“You are remarkably generous with a decision that is mine to make.”
“And you are remarkably stubborn,” she returned, “for a man of such celebrated good sense.”
The ghost of a smile crossed his face, but it did not reach his eyes. “You would sacrifice your own happiness—and, if you will permit me the presumption, mine upon the altar of what thehaut tonchooses to believe?”
“It is not only my happiness at stake.” Elizabeth felt fresh tears lined her cheeks. “Georgiana — “
“Do not,” he said, and there was a sharpness that she had not expected. “Forgive me. But do not invoke my sister’s name as an argument against me. Georgiana loves you. She has said those very words.”
Elizabeth turned her face away, but found herself clutching his hand even tighter. Fear. Fear that he would walk away; that the thoughts would come pressing back, when here, at Pemberley, in his company, she had found such blissful quietude.
“And what of my choice? Elizabeth, I have thought on this. I am not a man who speaks without consideration. I know what was said. And I know—as surely as I know anything—that your beauty lies in your character and in your heart. Please, thehaut tonis not a court of law. Its verdicts last precisely as long as the next scandal, and no longer.”
She shook her head, but so desperately wished to believe him. He paused. When he spoke again, his voice had lost its argument and found something quieter. “I have not come to this point easily, Elizabeth. You know that better than anyone.”
“You deserve someone,” she said at last, so softly that even she strained to hear herself speak, “whose name comes to you without cost.”
“I deserve,” he said, with a gentleness that undid her more thoroughly than any argument, “to make that determination for myself. As do you.” He clasped her other hand. “Elizabeth. Let me ask you what I came here to ask. Let me bear whatever answer you give me. But do not take the question from me out of a misguided solicitude for my reputation. I am, I assure you, quite capable of ruining that entirely on my own.”
She laughed—she could not help it—and the laugh broke something loose in her chest that had been lodged there since she fled the house. She turned to face him at last. The lake glittered in the morning light.
“Very well, Mr. Darcy,” she said softly. “Ask.”
The happiness which this reply produced, was such as Darcy had never felt before—”Elizabeth, I care not what thetonthinks. I only care for you: to love, to cherish, to admire and respect you for the rest of my life. Dearest, loveliest Elizabeth, will you do me the very great honour of being my wife?”
She lifted her eyes to his, and found there something she had not dared to expect—a sincerity so unguarded, so wholly indifferent to the opinion of the world, that she scarcely knew whether to be more astonished at his feelings or her own. She had no dowry, few connections, abducted by coarse sailors, climbed the mountains of Spain, run barefoot on the plains of the Meseta Central, walked brazenly into the camp of a French army—yet he loved her.
“Y-you love me?”
“With all my heart, Elizabeth.”
They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects.
* * *
They returned to the house together—Elizabeth and Darcy. Elizabeth’s eyes were bright, her colour high, and though she had clearly been weeping, there was about her an animation so warm, so luminous, that it transformed the evidence of those tears into something altogether beautiful. Darcy looked precisely as a man violently in love should—an expression of heartfelt delight diffused over his face.
Mrs. Gardiner was on her feet, her needlework forgotten. “My dear Lizzy,” she said. Elizabeth crossed the room and took both her hands, giving her a smile that said everything.
“You must forgive us,” said Elizabeth, “for being so very long. The path around the lake is… there is much to see.”
“Indeed,” said Mr. Darcy, who came to stand beside her. “Though I do not recall any of it, apart from Elizabeth.”
She blushed. She clasped his hand; the emotions of her aunt and uncle, and of Georgiana, were so strong they had begun to overwhelm her—with Darcy’s closeness her mind stilled, the thoughts fading.
There followed a brief silence, for indeed, there was little to say on an event long anticipated; that only the cruelty of the Morning Post’s article had prevented it occurring a month prior. He had wished it, but prudence bespoke delay.
Mr. Gardiner broke the quiet. “Well, I think I may hazard a guess as to what has kept you, and if I am right, and I rather think I am, then allow me to be the first to offer my congratulations to you both.”
“You are quite right, sir,” said Darcy, laughing. “E— Miss Elizabeth has done me the very great honour of accepting my hand.”
The effect of this declaration upon Georgiana was immediate. She had risen from her chair at the first sight of her brother’s face, and now she came forward with an eagerness thatwas scarcely proper, looking between her brother and Elizabeth with eyes that shone.
“Oh,” said she—and then, finding that a single syllable was insufficient to the occasion—”Oh, I am so very glad.”
Elizabeth, whose heart was in a state of such fullness that she hardly knew what to do with it, turned to her with a smile that was also very nearly tears. “As am I,” she said. “More than I can express.”
Georgiana, emboldened by the warmth of that smile, took Elizabeth’s hand in both of hers with a gentle pressure that was more eloquent than any speech she might have attempted. “My brother is ever so generous, is he not, giving me a sister. Oh, William, she is perfect. You could not have chosen better.”
