Tears threatened now. "I am so sorry. For all of it. For not accepting your letter when you first offered it. For making you carry it for months, wondering if I would ever know the truth. For being too blind to see who you really were until it was almost too late."
"You see me now," he said quietly. "That is what matters."
"Do I have your forgiveness?" she whispered.
"There is nothing to forgive. You never owed me your trust or your belief. I had to earn them—and I failed, until Bath gave me another chance." He drew a breath. "Since Kent—since Bath—since all that has passed—I have thought of little else but you: the ways I failed you, the man I wish to be, and whether there might remain the smallest hope of regaining your esteem."
Her heart beat painfully fast. "You have it. You have had it for some time, though I did not know it myself until Bath."
"Do I?" His eyes searched hers. "Truly?"
"Truly."
They had stopped walking. Ahead, Mr. Bingley and Jane were lost in conversation.
Mr. Darcy’s hands trembled before he folded them behind his back, as though by sheer force of composure he might steady himself.
“Then I must ask you something, though the answer may wound me.”
Elizabeth felt her heart thrum wildly, as though it sought escape from her very chest. The air seemed suddenly too thin, her breath uneven, her composure slipping beyond recall.
“What I said to you in Kent,” he continued, his voice carefully controlled, “my feelings and my wish to make you my wife, if those sentiments are still unwelcome, I shall never speak of them again. I will value your friendship and ask no more. But if there is any chance your feelings have altered…”
The words struck her with almost physical force. He spoke of it still. Of marriage. Of her.
“Yes,” Elizabeth said.
She scarcely recognised her own voice. The answer had leapt from her before she could summon sense or caution.
He blinked, as though he feared he had misheard her. “Yes?”
“Yes.” Her breath trembled now. A strange lightness swept through her, half terror, half wonder. “My feelings have altered. Yes, I would consider it. Yes… to everything you ask.”
The words tumbled out, unguarded and urgent.
“I do not know when it changed, only that somewhere between seeing you rescue me in Bath, witnessing your kindness to so many others, observing your conduct toward me and my family there, and reading your letter before returning home, I ceased to see you as the proud man from Hertfordshire and began to see you as…”
She faltered.
The enormity of what she was admitting crashed over her. That he should stand before her again, humbling himself once more. That he should still wish for her. That he had not withdrawn his heart after she had once rejected it.
Her pulse raced. For one dizzying instant she wondered if she had dreamed the entire exchange.
“As someone you could care for?” he finished softly, hope bright in his eyes.
"Yes."
"Elizabeth," he whispered. "I love you. I have loved you for so long that I scarcely remember a time when I did not. If you can truly accept me—faults and all—I shall devote every day of my life to deserving you."
Tears shimmered in her eyes. "You already do. More than I deserve you."
"Then—will you marry me? Not for fortune or consequence, but for love?"
"Yes," she breathed. "Yes, I will."
For a heartbeat he could only stare, then slowly reached for her hand. She placed it in his without hesitation. His fingers closed around hers—warm, sure, and trembling.
"Thank you," he murmured. "For giving me another chance—for seeing me as I am—for—"
