Page 165 of A Most Unwelcome Acquaintance

Elizabeth smiled, then grew serious. “There is another matter. When you defended me against Lady Catherine, I understood that you had chosen your own judgment over the approval you learned to value. I could not dismiss that as temper or obligation.”

“I should have made the choice before she forced me to.”

“You made it when it mattered.”

“I made it because losing your respect had become more painful than losing hers.”

Color rose in Elizabeth’s face, and she turned toward the stream. “When did that happen?”

Darcy was silent for several steps. “I am not sure that I can name a moment.”

“I am relieved. A precise date would sound suspicious.”

He smiled. “Then I shall avoid one. At first, I watched you because I needed to understand why my first judgment was so wrong. That was pride as much as curiosity.”

“At least you admit it.”

“I found that the more I observed, the less I could preserve the opinion I had formed. Nothing about you matched what I expected. You managed your family without pretending they had no faults, contradicted me when you thought me wrong, and refused to be impressed when I thought I deserved it.”

“That last must have been difficult.”

“It was.”

Elizabeth looked at him, and his expression made her smile.

Darcy continued. “Then I began to notice things that had nothing to do with proving myself mistaken. Your care for Jane. Your patience with Kitty. The way you allow Sarah to work without attempting to command every movement. You trust those you love without trying to possess them.”

Elizabeth’s smile faded into thought. “And you thought you did otherwise.”

“Too often.”

They reached the stream, where the path narrowed between a willow and the bank. Sarah drank, then shook herself without regard for either of them. Darcy moved aside too late and received a scatter of droplets across his coat.

Elizabeth looked at the marks and waited for his displeasure.

He examined one sleeve. “I am beginning to understand that acquaintance with Sarah requires practical clothing.”

“What it requires is surrender.”

“I have resisted that lesson longer than most.”

“She does not regard resistance as a serious obstacle.”

They walked on beneath the willow branches.

After a moment, Elizabeth said, “You have told me why your opinion changed.”

“Yes.”

“You have not told me when admiration became something else.”

Darcy looked ahead. “Perhaps because I resisted that conclusion longer than the others.”

“That sounds more like you.”

“I thought distance would correct it. Then I discovered that absence merely gave me more opportunity to think of you. I found myself measuring conversations by whether you were part of them, and visits by whether I might see you. When you thought ill of me, I wanted to explain myself, but I wanted even more to become a man whose explanation you might believe.”

Elizabeth said nothing.