She was asking me to show up without a script, and the request was the bravest thing I had ever received.
I called for my coat, summoned the carriage, then sent it away. The walk from Mayfair to Cheapside would take twenty-five minutes, and I needed every one—not to plan, but to practice not planning, which was far more difficult.
I stopped at the confectioner’s on King Street and bought pastries for the children—apricot tarts, lemon biscuits, a box of marzipan animals, and a handful of fresh strawberries. I tucked the basket under my arm and walked east, terrified and elated in the same measure.
And I tried not to think. Not to ponder. I would receive her openly and listen without speaking. I could not compel a disinterested woman into receiving me, and so I arrived at the blue door at Gracechurch Street with a sloppy cravat, my hair ruffled by the breeze, and a sheen of sweat on my nose, which I wiped with my cuff.
Mrs. Gardiner opened the door herself. “Mr. Darcy, we were hoping you would come today.”
“Mrs. Gardiner.” I bowed. “I received a note.”
“I know you did, and what’s this? Treats for the children and strawberries for the tortoise?” She ushered me into the entrance hall. “I shall keep the children in the nursery. Elizabeth is in the garden with Sir Bertram.”
She relieved me of the basket and led me to the garden. “She has been pacing since dawn, Mr. Darcy. I would not keep her waiting, though I suspect she would deny waiting if asked.”
The kitchen door opened onto the garden. I paused in the doorway, not for composure, but because the sight of her demanded a breath.
Elizabeth sat on the stone bench beside Sir Bertram’s enclosure, wearing green. Not the willow-green of the lending library or the moss of Burlington House, but a shade I had not seen before, darker, richer, the color of deep water or the first shoots determined to survive a late frost.
She did not look up, hands pressed flat to her knees, as if holding herself steady. In that moment, I knew she was as frightened as I was.
My heart was as unsteady as my steps. The crunch of gravel alerted her, and she looked up. She blinked, her gaze unsharpened but wholly open, as if she were unprepared, and what I saw was the same mixture of anguish and hope mirrored in my looking glass.
“You came,” she said.
“Yes, because you asked me to, and I wanted nothing more.” And since she had requested my presence solely for her, I put the basket of strawberries into her hands. “For you.”
A corner of her mouth lifted, and she looked over at the tortoise sunning himself on the basking stone. “Thank you, Mr. Darcy. For me, but perhaps I can spare a few for your loyal retainer?”
She fed one to Sir Bertram, who ate it slowly.
“He misses you, as do the children,” she continued. “They decided that Sir Bertram had bitten your thumb and you were recovering, and Rose offered to kiss it better upon your return.”
“Then I shall gladly receive her largesse.” Impulsively, I lifted a strawberry and put it at her lips.
“You are feeding me Sir Bertram’s rations?”
“You asked me to come for you and not the tortoise and the children.” I took her in, and the smile came naturally, because looking at her made me happy, and I had no reason to hide. “I missed you.”
She took a bite of the strawberry, her gaze not leaving mine. “I owe you the truth.” She chewed and swallowed, and I could not tear my eyes away if they had been plucked from my face. “Because you gave me the truth, and you did not varnish it. You did not find me beautiful, and you did not pretend as other men would have done. You might have blundered, but you did it honestly with no calculation, nothing you wished to gain. We were beneath you.”
“Elizabeth—”
She held up her hand. “It is the truth. We knew it. Sir William Lucas knew it. Even Charles and his sisters knew it, although we Bennets were not below the Bingleys.”
“Yes.”
“And so I took that piece of honesty, and yes, you were rude and disagreeable, but I built a fortress around it. That I was not wounded and I joked about it, and then judged you severely.”
“You despised me.”
“Yes, but if I were honest with myself.” Here, her brown eyes caught the light, and with the greenness of her dress, appeared hazel, not quite green but in between. “I cared deeply because the most consequential man to appear in Meryton deemed me not handsome enough to tempt him, and with that remark, you had destroyed me socially within my community and every other gentleman who would look up to you for their cues.”
“I didn’t think—” I tugged at my cravat, and because it hadn’t been tightened by my valet, it came entirely loose.
“No, because men of consequence do not need to think or to consider.” She held my gaze. “But I didn’t call you here to talk about that. I wanted you to know that I was wounded while hiding behind my wit, which I deployed much like a porcupine’s quills. Because when Bingley said I wasquite pretty, you looked at me and you delivered your verdict with full knowledge and callousness, leaving me standing behind a potted fern with Charlotte Lucas, who was kind enough to pretend she had not heard, and I laughed, because laughing was the only thing I could do that was louder than the silence you left me in.”
The ache in that remembrance still held her, and I wanted to fold her in my arms and comfort her, let her know I had noticed her, that I had been planning an introduction, and that I had felt drawn to her, but all of that was too late. She would never believe me, and so I could only understand the position of a second daughter, born in the shadow of her beautiful sister and like atender shoot poking its head from the frost, trying to find her way to the light.
