Chapter 15 #2
Darcy felt his heart swell, moved and hopeful beyond measure by the intimacy of her gesture.
His hand closed firmly, completely around hers.
“I have always enjoyed your company,” he quietly confessed.
“That is something that will never change. Your family may do what they will, but there is nothing that shall deter me or cause me to waver from my course. I am no longer insensible of the debt I owe your parents, your eldest sister, and the Gardiners especially. Without their guidance, you would not have become the caring, intelligent, utterly enchanting woman I have the honour of knowing. For that, I will always be grateful.”
Elizabeth coloured deeply, and Darcy feared she would withdraw her hand. He need not have worried.
“And what of my impertinence?” Her words may have rung with challenge, but her tone contained far less fire than he had come to expect from her. She sounded endearingly uncertain.
“Your impertinence,” he replied, “is unequalled.”
Her lips quirked.
Darcy’s thumb began to stroke the back of her hand—a slow, even caress that sent a discernible shiver through her entire body. “I have long considered your impertinence charming and have been desolate without it these many months. I have missed you. I hope you do not think me too forward.”
Elizabeth’s gaze remained steadfast upon the movement of his hand as he continued his tender ministrations.
“In such cases as this,” she said feelingly, “it is, I believe, the established mode to express one’s gratitude for the sentiments avowed, and to return them if one is able.
” She raised her eyes to his. “You are too good, Mr Darcy, and too forgiving by far—”
“Please. I do not wish to quarrel with you over which of us possesses the more forgiving soul, not tonight. With your permission I would like to put aside our difference of opinion until another day. Perhaps you would be so generous as to receive me during your stay in London and we may revisit it then. After all, I cannot imagine you will have anything better to do while the newlyweds stare at one another with adoring calf eyes for an entire month.”
“Are you teasing me?”
Though he detected only a hint of her usual archness in her tone, the corners of Darcy’s mouth turned upward in satisfaction. “I am. Despite what you believe, both your kindness and your impertinence have had a most positive and lasting effect on me.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I would not go so far as to say the effect has always been positive, sir, but it is certainly something to behold. As to whether it is lasting or not, I suppose I shall have to wait and see for myself.”
It was Darcy’s turn to flush with warmth; the gratification and the unadulterated pleasure he derived from the implications of her admission were irrepressible.
“It is owing to you,” he said with absolute certainty.
“Whether or not you realise it, whether or not you accept the credit for it, knowing you has changed me and changed me for the better.”
Elizabeth bowed her head. “You are too generous. As it so happens, I can very easily recall a time when that was not the case.”
“And once again,” he insisted, though not unkindly, “you are mistaken. No one familiar with the matter can deny it was I who inspired your ire, your dissatisfaction, your disapproval, and your repugnance. From nearly the first moment we met I managed to injure you with my thoughtless remarks, but it did not end there. Throughout our acquaintance, unconscious and ignorant though most of my actions were, I continued to inflict upon you pain of the acutest kind. It was inexcusable, especially when your beauty, tenacity, wit, and inherent sweetness incited nothing in me but confusion, admiration, and ultimately a deep and all-encompassing adoration and regard.”
He averted his eyes. “It has been many months since I first acquainted you with my feelings on this subject, and while I am certainly altered, my feelings are not. Much has passed between us since then—much that I regret. I cannot possibly begin to right all the wrongs I have committed against you and your family. There are so many that I honestly have no idea where to begin.”
He was startled when Elizabeth’s grip upon his hand tightened almost painfully.
“You already have,” she whispered fervently.
Her eyes met his with a sincerity that made his pulse quicken.
“Mr Darcy, I must apologise to you. You cannot know how much I have come to regret my past actions. For months I have dwelt upon nothing but my injudicious treatment of you. My behaviour at the time was unpardonable. I cannot think of it without abhorrence.”
Her apology, though unnecessary in his eyes, moved him. He took a tentative step forward, then another, until the physical distance between them was entirely improper, nothing more than a hairsbreadth. “You must think upon it no longer, I beg of you.”
Elizabeth made to speak, or, more likely, Darcy thought, to argue with him, but he was impatient to move beyond their current conversation.
He would have no more of her apology, not when he felt so strongly the fault was his and his alone.
He shook his head minutely, his countenance earnest as he silently implored her to utter nothing further on the subject.
By some miracle, she obeyed him.
In that moment, the expression upon Elizabeth’s face so closely resembled the stuff of Darcy’s dreams that his heart stuttered in his chest. Her gaze was so intense and her expression so tender and full of affection that he felt the effects all the way to the recesses of his soul.
It was this realisation that caused his careful reserve to unravel completely.
Raising their joined hands to his lips, he pressed a sensual, lingering kiss to Elizabeth’s palm.
When she uttered no protest, he drew her into his arms. Her soft, tremulous sigh as her body melted fully, completely against his own was the sweetest sound he had ever heard.
Overcome, Darcy touched his forehead to hers; their clasped hands rested between them upon the lapel of his coat, warm and vital over his pounding heart.
He was intoxicated by the feel of her—her presence, her warmth, her scent.
The reality of Elizabeth in his arms was more heavenly, more exhilarating, more soothing than anything he had imagined, and what was more, it felt right.
Now that he knew what it was to hold her, Darcy was more determined than ever not only to endeavour to deserve her regard, but to secure her love; to court her relentlessly for as long as it would take, until she agreed to spend her life with him.
He closed his eyes and expelled a ragged breath, for the moment, content to simply hold her in his arms.