Chapter 16
Darcy knew, with a certainty that made his blood move too swiftly, that Elizabeth had altered toward him.
It was not enough to build confidence upon; he would not be so arrogant twice.
Yet there were signs his heart could not help collecting, small as sparks and dangerous as flame: she no longer retreated when he came near; her eyes lifted to his and held for half a breath before modesty lowered them; when his hand had freed her glove from the thorn, her fingers had remained beside his one moment longer than necessity required.
Her blush, too, was changed. It was not only confusion now, nor only shame, but awareness—warm, startled, and answering.
The path narrowed beside the stream, where a low stone bordered one side and a bank of fern and wild grass crowded the other. Darcy stepped aside at once.
“Pray, Miss Bennet,” he said, “allow me to go behind. The footing is uneven.”
“You are very attentive to my footing, Mr. Darcy,” she replied, with a glance that almost undid him.
“I have reason to be,” he said, and could not prevent the warmth beneath the words. “Pemberley has already endangered you once.”
She laughed softly and moved past him.
It was only a passing. Nothing more. Her gown stirred the air before him, not his body; her shoulder came within an inch of his sleeve, not against it; the faint scent of her—soap, linen, and summer warmth—rose as she slipped by him and entered his senses with a force no touch could have made more vivid.
Yet the nearness struck him like contact.
His whole body knew the moment as if she had leaned into him: the warmth of her passing, the softness of muslin moving near his hand, the delicate break in her breath when the path narrowed and propriety gave them no more room than it must.
For one wild, ungoverned instant, imagination overcame him.
She was not passing before him, but turning back.
Her shoulder was not merely near his chest, but resting there; his hands were not clenched uselessly at his sides, but set at her waist with slow, lawful certainty, drawing her against him until he could feel the living heat of her through every softened barrier of gown, stays, and linen.
He imagined Elizabeth as his wife, her back against him, her head turning, her breath catching not in alarm but in invitation; imagined the delicate yield of her body as she trusted his strength, the trembling pause before she let herself rest fully against him.
The vision darkened, warmed, became more dangerous.
His mouth lowered, in thought only, to the place beneath her ear where he had seen her pulse flutter.
He imagined feeling it there, quick and helpless beneath his lips; imagined the soft sound she might make if his hand tightened, only slightly, at her waist; imagined her fingers covering his, not to remove them, but to keep them there.
Restraint, in that impossible future, would no longer be refusal.
It would be reverence moving slowly, learning what pleased her, waiting for every breath of permission before taking the next liberty.
The very gentleness of it undid him more thoroughly than boldness could have done.
The thought went through him low and hot, so vivid that his hands flexed before he could command them.
Then discipline closed over him like cold water.
Darcy turned his face toward the stream, fixed his gaze upon the current breaking white over the stones, and forced air slowly into his lungs until the heat in his blood obeyed him.
He would not make desire a trespass. He would not claim even in thought what only vows could make holy.
If Elizabeth ever leaned into him so, if ever his hands rested at her waist without guilt or fear, if ever her breath changed beneath his mouth, it would be because she had chosen him freely and before the world.
Until then, he would master himself.
When the path widened, she slowed until he came beside her, and Darcy knew the moment had come.
He did not trust himself with too many words; too many words had ruined him once already.
Yet silence would be cowardice, and he could not walk beside Elizabeth in such altered tenderness while Hunsford remained between them like an injury left unattended.
“Miss Bennet,” he said, quieter now, “I was wrong at Hunsford.”
Her smile faded, but she did not turn away.
The stream moved beside them, bright over stone, while he forced himself to speak plainly.
He did not repeat every mortifying particular; he could not have borne it, and she did not require it.
But he told her enough. He had made love sound like condescension.
He had spoken of his struggle as if her worth required apology.
He had wounded her while asking for her heart, and the recollection had shamed him every day since.
Her breath caught softly. The colour left her cheeks for one moment, then returned with painful warmth.
“I was not blameless,” she said, her voice low.
Darcy turned toward her at once, but gently, fearing to press even comfort upon her. “You had reason to think ill of me.”
That was all he trusted himself to say aloud, though the whole truth moved beneath it: that she had seen what he had chosen to show, that her refusal had been just, that he loved her no less for having forced him to become a better man.
Sunlight moved over her face in broken pieces, touching her lashes, her mouth, the troubled softness at her brow, and the ache of wanting her—not merely her forgiveness, but her trust, her warmth, her future—settled in him so sharply that he felt it like a hand inside his chest.
Her eyes lifted to his. “My opinion is not what it was.”
Hope rose so swiftly that he had to master his very breath, and he looked at her then, where the softness in her eyes struck him harder than reproach ever had.