Page 166 of A Most Unwelcome Acquaintance

“I do not admire you because you corrected my judgment,” he continued. “I love your intelligence, your loyalty, your humor, and the independence that once offended me because I mistook it for disregard. I love that you expect better from people and that you are willing, eventually, to expect better from yourself.”

“Eventually?”

“I have learned caution.”

She laughed. “Perhaps you have.”

He stopped beneath the willow. Sarah had climbed the bank ahead and now stood with a length of muddy root between her teeth.

Darcy faced Elizabeth. “I have no wish to hurry you, and I know I have given you reasons to doubt me. But my feelings have not been uncertain for some time.”

Elizabeth held his gaze.

“I love you. If you believe you can be happy with me, will you marry me?”

Elizabeth studied him for a moment, then smiled.

“I will.”

Darcy’s expression changed with such open relief that she laughed, though tears had gathered in her eyes.

“You doubted me?”

“I hoped. I did not presume.”

“That is an improvement.”

“One I intend to preserve.”

He took her hand, and for one suspended moment neither spoke. Sarah ended it by pushing between them and dropping the muddy root across Darcy’s boots.

Elizabeth looked down. “She approves.”

Darcy bent, picked up the root, and threw it toward the field. Sarah raced after it before it struck the ground.

“I begin to suspect,” he said, “that her approval carries obligations.”

Elizabeth slipped her hand through his arm. “You have no idea how many.”

Chapter 35

SEVERAL WEEKS LATER, Elizabeth stood in the small room beside the parish church while Jane adjusted the fall of her veil for the third time.

“It was straight before,” Elizabeth said.

“It is straight now.”

“That suggests it was not straight before.”

Jane smiled and stepped back. “You are determined to argue on your wedding day.”

“I see no reason to abandon a useful habit.”

Mrs. Bennet entered before Jane could answer. She had crossed the churchyard twice, moved flowers no one thought misplaced, and informed Hill that the wedding breakfast would fail unless the cold meats appeared in the proper order. Her attention moved from Elizabeth’s veil to the window and back again.

“Mr. Darcy has arrived, though why he must stand outside with Mr. Bingley when the church is open, I cannot say. Your father is pretending not to watch for him, which means he has looked through the vestry door at least four times. Lydia has promised not to laugh during the ceremony, but I do not trust her. Kitty has misplaced one glove, and Mary says the other will serve if she keeps her hands folded.”

“Then we are prepared,” Elizabeth said.