Chapter Ten #4
“Before I knew it was you, I was, I was so struck by your beauty that I thought you were a figment of my imagination or a creature of myth or fairy tale.”
Her cheeks flushed and her whole body seemed to warm. She could not think how to respond. Darcy continued with his memories from that day.
“But then it was you, and I had a hard time reconciling the captivating woman before me with the girl I knew. When you spoke, it was you, the same you I had always known, but still not quite the same.”
“Not the same?” she whispered.
Darcy looked down, then reached for her hands.
“I was not angry you had aged as you so impertinently put it.” His laughing eyes met hers again as his thumb ran along her gloved hand.
The teasing tone was familiar; his touch was not.
“I was unprepared for the woman you have become. Unprepared but not unhappy. It simply took me some time to realise that it was not primarily astonishment I was feeling.”
Once again, he paused and looked down, his eyes tracking the progress of his thumbs along the sides of her hands. Through two pairs of gloves it seemed impossible she was feeling as much as she was, but judging by his expression of wonder, he felt it too.
“What was it you felt in addition to a great deal of astonishment?” she asked with an arched brow.
His smile grew.
“I never said it was a great deal,” he protested. “It was mild at best.”
“I assure you, sir, it did not seem mild at the time.” She could not stop smiling.
“Did my behaviour worry you?” he asked, his tone turning serious, his hands ceasing their ministrations to squeeze hers. “I apologise for being so obtuse. It was obvious to Stephen and Bingley—they teased me relentlessly. I suppose I deserved it since they saw what I had not.”
Elizabeth laughed at this. It was all she could do to keep from floating away with the eager anticipation coursing through her—she wanted to reach for whatever it was they were dancing around, but she knew not how.
“Will you tell me?” she asked.
“Tell you what?” His fingers were caressing hers once again, and the gentle pressure was exquisite torture.
“Tell me what you were feeling other than a great deal of astonishment,” she dared him.
“My impertinent Elizabeth. You know me so well, can you not guess what it was I was feeling? What I am feeling right now?”
“You are going to make me guess!?” she sputtered in disbelief.
“No, I suppose that will not do. What I felt then and what I feel now is . . . I have fallen in love with you, Elizabeth.”
Though they had been careening towards a declaration for several minutes, maybe for much longer, she was still not prepared for him to be so bold.
“In love with me? Are you certain? Absolutely certain?”
Had he meant to declare not simply interest, or an attraction, she was somewhat prepared for that, but love?
“I am certain.” He sounded frustrated. “I would not have spoken to you otherwise. Do you doubt me?”
How had she turned a declaration of love she had imagined receiving for nearly a decade into an argument?
“It is not you I doubt. Not exactly.”
“What is it you doubt?”
“I don’t know! I have never had a conversation like this before—outside of my own imagination.”
“I should hope not . . . your imagination? You imagined what it would be like for a gentleman to declare his love for you?”
She heard the cautious anticipation in his voice.
He had been brave. She could be as well.
“No, Mr. Darcy, I imagined what it would be like for you to declare your love for me, but I never thought I would experience it in real life.”
His eyes had gone wide at her admission but then shifted to something darker.
“Although I am anxious to address how you could not have seen my loving you was inevitable, my good, beautiful, impertinent friend, I first would like to explore this imagination of yours.”
“What do you mean?” She choked out the words because he was moving his hands to her face, gently holding each side while his treacherous fingers moved gently along her cheeks.
“I mean, how long have you imagined my declaring my love for you?”
She tried to look away, but his gentle grip would not allow it. She closed her eyes.
“How long, Elizabeth?”
It was not so much that she did not want to answer. Everyone had known of her childish affection for him. It was just that it was hard to think of when’s and who’s when what he was doing was so deliciously distracting. Had she ever existed outside of this moment?
“The tree, the chestnut tree. On the carriage ride home. That was the first time I imagined it.”
“You were very young,” he sighed, leaning impossibly closer, his forehead nearly resting on hers. “And very prescient. I suppose that means, if you ever deign to inform me of your feelings on the matter, I should plan to yield to your superior intelligence for many years to come.”
“I do not recall you presenting me with a matter to consider,” she said, meeting his intense brown eyes once again. In teasing him, she found her footing. “I have no doubt that in the years to come, as your friend, I will indeed be able to offer you my wise and discerning advice on many matters.”
His dark eyes sparkled. “Did not your imagination present you with the question that would come next?”
“It certainly did,” she confessed, thinking of all the ways Fitzwilliam Darcy had proposed to her in her dreams. “Perhaps you are right. The reality might not live up to the fantasy.”
She made to move away but did not make it more than a step before his hand on her arm drew her back to him. In truth, she likely would not have gone an inch further.
“I understand you take delight in vexing me—”
“And you me.”
“It is true,” he admitted. “But now let us be serious. I have told you I love you and I do. As my friend, as the beautiful, captivating woman you are and as the one I want by my side always, but I do not want to burden you with expectations if your feelings are not equal to my own, or if you are not ready to hear my intentions.”
His words filled her with warmth and a feeling of absurd happiness that seemed to want to consume her. Until his final words.
“Not equal to yours!” Her indignation was apparent. “Fitzwilliam Darcy, I have loved you for nearly half my life.”
“Elizabeth, this is not me trying to vex you, I promise. Please hear me out.”
“If you want my full and focused attention, you should desist with the use of my name and refrain from touching me.”
His hands, which had rested on her upper arms, dropped immediately, and he stepped back from her. Though she had experienced his touch for the first time only moments ago, she missed it as if it were an essential thing. Worse still was his stricken look.
“I apologise for my presumption. Please forgive me.”
“For someone who is not trying to vex me, you are remarkably good at it,” she huffed.
“I only meant that being so close to you, hearing you call me by my given name—these are not helping if you hope to elicit coherent thought from me, which seems a prerequisite for the conversation we are attempting to have.”
Somehow, his smug smile was more endearing than annoying.
“Very well, in the interest of resolving the matter at hand and hopefully removing any barriers to my being able to hold you once again, let us continue.” He indicated the bench behind them and they both sat, several inches apart.
“I did not mean to challenge your feelings. If you will say you love me, if you do love me, I will be the happiest of men. However, I am only asking you to consider that the love of a young girl for a stranger she spies from a tree is not the same as the love of a woman for a man she hopes to marry.”
“That is true, and to be frank, my love for you has been a part of me for so long that it would have been hard to discern the moment it changed from a girlhood whim to a real and lasting affection, but for John Robertson.”
“John?” he jumped up and began to pace. “He certainly showed an interest in you last summer. Are you saying you return his affection?”
She took a deep breath. How could he be both so wise and yet so very foolish?
“Yes, as I accept your words of love and demonstrations of your own affection, I am secretly harbouring a tendre for another man, whom I plan to wed once I can be rid of you!” She stood as well and put herself in his path as she spoke. “How can you be so ridiculous?”
“I am as reasonable as a man in love can be,” he answered defiantly, then softening, he reached for her. With one hand resting on her cheek, he went on.
“Can you not imagine how it felt to have only just begun to see you as a woman, a desirable and confounding woman, and then watching an old friend dance attendance on you—without any evidence of your objection?”
“I had not thought of that,” she said, covering his hand where it rested on her face and reaching to hold his other hand. He laced their fingers together. “I mentioned him because of that very thing.”
“That thing being his interest in you and you not objecting to it?”
“Mr. Darcy, will you not allow me to finish a thought?”
“My apologies, please continue.”