"Then I will come to Longbourn," he said, "and I will not particularly concern myself with your father's preference on the subject."
"That would cause a great deal of talk."
"I find I care less about talk than I once did."
They were quiet a moment, the warmth of the assembly muffled behind them, the night air carrying the distant sound of a horse being brought round and the low murmur of departing company.
"Whatever your father has arranged," he said, "it is not lawful without your consent."
"I am not yet one and twenty."
"Even so." His voice was very steady. "He cannot compel you. Not to this."
"No," she said. "But he can make the interval between now and my birthday exceedingly disagreeable."
"He can try." A pause. "If only I had the right to take you away now. I fear your return to that house."
"It will be well enough. They cannot afford a special licence, and as you have pointed out, contract or not, I will not agree to the marriage."
"What if they attempt to confine you?"
She drew his coat a little closer around herself against the night air. "Then we shall find some means of remedy. I would suggest you speak with the Hayes family, if the occasion arises. They have always been loyal to me."
"LIZZY." Lydia's voice arrived from somewhere near the carriage with the full force of a young woman who considers restraint someone else's problem. "MAMA SAYS IF YOU ARE NOT HERE IN FIVE MINUTES SHE IS LEAVING YOU TO WALK HOME."
Elizabeth closed her eyes briefly.
“I should go.”
She lifted the collar of his coat, pressed it lightly to her face, and breathed in the familiar scent of him before slipping it from her shoulders and holding it out.
Darcy took it back without speaking and shrugged into it, though his eyes had not left hers.
“Please be safe,” he said quietly. “I could not bear the thought of anything happening to you.”
He took both her hands. For one reckless moment she thought he might pull her back into his arms, and she knew with perfect certainty that she would let him. Instead, he lifted her hand, pressed a kiss first to her fingers, then to the inside of her wrist where her pulse beat quick and unsteady beneath his lips.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “I will see you tomorrow.”
“Yes,” she said. “Tomorrow.”
If she stayed another moment, she thought she might not leave at all. So she turned quickly and moved around the side of the building toward the waiting carriage. The Bennet vehiclewas already drawn up, her sisters visible within, her mother arranging herself with the air of a woman whose patience has been extensively tried. Mr. Collins stood at the carriage door. He had appointed himself to the task of handing the ladies in, and performed it with a solemnity that made it seem less a civility than a rehearsal. When Elizabeth reached him he extended his hand and looked at her with an expression of settled ownership that she found considerably more alarming than his public declaration had been. She took his hand because propriety required it and stepped up without meeting his eyes.
“Well,” said Mrs. Bennet, the moment Elizabeth was seated, “I should very much like to know what that was about.”
Elizabeth said nothing.
“Running out in the middle of an assembly, before half the neighbourhood, with everyone staring, and after all your father and I have arranged for your benefit, and Mr. Collins so particularly attentive. I cannot imagine what people will say. Your father shall hear of it the moment we are home, and do not suppose you may escape to your room before he does. He will require your account of the evening, and so shall I. You are under your father’s roof and your father’s guardianship, and while that is the case, you will conduct yourself accordingly.”
“Mama,” said Jane quietly.
Mrs. Bennet subsided, though with the expression of a woman reserving both her feelings and her volume for a later occasion.
Mr. Collins, who had been silent only because he preferred to speak last, now leaned forward.
“Indeed, your mother is perfectly correct. When a lady is properly settled in marriage, such little defects of temper are commonly corrected by degrees. St. Paul speaks with admirablepropriety on the duty of female submission, and I have always considered a husband who permits habitual wilfulness in his wife to betray a deficiency of proper firmness. I should be exceedingly sorry to adopt harsh measures, yet authority in a husband is a sacred obligation. Lady Catherine herself has often observed that indulgence is rarely beneficial to persons of less steady minds.”
Across the carriage, Mary drew in a short breath. For the first time since Mr. Collins had come to Longbourn, she felt something colder than embarrassment. She had thought him serious, proper, a man of consequence and religious principle. She had not understood, until that moment, how easily principle might become cruelty.
