Page 60

“In a good way?”

“He holds my hand when we walk. Not always. Not formally. He offers his arm, and somewhere during the walk, his hand finds mine, or mine finds his, and neither of us mentions it, and by the time we return to the house we have been walking hand in hand like—like children, or like⁠—”

“Like people who are fond of each other.”

Elizabeth slumped back into her chair, feeling too hot. “I shall ask Hannah to bank the fire.”

“Yes, we must blame it on the fire,” Charlotte mumbled. “Try the seed cake, Lizzy, I do believe Pemberley’s cook is superior.”

“Everything about Pemberley is superior.” The admission startled her, for she realized it included the master himself.

“I gather then, you are happy here, and I congratulate you. I’ve always said that happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance, and perchance, you have won the lottery.”

“I wouldn’t say it was by chance,” Elizabeth said, somehow unsatisfied with her assessment. “I believe Mr. Darcy was always an honorable and generous man. He never showed himself well at Hertfordshire because the neighborhood fixed a price on him, ten thousand a year, and well… I myself discovered how confining that could be when I was named an heiress of eighty thousand.”

“Ah… common ground leads to understanding, and that leads to companionship, friendship and…” she trailed off, a calm predator who always got her prey. “You said he once looked at you with disapproval, disdain, and disgust. Your words, not mine. Has his expression changed so much?”

Elizabeth stared into her tea. How did he look at her? He looked at her as though she were the only legible page in a language he was still learning. He looked at her with his whole face, not just his eyes—his brow softening, his jaw easing, that mouth she had once considered severe relaxing into something tentative and warm. He looked at her the way he had looked at the Derwent when it first appeared from behind the hills—with recognition, with relief, with the particular tenderness a man reserves for the thing he loves most and fears most to lose.

“He picks primroses from the pathway for me, played checkers when I was unwell, and he refused to win. And one night⁠—”

She stopped, aware she had wandered into territory with no graceful retreat.

Charlotte’s gaze returned to the connecting door, a smile on her lips and a question mark shaped her brow.

“Oh no!” Elizabeth almost dropped her teacup. “Not that. I only meant that we dined together. In the small dining room.”

“As opposed to the formal dining room…” Charlotte’s voice was smooth and flat. “How novel. One ought to always dine with one’s husband in the small dining room in such a great house, Lizzy.”

She had no idea what her friend implied, but she hastened to explain, “It was quite innocent, really. The dining room was too small for servants, and so he served me himself—rather badly, I might add. He splashed soup on the tablecloth, and we talked for hours. About travel, and books, and whether dunnocks are criminals.” Elizabeth laughed at the memory despite herself. “He showed me an atlas his father gave his mother as a wedding gift, and we spoke of places we should like to visit. Venice. Greece. The lavender fields of Provence.”

“Better and better. So, he played checkers, spilled soup, and showed you his primroses. For a man who refuses to dance, this is quite extraordinary.”

“Except he asked me to dance, Charlotte. After the pear tart that we shared, because I was rather full after the mutton and root vegetables—simple country fare, he said…”

“For a country miss, no doubt. How considerate your husband has become.”

“He is,” she almost said, ‘the best,’ but quickly pivoted to. “We danced the waltz.”

“In the small dining room?” Both of Charlotte’s usually sedate eyebrows rose. “But how did you fit the orchestra?”

“There wasn’t one,” Elizabeth admitted. “He requested a dance, all formal like, and then he asked me to count to three. And then we were spinning around the table, and…” She closed her eyes at the memory, their clasped hands, the sensation of movement, his strength and the giddiness of almost losing her step. His hand at her waist, drawing her closer until they were barely moving, barely breathing—his face above hers and his gaze dropping to her mouth and the wanting so clear in his expression that she could feel it on her skin like warmth from a flame held too close.

“And?” Charlotte waited, but Elizabeth was still lost in the music only she could hear in her head. “He kissed you, didn’t he?”

“No, oh no.” Elizabeth’s eyes opened, and she covered her flaming cheeks. “I thought… there was a moment when we were barely dancing, just swaying, and he was looking at me, and I thought, well, I might have wanted him to… but…”

“But what?”

“I thought he would.” The words came out smaller than she meant them to. “And he did not. He kissed my hand instead. The way he did at Netherfield when I proposed the conditions. And then he thanked me for dancing with him, as though I had given him something precious. I went upstairs, and I lay in bed for an hour staring at the canopy, trying to work out why his restraint undid me more thoroughly than any kiss could have.”

Charlotte sat back in her chair and regarded Elizabeth with an expression neither triumphant nor amused, but something closer to tenderness—Charlotte’s version of it, spare, practical, and all the more moving for its rarity.

“Lizzy, do you know why his restraint undid you?”

“Because it meant he was thinking of what I needed rather than what he wanted.”

“Yes. And do you know what that is called, when a man sets aside his desire because he cares more about your readiness than his satisfaction?”