His lips met hers gently, tenderly, and yet Elizabeth shuddered with the power of it, the first kiss of what would doubtless be thousands in their life together. When Darcy drew away, he kept his arm about her, a very welcome support. Elizabeth half-felt she might have fallen down without it, her legs trembled so badly.
“I shall speak to your father directly,” Darcy told her. “If you would not object, I should like us to be married as soon as the banns can be read.”
Elizabeth smiled at that. “I should like nothing better. Indeed, I should like our life together to begin as soon as possible.”
“Excellent,” he said with satisfaction. “Then there is only one more thing to say.”
She looked at him in surprise. “What is that?”
“I love you,” Darcy said, looking steadily into her eyes. “With all that I am, forever.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “I love you,” Elizabeth said in return. “With all my heart.”
Chapter 27
Darcy’s horse snorted as they turned onto the drive that led to Rosings Park. He patted the stallion’s glossy dark neck. “I could not agree more, Saturn,” he murmured. As a commentary on Lady Catherine and the arrogant presumption of her actions, it could hardly be improved upon.
But whatever he might have thought of the mistress of Rosings Park, her grooms were above criticism. Darcy gave Saturn to them with a word of thanks and turned to walk up the long steps to the front door.
He was conducted at once to the drawing room. Lady Catherine was there, seated, as was her custom, in a chair that rather resembled a throne in its ornamentation and position at the head of the room. She extended her hand as he approached, her manner at once satisfied and expectant. Anne sat near her in her usual place, composed but attentive, and Mrs Jenkinson remained close at her side with habitual vigilance.
“My dear nephew,” Lady Catherine began as he entered, “I am glad to see you returned at last. You have been gone too long. At last, all the confusion has been cleared away, and we may sort out what is to be done next.”
Darcy inclined his head slightly, but he did not take the offered hand. When he spoke, his tone was even, but it had nothing in it of softness. “I shall not detain you long, Lady Catherine, but I must speak with you. It cannot be delayed another moment. Perhaps you would prefer to speak in private.”
Lady Catherine must have expected something very different. She drew herself up at once. “No, Darcy, you shall speak to me here and now. If this relates to the arrangements I have long had in view, you may be assured that I am entirely prepared to hear you, for I have always considered it as a matter which must, in time, be properly concluded.”
“It does not relate to that.”
The interruption was calm but decisive, and it produced a moment’s pause in which Lady Catherine regarded him more closely. “To what, then, does it relate?”
“It relates to your conduct toward Miss Elizabeth Bennet.”
The name altered her expression immediately. She did not rise, but the ease of her manner was gone. “I do not understand your meaning,” LadyCatherine said warily.
Darcy met her gaze steadily. “You understand me perfectly, but I shall humour you. You compelled Miss Elizabeth to leave her cousin’s residence abruptly and without the common civility which any guest has a right to expect, and forced her to take an unpleasant and wearying journey despite her recent injury. You shamelessly misrepresented her departure to concealed the truth, and you deliberately deceived me in a manner that violated all honour, all honesty. I still do not comprehend how any relation of mine, any person of supposed character, could have done it.”
Lady Catherine’s colour rose as he spoke, and she answered with quick agitation. “I acted as I thought proper. The young woman was not a suitable visitor, and I had every right to dismiss her from my house.”
Darcy answered her levelly. “Miss Bennet was not staying in your home, and you had no right to treat her in a manner which could expose her to injury.”
“She has suffered none,” Lady Catherine returned. She rose abruptly from her seat, her voice gaining force as she spoke. “Her family received her, and if any inconvenience was felt, it was no more than might be expected from her impudence and her grasping ambition.”
“You mistake the matter,” Darcy said. “In the first place, Elizabeth’s actions have been entirely correct. She has never acted with either impudence or ambition. In the second, nothing could justify your conduct.”
Lady Catherine advanced a step toward him, as though to better assert her authority. “You forget yourself. I am not to be addressed in such a manner.”
Darcy did not move as she approached, and his answer remained entirely composed. “I forget nothing. It is you who have forgotten what is due to others.”
The restraint of his tone made the rebuke more severe than any raised voice might have done, and Lady Catherine was checked for a moment before she could reply.
“You have acted,” he continued, “with a degree of violence which cannot be defended, and you have done so under the pretext of an authority that you had no right to exercise. You have not only insulted a lady whose conduct was beyond reproach, but you have attempted to impose upon me by concealing the truth of what you have done.”
Anne, who had listened without interruption, now raised her eyes and spoke, her voice quiet but distinct as she addressed her mother. “Is this true?”
The question altered the whole character of the room.
Lady Catherine turned toward her impatiently. “My dear Anne, you need not concern yourself with this. Miss Bennet would have returned soon in any case. I merely hastened what would otherwise have occurred a little later.”
