Chapter 14
Darcy watched Elizabeth leave Pemberley a second time, and found the spectacle no easier to endure for having endured it once before.
The evening had ended with every appearance of civility.
Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner had expressed their gratitude, Bingley had been all open pleasure, Georgiana had blushed through a shy farewell, and Miss Bingley had smiled with that polished brilliance which concealed nothing so well as displeasure.
Yet Darcy scarcely felt any of it. His attention had fixed itself upon Elizabeth with a force that made ordinary manners feel like an act of bodily discipline.
She stood near the carriage in the soft darkness, candlelight from the open doorway touching the side of her face while the night air stirred the lighter folds of her gown.
She looked less composed than when she had arrived; or perhaps he only knew now where to look for the signs of feeling.
The lowered lashes. The quickened breath.
The colour that rose when his gaze found hers and did not immediately retreat.
“Thank you for a very pleasant evening, Mr. Darcy,” she said.
“The pleasure was mine,” he replied, and the words, though perfectly proper, felt dangerous in his mouth.
Her hand lifted to accept her uncle’s assistance into the carriage, and Darcy forced himself to remain still, though every instinct in him rebelled against yielding that office to another man.
He had no claim. He had no right. Yet his body did not reason so cleanly as his conscience.
His eyes followed the graceful turn of her wrist, the pale glove against Mr. Gardiner’s hand, the gathering of muslin at her side as she stepped upward.
For one unguarded instant she bent forward, and the fabric drew close over the warm, living line of her body—the narrow waist his hand still remembered, the curve of her hip, the slight arch of her back as she found her balance.
Heat went through him with punishing force.
He looked away too late. The image had already entered him: Elizabeth not departing from him, but turning toward him; Elizabeth placing her hand in his because it was his to take; Elizabeth lifted into a carriage, into a house, into a life where every careful touch might at last be permitted.
Beneath the sharpness of desire came something more aching still—the wish to care for her openly, to shield her from wind and steps and every small discomfort, to offer his hand not as host, not as acquaintance, but as the man to whom she belonged and who belonged, utterly, reverently, helplessly to her.
The carriage rolled away. Elizabeth looked back once.
Her face was half-shadowed, but he saw the blush before she turned from him, and hope rose in him, hot and reckless, like flame finding air.
When the lamps had disappeared beyond the curve of the drive, Darcy turned and found Georgiana still in the hall. His sister watched him with an expression so gentle that he could not resent its curiosity.
“You are sorry to see them go,” she said.
“I hope they were comfortable here.”
“That is not what I said.”
Despite himself, he smiled faintly. “No. It is not.”
Georgiana came nearer, her hands folded before her. “Is Miss Elizabeth the lady whose opinion matters so much?”
Darcy looked toward the darkened doorway. “Yes.”
“And does she know it?”
He drew a slow breath. “She knows something of it. I once told her very badly, and with more pride than affection deserved. I am trying, if she will allow me, to be less unworthy of her good opinion.”
Georgiana’s eyes softened. “I think she likes you.”
The words went through him with absurd power. “You must not build hopes for me.”
“I think you already have them,” she said, with uncharacteristic daring.
He could not answer, but he touched her shoulder lightly before sending her to bed, grateful beyond speech for the quiet happiness in her face.
The next morning, Darcy called at the inn with Georgiana and Bingley, and though he had schooled himself all through the drive, the sight of Elizabeth undid him afresh.
She was dressed for morning, simply and lightly, with fewer ornaments and a naturalness more dangerous than any evening elegance.
The gown was modest, the fabric pale and soft, yet it moved with her as she rose, shaping briefly to the warmth and grace of her body before falling again into propriety.
Her hair was arranged with less severity than the night before; a dark curl had slipped near her cheek, and the wish to touch it back, to let his fingers linger where no man’s hand had any right to linger, struck him so sharply that he had to steady his breath before he could bow.
This was worse than the candlelit room. Worse, because morning made her seem nearer to life, to home, to all the domestic intimacies he had no right to imagine: Elizabeth at breakfast, Elizabeth by a window with sunlight on her throat, Elizabeth in some private chamber of Pemberley with her hair not arranged for company at all.
The thought sent heat through him before discipline could catch it, and when colour rose in her face upon seeing him, soft and immediate, the little parlour seemed suddenly too close, too warm, too full of everything left unfinished between them.
“Mr. Darcy,” she said.
“Miss Bennet,” he replied, bowing, while the sound of her voice drew every forbidden recollection back into the room: the corridor, her parted lips, the breath she had not quite mastered, and the words he had not been allowed to hear.
The visit was lively enough to save them.
Bingley talked, Georgiana smiled shyly, Mrs. Gardiner was all kindness, and Mr. Gardiner asked sensible questions about the neighbourhood.
Darcy answered what he must, but his thoughts continually moved toward Elizabeth, who sat with her work forgotten in her lap and her eyes lowered whenever his attention came too near.
At last he said, “If your plans allow it, there is a walk not far from Pemberley which many visitors admire. The view is best before the heat of the day. I would be honoured to show it to you.”
Mrs. Gardiner looked pleased. “That sounds delightful.”
Elizabeth looked up then, and the warmth in her eyes nearly stole his breath.
“We should like it very much,” she said.
Darcy bowed, outwardly composed, inwardly shaken by the simple fact that she had said we and had looked, for one swift, burning moment, as if she meant only herself.