Longbourn to London (12 page)

She blushed a little, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “Will you join me as I walk, Fitzwilliam?” She knew she should wait for him to ask whether
he
could join
her,
but Elizabeth felt such ceremony unnecessary. It seemed one propriety had already been breached and possibly more.

Darcy held the reins of his horse in one hand and offered his other arm. Elizabeth tucked her bare hand into the bend of his elbow. They walked along quietly. After several minutes, Elizabeth found herself again becoming perturbed.
Why does he not speak? Has he no questions for me? I certainly have a few for him! Where is his native curiosity? Or does he already know what was said?
Just as Elizabeth thought she might have to increase the speed of their climb to oust her uneasiness, Darcy began to speak.

“Elizabeth, are you aware that Mr. Gardiner has made your aunt acquainted with every particular of his business?”

“No!” She was confounded at the direction of their conversation. “I suppose I have never thought of it. The news does not surprise me; he seems to have every confidence in her. Her powers of organization are the stuff of legend within the family.”

“It has been a great education for me to become well-acquainted with your aunt and uncle. They are fine people, and they have an unexampled marriage. We would do well to emulate them.”

“I am inclined to agree. The Gardiners have provided proper guidance to Jane and me where my own parents are found wanting. It is a pity the expansion of their family has prevented my younger sisters from knowing them better. But tell me, Fitzwilliam, where do these reflections tend?”

“The Gardiners have inspired my desire to teach you the workings of Pemberley estate management if you are willing to study it. I am eight years your senior, Elizabeth, and it would be a comfort to know, should anything happen to me, that you could pass the knowledge onto our children, to continue Pemberley and make improvements.” He stopped to assess the effect of his words in her luminous eyes.

Elizabeth looked up at him slightly breathless. “You do me a very great honour, Fitzwilliam, very great indeed. I would be most pleased to learn about the estate. That you would allow me to help you, to support you, in so material a way is highly gratifying. I assumed I would run the house—but in truth Mrs. Reynolds does it all— and plan neighbourhood entertainments. I do love to garden, and I am very good help in a stillroom. There will be tenant visits, I expect, and tending new mothers and the ill, which will naturally fall to me now rather than Georgiana. But to learn about the planting of crops and the husbandry of sheep, and, I suppose, investments? This degree of trust, I had not envisioned. Thank you, Fitzwilliam, for your faith.”

Darcy lowered his head towards her face as she stood on her toes to meet him with parted lips. They closed their eyes as their mouths met. Darcy barely touched her with his tongue, but he felt her respond by briefly leaning her body against his. They separated, each mirroring the other’s satisfied half smile. Darcy dropped the lead of his horse and removed his gloves. His hand joined hers, fingers entwining as they walked more casually.

“I want you to be my partner in all things, Elizabeth.”

“So I have been given to understand.” She avoided his eyes and felt her colour rising, her aunt’s words still foremost in her mind.
‘A willing and responsive partner,’ Aunt Gardiner said. ‘Do not just let him do things to you, respond!’

Elizabeth’s bonnet blocked her view of Darcy’s countenance. He stopped again so she had to look up to see him gazing tenderly at her. In a gentle voice, he asked, “What does your understanding encompass, dearest Elizabeth?”

“You wish me to be happy with you…or rather, perhaps it is that you wish to make me happy? You wish to be the means of my happiness?” He nodded, encouraging her as she refined the accuracy of her phrasing. “Your parents were uncommonly devoted to each other, you have said, as are my aunt and uncle. These marriages are characterised by mutual respect and good humour and…a passionate regard, which you also wish to find in married life. With me.” She shook her head in astonishment. “With
me
…”

“Yes, Elizabeth, you and I together. Your aunt told me about your explorations of Derbyshire prior to visiting Pemberley, how fearlessly you scrambled over the tors, scaring her to death! She said you admitted feeling you could spend the rest of your life there.

“So why was I searching in the
ton
for a woman who did not exist in that sphere? I know you bear society and unknown company with infinitely more grace than I, but if I understand your true nature, you are most yourself outside in the open air as we are now. How I would have loved to see you climbing the Peaks.”

“I did not recognise it at the time, but perhaps those two days in Derbyshire—before we met at Pemberley— were a preparation after a fashion. The very country you live in was preparing me for you.” She looked seriously into his face, hoping he understood the depth of her feelings.

“Elizabeth!” Her words thrilled him. She was in his arms without either of them realising he had embraced her. “Elizabeth…” he whispered.

“Please, let me finish my thought.” She chuckled, bending away to watch his face without leaving his grasp. “The country around Pemberley has a handsomeness not wholly tamed, and you are of that place. When I saw Pemberley so civilised and well situated, elegant within the wilderness with no useless finery, it was as if I was seeing
you
. I have already spoken of all the kind words Mrs. Reynolds said of you. When I saw your portrait with its observant smile, I only then remembered it had been sometimes fixed upon me, and I fell deeply in love. Now I see how every circumstance of those days led to truly seeing you.

“Had we not met, I would have spent that night, and surely many after it, completely bereft and heart-broken. I would have realised I had been loved and was in love myself, at last, all to no avail. But I had no time to dwell upon what might have been because I went outside and there you were. Embarrassed confusion snuck into my heart before abject despair could. But when I learned of Lydia’s actions, I
did
despair. I believed you would think ill of me and the association of my family with
him
.”

“I chose love, Elizabeth.”

She met his gaze to reveal tears at the corners of her eyes. She was filled with pride on his behalf, just as she had been when she first learned he had secretly helped her family solve the tumult caused by Lydia.

“Elizabeth,” Darcy spoke in a low voice, “you will think me a rake, but may I remove your bonnet and kiss your hair?”

She smiled. “Yours are not the eyes of a rake, sir.”

He inhaled the scent of her and kissed the top of her head where the hair parted in curls framing her face.

Elizabeth continued, “You have always looked at me with love though I was too stubborn or distressed to recognise it. When I told Lydia’s news in Lambton, you stood at the door looking at me for a long moment before you left. I assumed you were congratulating yourself on a narrow escape from all things Bennet. But it was, in truth, not such a look. You were trying to give me strength. I was too abashed to understand, too broken by events.”

“Let us not speak of that.” Darcy nodded his forehead against hers, a gesture in which he found great comfort.

“With your forbearance, Fitzwilliam, I do have a question about that day I have never asked.”

Darcy felt they had discussed every particular of the interview a dozen times. “I cannot imagine what I have not said about finding you in such a dreadful state and learning its cause.”

“But I have never asked why you came to be paying me a visit. You did not arrive with the intention of comforting me—you arrived with some intention of your own. And it was…?”

Darcy stepped back and smiled. “Ah! You are quite correct. You have never asked, and I never thought to say.” Elizabeth returned his smile. “My intention… We had seen each other the day before, when you and your aunt called. You were so kind to Georgiana, protecting her, and I knew, whatever your feelings about me might be, that my letter had some softening effect. You joined me in keeping Georgiana safe from the thoughtless insults of Caroline Bingley.

“That evening, Georgiana played for us, and I mused all the while about Hunsford and all you had said of me. I hoped, in the brief time we had thus far spent at Pemberley, that you had seen my improvement in civility, but I had done nothing to relieve Bingley’s suffering.

“He made it clear he
was
still suffering. His only topic of conversation was the miracle of you being in the neighbourhood—a miracle I was not insensible to—and how he longed to hear you speak of his Meryton friends, but I was not deceived. There was only one person of whom he wanted to speak, and it pained me to realise he felt that he must speak privately with you to mention Jane. He feared I would evidence some displeasure if he let slip her name in my hearing.

“To begin his relief, I determined to see you before you arrived for dinner to let you know I was certain Bingley’s affections had not waned, and to measure whether you would trust me enough to reveal Jane’s feelings. I planned to ask you to enter into a conspiracy with me, its purpose to reunite Bingley and Jane.

“But to be honest, I simply could not wait to see you again. Had I found you reading happier letters from home, and had you shown any amount of approval of my visit and its purpose, I cannot account for myself. I might have asked for a walk, or I might have asked you to begin a correspondence with Georgiana so I could maintain some rudimentary connection to you, or…I might have renewed my addresses. I might have asked your uncle for leave to court you.”

Elizabeth’s smile broadened as his answer lengthened. “If, as you say, Jane’s letters had only carried trivial news from home, I expect I would have entered into any conspiracy you cared to suggest. And if you
had
renewed your addresses, I would not have refused you. No, Fitzwilliam, I could not have refused you
again
. I was in love by then, though I had not yet time to frame it as a complete thought.”

She took her bonnet from his hand, hooking it over the pommel of the saddle. As she took Darcy’s arms and wove them behind her, she whispered, “I am still in love with you. It is my vow to you: I shall remain so.”

Darcy finished the embrace she had initiated, pulling her to him with their arms folded together behind her back. He kissed her with more intensity than he previously allowed himself. Her mouth responded hungrily; her lips parted willingly and welcomed his tongue. She turned her head allowing him to taste her more deeply, and she brought a hand up to the back of his collar, pressing him to maintain contact.
She does not fear an ardent kiss, at least.
Darcy was intoxicated. He continued until the pressure of her hand eased and released him as she gasped for breath.

“Oh! I am not yet as proficient as I would wish to be, Fitzwilliam. I am grateful for the opportunity to practice.” She spoke in a low breathy voice he found utterly beguiling.

“We both want practice, dearest Elizabeth.” Darcy brushed his lips against hers again, briefly. “The breathing is the trick.”
Oh, I am too enthralled. I am aroused. I must pull back.
He stepped slightly away. Their eyes met, each reading the other’s depth of desire.
She does not understand her power over me.

“Fitzwilliam, may we speak, just for a moment, about your expectations of me?” Her voice was firm, though she coloured slightly and cast her eyes down.

“I thought we were.”

“Yes, we were speaking of my duties as mistress of Pemberley. Perhaps I should not be so self-assured, but I am confident of my success in that regard. You will be patient, and I shall be eager. No, I refer now to my duties as a wife. As
your
wife…”

There was an awkward pause. Elizabeth jumped in, unable to bear it. “We need not, of course. You deem it unseemly. I understand.”

“No, in the present case, I think you do
not
understand. To speak plainly, to talk of you as my wife causes me to fervently wish it were already so. It tempts me to act rather than speak.” He watched her eyes for a sign of comprehension.

Elizabeth blushed.

He spoke quickly in a constrained manner. “You wish me to speak of duties. I
shall
speak. I hope you will not perceive any desires of mine as duties, Elizabeth. Unless you have strong objections, I mean for us to occupy the same bed always. I have been too much alone. Once we are settled at Pemberley, you may find me sometimes indiscreet in my displays of affection. I want you to always let me know your feelings, your…desires as you learn what gives you pleasure, and certainly you must speak instantly of anything that does not.” He stopped as abruptly as he started, turned away from her and drew in a deep breath.

She stepped to him, placing a hand to his shoulder, wishing to allay the disquiet of which she knew she was the cause. He was, after all, a man in love with a maiden. “Please allow me to apologise, sir. It was not my intention to discompose you.”