Elizabeth’s heart was like a trapped thing in her chest. She took a seat, though Darcy remained standing.
“I have lately taken charge of a child,” he began. “A boy, not yet two years of age. His mother is passed, and his father is my half-brother, who is not to be trusted with a kitten, let alone a son. In any case, he has no wish to make the attempt, and the boy is now my ward. He has a devoted nurse, a warm nursery, and every comfort that money may provide. What he does not have is a mother. That, I find, is not among the articles a man may buy.”
“Indeed, I don’t expect we will find many mothers for sale at Tattersalls, unless you favor the snorting kind. May I ask why you speak to me?”
Mr. Darcy tugged at his cravat as if uncertain how to respond to such directness. Elizabeth glanced toward her father, who offered a weak, encouraging nod. Beside her, Mamma signaled with frantic, fluttering gestures to curb her tongue.
“Lizzy, your mother and I will not compel you… to accept a proposal,” her father said between gasps and coughs. “However, you should hear Mr. Darcy out. He comes from… a position of honor… and addresses a necessity we cannot ignore.”
“Yes, Papa.” Elizabeth braced herself, recognizing this as a proposal she would ordinarily reject outright. “Mr. Darcy, I am rather astonished you have chosen me.”
“I would, Miss Elizabeth, because you are the only woman of my acquaintance I could not manage to forget over a winter of trying.”
He seemed to hear the sentence only after it had left him, and looked as though he would have called it back if he could, his jaw set against any further such lapses.
“Naturally, you could not forget me, Mr. Darcy. You heartily disliked me, found offense in everything I said and did, and looked at me across every room in Hertfordshire with the most particular disapproval. And you found my family beneath you. It hardly bodes well for a mere winter of failed forgetfulness.”
His jaw clenched, signaling that she had landed a blow, though she was not entirely proud of how satisfying she found it. Mamma made a sound like a kettle undecided whether to boil, while her father produced a noise that began as a cough and ended, unmistakably, as a laugh.
Hill entered with the tea service, allowing a pause in the conversation. Darcy did not touch his tea, though he at last took a seat, his presence no longer looming, but heavy.
He cleared his throat to continue, “Miss Elizabeth, I will not quarrel with your sentiments, since I mean to be honest. I require a wife who is a gentlewoman of sense and character, fit to govern a household and to love a child who has recently lost his mother. In return, I will discharge your family’s debts, set Longbourn to rights, and provide for your mother and your sisters against whatever may come. I will also engage a London physician to treat your father’s illness. Should we marry, I shall consider your family my own, and I hope you might extend the same consideration to mine.”
He avoided the matter of affection entirely, which was perhaps for the best. Elizabeth had always sworn to marry only for love. But this was before her impetuous behavior in London. She had wandered near the Cheapside coffee houses and found herself drawn into that circle of radical thinkers and poets, amongst whom was a man—no, better not to think of him, she reminded herself as color filled her cheeks.
“Perhaps you wonder why you are so suited to this role,” Darcy added, misinterpreting her silence. “I have watched you sit in a crowded room while your relations did their utmost to mortify you, and not one of them contrived to do it. A child not quite two will try a great deal harder, and at far less convenient hours. I require a woman who cannot be routed.”
It was the most backhanded compliment ever laid at her feet, and the most observant. She had assembled a serviceable opinion of him not five minutes since—a cold man pricing a governess he need not pay, whereas a wife was a permanent, captive acquisition.
Now, he had complicated matters by actually seeing her.
“Papa,” she said, and discovered she could not meet his eyes. “What would you have me do?”
The cough that answered her dragged on until it seemed it would never cease, and when he spoke, his voice was a mere rasp.
“I had rather hoped to be carried off before I should be put to any use. You observe how my arrangements are forever overturned.” The jest cost him a fit of coughing. “The choice is yours, Lizzy, and I’ll not insult you by calling it a free one. Mr. Darcy has been honest. He claims no sentiment he hasn’t got, which is more than most men manage. Decide as you please. I shall approve of whatever spares me the exertion of an opinion.”
In other words, the welfare of her entire family rested on her shoulders. She reflected, with a wry, bitter humor, that Mamma was too shocked to remind her that had she accepted Mr. Collins, she might have held the keys to Longbourn herself. That had been November, when she was still a lady with prospects. Now, the memory of her London escapade felt like a stone sewn into the hem of her gown, dragging her down.
She thought she had no more dread left to feel, only to realize she was mistaken. She had been offered a respectable marriage,a house in the north, far enough from anyone who had ever seen her walk where she ought not to. Then, her thoughts drifted to the boy—a baby really—who cried for his mother. Having comforted many stray creatures in her time, she knew that peculiar, hollow loneliness.
“Mr. Darcy,” she found her voice. “You have not asked me a proper question for which I must answer. You spoke to my parents and laid out your terms. I am still a maiden who would prefer to be asked. I find I am quite sentimental about the matter, as it may well be the only sentiment I have left by Thursday.”
“You require the proposal on my knees?” He raised a skeptical eyebrow as if unable to believe a woman he viewed as a practicality should be so touched. “Very well.”
Before he could move, Mamma’s restraint finally shattered. She threw open the study door. “Girls! Girls! Mr. Darcy is about to propose to Lizzy! Come, come, we are to be saved!”
Her mother still had some of her old spirit left, even as theplink plunkof the leaks into the washtub kept its steady rhythm.
A flurry of skirts and gasps crowded into the study. Elizabeth caught Jane’s eye and gave a singular, decisive nod, a silent sisterly language sealing their pact: Elizabeth would marry Darcy, and Jane would keep her lips sealed, staying to comfort Mamma when the end came. Beyond that, she refused to look or think about.
Mr. Darcy rose, then lowered himself to one knee and took her hand, looking across at her rather than up, for Lizzy had always been the smallest of the family, her father’s “Little Lizzy.”
“Miss Elizabeth,” he said, his gaze intent. “Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife, and a mother to a child who has none?”
The phrase “a child who has none” pierced her heart in a way the financial settlements and the leaking roof never could. Shewould have to revise her opinion of him, which was vexing, as she had only just settled into it.
“Yes,” she said. “I will.”
