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“Miss Elizabeth.” He leaned toward her, then stopped, aware that closing the distance between them might be interpreted as precisely the imposition he had promised to avoid. “I would not have you enter this marriage believing yourself unwanted. Whatever the terms, whatever boundaries we establish, I meant what I said in the lane. I consider you⁠—”

He stopped again, unable to formulate the word he wanted. What could he say to the only woman he had ever met who made him forget every reason he should keep his distance?

“Yes?” Elizabeth prompted, and the hesitation in her voice was new to him—a softness, a curiosity, perhaps even a hope she hadn’t meant to reveal.

“I do not know how to say it in any way that shows my sincerity—because of what they are saying about me and your uncle’s will. It taints every word I say to you.”

“You are saying it very well, Mr. Darcy.” The color in her cheeks was high—whether from the wind or the walk—he did not know. “I am sorry for the way the town is speaking about you and your reputation. The pirate nonsense and your association with my uncle. It is wrong, and I do not believe a word of it. I know what it costs you to be named, and that you did not wish this upon your family and your name.”

The apology was unexpected. The kindness beneath it was even more so.

Darcy had braced himself for many things from Elizabeth Bennet—her wit, her defiance, her determination to escape the trap her uncle had set for them both. He had not braced himself for gentleness. He had not prepared for the possibility that she might see his wound and choose, without obligation or advantage, to tend it.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice rough. “That is… more than I had any right to expect.”

“You have every right to expect basic decency, Mr. Darcy, whether from the world or from your… wife.” She stumbled on the word. “I know you are agreeing to everything out of a sense of honor. I know you could walk away and gain my uncle’s entire fortune.”

“The sum belongs to your family, Elizabeth.” Her Christian name slipped from his lips, and she gasped, looking at him, blinking. “And I would not walk away from you, if you don’t find me too despicable.”

She huffed, eyes widening. “Do you find me despicable? Because if you do⁠—”

“I believe we are at an impasse,” he said, his heart pounding because nothing he could say wouldn’t mark him as a man who looked at her fortune. “I believe there is only one question for you to ask me, and that is the one you walked three miles to ask. Not whether I find you despicable, because you know I don’t.”

The blush deepened. The Elizabeth Bennet he knew was no longer quite the same as the one who had entered the garden. She folded her list and tucked it into her pocket.

And then, she turned her face up to him, her hands clasped tightly. Her curls danced in the wind, and she drew a breath, holding it until he thought she would faint.

“Mr. Darcy. Will you marry me?”

The wind stilled. Or perhaps it did not, and he only imagined it had, because every other sound in the world retreated behind the pounding of his heart.

“Yes,” he said. “I will marry you.”

She did not smile or raise her head for a kiss. She nodded and held out her hand, sealing a business arrangement.

He took it. Her fingers were cold from the March air, slim and strong beneath his palm. He raised her hand and kissed it, lingering a beat longer than propriety required. Her fingers tightened, a small reflex—either shock or sympathy; he could not tell. When he released her, her absence felt like a draft through an open window. This was merely a marriage of convenience.

He intended, however, to be as inconvenient as possible.

CHAPTER TEN

THE UNEQUAL VOWS

“If any man can shew any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace.”

Elizabeth’s mind, which had been drifting between the terms of her trust and the absurd speed of her downfall, snapped back to Reverend Pennyfeather, her gaze fixed rigidly on the altar cloth. Jane, who attended her, stood placidly at her side. She did not flinch, but Darcy, her bridegroom, did. She knew his posture and the rigid line of his shoulder well enough to sense his mood even with her eyes closed, which they had been until the terrifying invocation.

Now she noticed the seven wheat sheaves embroidered in gold thread, a dull wine stain near the hem, and the church’s silence. She could not even hear her mother breathe. Had she fainted?

Believing perhaps that the parish at large had simply failed to hear the clause over the rattling of their own bonnets, Reverend Pennyfeather cleared his throat to afford any potential saboteurs a second chance.

“As I was saying, if any man can shew any just cause, why the couple before us may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.”

This time, Elizabeth raised her eyes from the wheat sheaves and turned partway to inspect the congregation. Her mother was quivering like a pointer scenting a partridge, turning a delicate shade of indigo from holding her breath. Kitty coughed twice into her lace glove, and a bench near the font creaked. The Bennet side of the aisle was a crush of bonnets and Sunday coats, neighbors who had come to see what the village had been debating since the first reading of the banns: whether Miss Eliza had caught the century or was caught in a magnificent scandal.

Darcy’s side was scant. Bingley’s two sisters, Caroline and Louisa, wore identical scowls, vibrating with unexpressed commentary that Bingley alone held in check, standing beside the groom with narrowed, warning eyes. Two feet away sat Colonel Fitzwilliam, Darcy’s cousin, bright in his regimentals. He shifted his weight and parted his lips, whether to draw breath or to speak, and Elizabeth’s heart seized. Of Darcy’s many relations, he was the only one who deigned to appear at the wedding. No sister. No aristocratic aunts. No Lord Matlock or his peers. Just this one cousin who Darcy had claimed was closer than a brother, with the military bearing to halt the wedding.

But Darcy’s chin dipped, and Elizabeth could picture the glare beneath his brows, though she dared not gawk, and the Colonel closed his mouth. Whatever objection or doubt he had died in his lips.