mr. Darcy, you must call me Mama -- no, not yet, perhaps after the wedding -- but you must know how welcome you are, how very, very welcome --"
"Mama." Elizabeth's voice cut through the torrent. "Please."
Mrs. Bennet took no notice. She seized Darcy's arm with a familiarity that made him flinch and steered him toward the drawing room, narrating a list of wedding preparations that appeared to include redecorating Longbourn, purchasing new carriages, and inviting every person she had ever met.
Elizabeth watched them go. Beside her, Jane touched her arm.
"Lizzy. Are you all right?"
"I am engaged to Mr. Darcy, Jane. The entire county knows I was caught kissing him in a library. Mama is planning a wedding that will cost more than Papa earns in a year. I am perfectly all right."
"You are trembling."
Elizabeth looked down at her hands. Jane was right. She clenched her fists and willed the trembling to stop, and when it would not, she hid her hands in the folds of her skirt and lied.
"It is cold."
Jane said nothing. She simply took Elizabeth's arm and held it, and they stood together in the hall of their childhood home while their mother's voice rang through the rooms like a bell announcing a celebration neither of them felt.
