Chapter Seventeen #2
She recoiled, her shoulder striking the cold stone of the wall.
In the same instant a strong hand closed about her arm and drew her clear of the horse’s path.
She found herself brought up against a solid chest, the rough nap of a greatcoat under her cheek, the scent of horse and leather and cool air all about her.
“Forgive me,” Mr. Darcy said, above her. His arm was still around her, his hand firm at her elbow. “I ought to have called out. I did not see—” He broke off, as if the words he had meant to offer had fled.
She was not hurt. The shock lay in the sudden sound, not in any danger. Her bonnet had been pushed askew, one ribbon pressed between his coat and her shoulder. Her hand, which had flown up of its own accord, was clutching the lapel of his coat. He looked down upon her with an expression of concern.
His next words came without ornament, as if they had stood too long under restraint.
“I love you.”
She had not expected anything of the kind.
She had been restless for his return. She allowed herself to wonder whether his former attentions might resume, but she had never imagined that the first words he spoke to her—here, in the little court that smelt of hay and leather and damp stone, with her hair falling from its pins and his arm still about her—would be a declaration.
The world crowded in upon her—the horse shifting its weight, the faint drip of water from some unseen eave, the roughness of the wall at her back—yet all of it seemed altered by those three words.
“You—” Her tongue failed her. She swallowed, tried again. “You ought not to say such things to me,” she began, because that was what propriety demanded, then heard how hollow the protest sounded, and faltered. “At least, not so suddenly.”
“If I had waited another moment,” he answered, with a crooked, almost boyish smile, “I should have lost the nerve entirely. I have been waiting since I left Pemberley. I can wait no longer.”
She could no longer mistake his meaning. He loved her. He had ridden hard from Rosings with that single purpose. The knowledge settled upon her with overwhelming force. Her heart, restless since his departure, found at once both agitation and relief.
His arm did not immediately fall away. He stepped back only far enough to see her face, his own still very near. The horse, quieted now, stood a little to one side, blowing softly, the reins loose over its neck.
“I am glad,” he said, and there was a rawness in the phrase that startled her, “that you are not hurt. I have never in my life been so much alarmed.”
To hear such a confession from him, in that tone, unsettled her. Her fingers, still caught in his coat, refused to release it at once.
“You came in terribly fast,” she said, absurdly, because it was the only observation her mind supplied. “We were expecting a carriage.”
“I could not endure a carriage,” he answered, as if the truth were compelled from him without choice.
“It was too slow.” His gaze dropped briefly to where she still held him.
His mouth curved in a way that was half rueful, half incredulous.
“I have ridden from Kent as if my wits had taken the bit between their teeth, and they have only just returned to me, now that you are within my reach.”
The last words escaped him unpolished, almost clumsy. Her hand loosened from his coat, only to be caught and retained in his. The warmth of his grasp, the firm circle of his fingers around hers, sent a confused thrill through her that left no room for jest.
“Dearest, loveliest Elizabeth,” he said, “I have been thinking, for every mile of the road, how I ought to address you when we met again. I had meant to be prudent, and gradual, and correct. I see now I am equal to none of that.”
She had no light remark to ease the intensity of his look. Nothing came.
“I told myself,” he went on, speaking quickly now, as if afraid of losing the courage that had presented itself, “that I must be calm. That I must begin with your comfort here, with my gratitude, with my sister’s improvement, with all the proper matters that might lead in time to what I wished to say.
The moment I saw you against that wall, I knew I could not say any of those things first.”
“Mr. Darcy—” She heard her own voice catch on his name.
“Fitzwilliam. Forgive me,” he said, “for being very ill-mannered and abrupt, for I find I am not able to help it.” His arm embraced her gently, but with a resolve that left no doubt of his intention.
“You must allow me to mend my beginning,” he said, the humour fading into more earnestness.
“I do not speak from obligation, or because you have been good to my sister, or because you are in my house. If you had done none of those things, if you were standing before me in some common inn-yard where I had no right to invite you, I would still be saying exactly this. I love you as wholly as I am capable. I cannot be easy until I know whether there is any hope you might one day be my wife.”
The words were more rushed than refined, yet their very lack of polish made them more believable. He was confessing a truth.
Her hand, still held in his, had answered him before her lips could. Her fingers had closed around his almost unconsciously. She did not pull away.
She met his gaze fully. “Yes,” she answered. “If you truly wish it, seeing me in my oldest gown, in the least elegant corner of your estate, with mud on my hem, then yes. I will very gladly be your wife.”
He came nearer. She did not retreat. Her hand, still bare, lay within his and he raised it with a care that belied the roughness of his appearance.
The touch of his lips through her skin sent warmth through her whole frame.
When he straightened, they were nearer than before.
She could see the way the journey had left its mark upon him.
Yet happiness now displaced the fatigue.
He hesitated—as if seeking some rule to govern what neither of them had been taught—but her hand remained in his, and she did not draw it back. His arm came about her almost tentatively. After a brief, startled moment in which she might yet have withdrawn, she let herself rest against him.
Her next breath stirred the fold of his cravat. His arm lay steady at her back. She had the strangest sense that nothing more was required but some slight, decisive movement on either side, and everything would be altered past recalling.
“Elizabeth,” he said, very low. His hand left hers only to touch, for an instant, the line of her cheek, the roughened pad of his thumb tracing the place where the wind had loosened a curl.
“May I?”
For a heartbeat she did not understand. They stood so close, the world so altered, that the words seemed no more than another fragment of the wonder that had overtaken her. Then she saw where his gaze had fallen and comprehension rushed upon her so swiftly that she could not speak.
She drew a breath, nodded and lifted her face to his. She let her fingers close, of their own accord, more firmly round his hand.
He bent and kissed her.
There was nothing tentative in it. No polite brushing of lips, no experimental, uncertain approach.
His mouth found hers with a depth of certainty that admitted neither doubt nor apology.
She made an involuntary sound against him, half shock, half an emotion she did not recognise.
His arm drew her nearer until there was no space left between her and the length of his body.
The hard buttons of his coat pressed through the muslin of her gown.
Her first startled stiffness passed in a heartbeat.
She had no experience by which to measure what she felt.
Her body supplied its own answers where her mind offered none.
Her hand came up of its own accord to his shoulder, then slid to the back of his neck, finding the warm skin just above his collar.
He drew a sharp breath into the kiss, almost a groan, and deepened the kiss, his lips moving over hers with a hunger that had everything of long denial.
A confusion of sensations: the rough cloth of his greatcoat beneath her fingers, the faint scrape of his stubble against her chin, the clean taste of his mouth, the steady, strong line of his arm at her back, engulfed her.
He held her as if he had no intention of letting her go until she demanded it.
She did not demand it. Some dim, proper part of her mind said that she ought.
No well-brought-up woman allowed such freedom in a stable court in broad day.
That was quite drowned by the fierce, dawning knowledge that she wanted this kiss, this man, this future, with a certainty that left no room for scruple.
When at last he lifted his head, it was only because he seemed to remember, with an effort visible in his eyes, that she must be allowed to breathe.
He rested his forehead against hers for a moment, his breath warm and uneven on her cheek.
She could feel the wild beating of his heart where their bodies still touched, an answering tumult in her own.
“Lizzy?” Georgiana’s voice sounded from the archway.
Elizabeth started as if waking. She moved back, one hand flying to her bonnet.
Georgiana stood just within the entrance, a basket on her arm, Mary at her side.
Both had evidently come in search of her and halted at once.
Elizabeth was acutely aware of Mr. Darcy’s disordered cravat, of the dust on his coat, of the mark it had left upon her gown, and of the expression on their faces, which betrayed astonishment, delight, and embarrassment in almost equal measure.
“Brother,” Georgiana said, her colour rising. “We—we did not know you had arrived.”
Mary's gaze moved between them. “Georgiana, you owe me a guinea.”