Chapter 19 #2
Her throat tightened. The world around her—the laughter, the paper rustling, the murmur of conversation—blurred into distance. In her palm lay proof of what she had scarcely dared to imagine.
He had loved her even then.
And he had carried this small fragment of her, hidden and protected, through everything that had followed—through her rejection, through his silence, through months of humiliation and healing.
He had brought it here, to this snowbound house, only to give it back to her in a form she could not mistake.
The ribbon was no longer a trinket; it was a vow returned.
She felt the sting of tears, but they did not fall. Instead, she pressed the silk gently between her fingers, reverent, almost afraid.
Across the room, she felt rather than saw his gaze upon her. She looked up, and there he was, half-shadowed by the fire’s glow, his eyes fixed on her with the same restrained intensity that had undone her from the first.
He had given her back what he had guarded, as though to say, You are still safe with me.
Elizabeth drew a careful breath, willing herself to composure. Around her, the company was beginning to move again, couples drifting toward the fire, laughter resuming its natural rhythm. The spell might have broken for others, but not for her.
Not this time.
She turned the little book over once more in her hands, her decision forming even as her heart trembled.
He meant to speak to her—she could see it in the set of his shoulders, the direction of his glance—but if she let him do it here, in the midst of so many eyes, he would lay himself bare before everyone. She could not allow that.
Her first instinct was flight—anything to avoid the spectacle of his approach through a room still half full of guests. The look in his eyes was not one he could disguise; every observer would know. Her heart would be on display before he had said a word. And his! He would be made a laughingstock.
But there was no avoiding Fitzwilliam Darcy forever. He had made his declaration to her, his intentions clear. Now he wanted her answer, but whatever must be said between them would be said in private.
She caught her breath and turned to her aunt, who was chatting with Sir Edward’s eldest daughter near the fire. “Aunt, do you think anyone has seen to the side parlour fire? It would be dreadful to leave it burning all night.”
Mrs. Gardiner smiled, already guessing more than Elizabeth wished her to. “It would be just like you to think of it now. Shall I send for a footman?”
“No,” Elizabeth said quickly. “I shall look in myself.”
Before she could lose her nerve, she crossed the room. Darcy had just taken a step in her direction. She intercepted him halfway, her voice disciplined despite the tremor she felt beneath her skin.
“Mr. Darcy,” she said, “since this evening’s duties have made you master of ceremonies, may I impose one more? Lady Montford is surely distracted, but I feel it right that someone ensures the side parlour fire is quite out before the servants retire. Would you—?”
“Of course,” he said at once. “Allow me.”
She smiled faintly. “I shall accompany you, then, so that I may be a witness, if needed, that it was done.”
A flicker of understanding crossed his face—swift, profound. “As you wish, Miss Bennet.”
They left together under cover of civility, weaving through the half-emptied room where no one paid them heed. A burst of laughter followed them from behind—Richard and Miss Montford, no doubt—but Elizabeth kept her gaze forward, her heart racing.
The side parlour was nearly dark. One candle remained on the mantel, guttering low, and the fire had sunk to a dull red glow. Outside, snow pressed against the windowpanes; inside, the silence was so complete she could hear the soft whisper of cinders collapsing in the grate.
Darcy crossed the room and stopped near the hearth, his hand resting on the back of a chair he did not sit in. Elizabeth came a few steps closer and then halted, the little book still clutched before her. The fire made the shadows move between them.
She opened her mouth—closed it—then managed, “You meant me to—”
He began in the same instant, “I ought to explain—”
They both stopped.
She gave a quick, uncertain laugh. “You first.”
He shook his head. “No—please—go on.”
“You meant me to understand it,” she said, finding her words at last.
He hesitated. “I—yes. That was—well, I hoped you might.”
Her fingers moved over the ribbon’s edge. “You kept it all this time?”
He looked down as if the answer were written on the floorboards. “I had no right to, yet I could not bring myself to part with it.”
She tried to smile, failed. “You must have thought me very careless to lose it so easily.”
“I thought only—” He broke off, searching for something safer. “It reminded me that not all things lost are meant to be forgot.”
Elizabeth looked at the ribbon, then back at him. “And now you have returned it.”
He half nodded. “I—yes. I did not mean to keep it forever. I only—” He searched for words and found— “It seemed wrong, when I saw you again, to hold anything of yours that you did not know I had.”
Her heart fell. For one aching moment, she saw it all unmade—what she had taken for a declaration was nothing more than decency, his gift no token of constancy but an ending wrapped in courtesy. Of course, she had been mistaken again; she had mistaken him before.
She managed, with a composure that cost her, “You should have just burned it.”
He looked up at once, startled by her tone. “I tried. But it was all I had of you.”
That simple admission shifted everything. The words were quiet, almost plain, but she heard in them the weight of what he had not burned—the memory, the feeling, the hope that still lived somewhere between them.
The silence that followed was alive and fragile.
She glanced down at the book, the ribbon gleaming against its cover. The word inside—Fidelis—seemed to stir like a heartbeat beneath her hand.
“Then it was not a gift at all,” she said softly, “but a confession.”
Darcy’s reply came low, rough with truth. “It was both.”
She raised her eyes to his. “You must know what this tells me. That your defence of me before others—your care this week—were not mere kindness.”
He did not deny it.
She pressed the ribbon between her fingers. “You still care for me.”
His voice was firm now, stripped of hesitation. “Yes.”
Elizabeth turned slightly away, her breath unsteady. “Then you must also know that I cannot answer you—cannot return this feeling—without understanding what you truly mean by it. You have heard the gossip. You know what has been said of my family.”
“I know,” he said quietly.
“And still, you offer this?”
“Wholeheartedly.”
She turned back toward him, her voice trembling despite herself. “Do you not see? Even if your own heart does not care, your family will. The world will not forget my sister’s disgrace. To link yourself with us would be to court ridicule—to lose what you have earned by honour.”
“I thought once as you do,” he said, stepping closer. “I thought pride a safeguard. It was only a wall against what I feared to feel. That wall has already fallen, Miss Bennet. I do not pretend it can be rebuilt.”
She shook her head. “You speak as if the world will forgive you for it.”
“I no longer ask its forgiveness.”
Silence. The fire gave a soft sigh, a coal collapsing into ash.
Elizabeth looked down at the little book again, at the ribbon gleaming faintly in the firelight. When she spoke, her voice was almost a whisper. “You cannot know what it is to be loved so dearly, and to fear being someone’s undoing.”
“I do know,” he said. “For I have lived it since the day you refused me.”
Her hand tightened on the book. “Then you know why I must hesitate. I love you well enough to fear for you.”
He went utterly still.
The word hung between them. For a heartbeat, she did not even realise what she had said, then the silence told her.
“You—” He stopped, the single syllable breaking as though it had no right to exist. “You love me?”
Colour flooded her cheeks. “I—”
He took a single step nearer. “Do not recall it. Not now.”
“I did not mean—”
“Yes, you did.” His voice was unsteady, but there was no mistaking the joy beneath it. “You meant it, or I should not still be standing.”
She looked away, desperate for composure. “You make it sound irrevocable.”
“It is. For me, it always has been.”
The fire cracked softly, throwing a tremor of light between them.
She forced herself to meet his gaze. “You must not think me certain of anything. I have not been certain since the moment I began to forgive you.”
“That is enough. Forgiveness was always the hardest thing to win.”
Her fingers brushed the ribbon again, tracing its edge. “Then perhaps it is I who must learn constancy.”
He smiled—barely, but it reached his eyes at last. “You have already taught it. And Heaven help me, I shall never forget the lesson.”
For a moment, they simply stood there, the fire snapping softly between them. She thought he might step back, that the civility they both clung to would settle over them again like a closing door. Instead, he stayed where he was.
Something shifted—quietly, dangerously.
He looked at her as though every word she had spoken had rewritten the world. There was wonder in it, and the faintest disbelief, as if he feared to trust his own hearing.
Elizabeth felt the weight of that gaze and turned half away, suddenly unsure of what she had promised or denied. The silence grew taut with everything unsaid until it broke at last—
“You love me,” he said again, as if testing the shape of it.
She tried for levity and failed. “You are very sure of that for a man who has only just heard it.”
He gave a faint, incredulous laugh. “You cannot imagine how long I have been listening for it.”
Something in her chest loosened—terror and delight colliding. “Then you must also know that I meant what followed. I do fear for you.”
He shook his head, a kind of frantic plea overtaking caution.
“I have thought of little else, Elizabeth. Of your family, of the talk that will follow, of every argument reason can raise. I have thought until I could think no more, and still the conclusion is the same: I would rather face the world’s derision than live in it without you. ”
Her heart turned over. “You have truly weighed it all? My sister’s disgrace, the whispers—everything?”
“I have,” he said. “And I find the sum wanting. It cannot outweigh what I feel.”
Something in her broke then—not the restraint of propriety, but the fear that had kept her silent. She closed the book carefully, as though sealing a covenant, and when she looked up again, her eyes were bright with unshed tears and laughter together. “You are very foolish,” she whispered.
“Entirely.”
“But I… I cannot afford to be so.”
He blinked. His shoulders fell slightly, but he nodded. “Very well. Then I shall leave you time to think, before either of us says something that cannot be recalled.”He began to draw back.
“Wait.”
He stopped at once.
Elizabeth’s hands tightened around the little book she still held. “You say you have weighed everything—but your sister was always your dearest concern. I do not imagine that she will not be wounded. Can you be so certain?”
“Certain enough to bear it twice over.”
He looked past her for a moment, the firelight catching on the sharp line of his jaw.
“Georgiana’s peace has been hard-won,” he said slowly.
“And I do not deceive myself that my choice will please her—at first, perhaps not at all. She no longer lives with me. She is under Lady Matlock’s protection—better, we both say, to prepare for her come-out, but I am not deceived, and nor does she believe me so.
When I write, she answers with politeness, never warmth.
I have given her every comfort but cannot give her ease.
Avoiding my own happiness will not restore hers. ”
“What will?”
He drew a steadying breath and went on, quieter now.
“I would have her learn that affection can survive disappointment; that love does not ruin, it mends. A sister might teach her that better than I. Especially if… no, only if that sister is you. But even if she cannot be won—her affection is not the price of my life to barter.”
His gaze came back to Elizabeth. “As for the rest—my cousins may object, my aunts may lecture, and society may whisper until it grows hoarse. They can all go hang. I want you by my side.”
Something in her heart bled through, not in fear but in recognition.
He had truly considered it all—the cost, the censure, the years ahead—and had already made his peace with them.
The knowledge swept through her like warmth after cold, dissolving every doubt she had clung to.
For the first time, she saw him wholly: not proud, not pitying, but resolved and unafraid, a man whose constancy could steady even her restless heart.
He was watching her, but she was frozen still. He studied her face, then his own fell to the floor. His feet stirred—he meant to retreat, to permit her to think.
Her hands opened, letting the book fall softly onto the table between them. She reached for him instead. “Do not go.”
His head came up. He did not move closer, but she did—closing the distance as if it had no right to exist. Her hand slid up, fingertips brushing his jaw, and he stilled. Then she rose to meet him.
The kiss was not shy, nor borrowed from fancy. It was fierce, sure, alive—the joining of two people who had denied themselves too long. She kissed him as though she had known him all her life and might never have another chance, as though breathing and loving him had become the same act.
He caught her against him, not to command but to answer. His hands framed her face, her shoulders, the curve of her back, relearning what reverence felt like when it was allowed to touch. The world beyond the small room—snow, scandal, propriety—ceased to matter.
When they parted at last, neither spoke. They only looked at one another, astonished and certain all at once, as if both had finally come home.
He touched his forehead lightly to hers. “Does this mean I am permitted hope?”
She smiled against his chin. “It means you are permitted Christmas.”
He laughed quietly. “That is more than I expected.”
She whispered the single word he had written within—Fidelis—as if testing how it might sound when spoken aloud to him.