Chapter Twenty-Nine
Elizabeth stared down at the sundial in their family garden at Longbourn, easily able to conjure Fitzwilliam’s earnestness as he stood there, asking to court her.
Her gaze sought the shadow the gnomon cast, denoting late afternoon, soon to be evening.
All about her, the December world gleamed orange and gold in the slanting rays of a sun that kissed the horizon.
She should go in and ready for a meal with her family.
Instead, she traced that line of shadow, wishing the sundial could spin backward, reverse time to the moment she hadn’t said yes.
Because that was her answer. She had dwelled and thought and listened to advice both solicited and not, and the truth was, she could hardly recall why she’d been so angry with him.
So mistrustful. He had done nothing unjustified.
He had not set out to mislead her. If anyone deserved anger, Colonel Fitzwilliam did, but he’d been acting under orders and had little choice.
And in truth, none of that mattered. Only the way her heart ached at Fitzwilliam’s absence mattered. The way she woke smiling from dreams that he had returned.
Now she must craft the perfect way to convey her acceptance, woven into a letter to Miss Darcy, and for once, words failed Elizabeth.
What if she had waited too long? Might Fitzwilliam’s ardor have cooled?
If so, did that not make him inconstant after all?
But why would little more than a week of awaiting her reply spoil his affection when nearly a month away in Scotland had not?
Because I rejected him. He asked, and I did not say yes.
She worried at her lower lip. How could writing one letter fret her so? Was she falling prey to the nerves that plagued her mother?
“Elizabeth.”
She raised her gaze from the sundial to a vision of Fitzwilliam striding across the garden, his usual reserve supplanted by hope that glowed brighter than the falling sun.
His austere, dark coat gilded by the sunset, he halted before her.
Golden rays caught the glint of a diamond cravat pin nestled in crisp white fabric and flecked his dark irises with rich amber.
His luminous gaze, resting upon her, suffused Elizabeth with joy.
“You are here,” she said, for the man before her was no vision. No apparition conjured by her longing.
“I am.” He caught up one of her hands and brought it to his lips, the warmth of him sending a thrill of delight through her, bubbling and heady. “It is my hope that you have an answer for me.”
“You seem to anticipate my reply, sir.”
“In truth, I had begun to despair that your silence was your reply.”
The shadow that encroached on his features with that declaration stabbed through her joy, robbing her of the desire to tease.
Elizabeth twined her fingers with his. “I am sorry. I know not why I made such a production of a decision that, now, I know to be forgone. Not since we met on the street in Meryton have you left my thoughts for more than a breath of time. How could I ever decline to be courted by you?”
Fitzwilliam smiled. A true, happy smile that creased the skin about his eyes and eased tension from his frame. The very smile Elizabeth had longed for, rendering him so much more vulnerable than she had ever imagined.
Her heart squeezed, shortening her breath. She would never weary of seeing Fitzwilliam thus. Not for the remainder of her life.
She dropped her gaze, tumult roiling through her at how quickly her heart had gone from, You may court me, to, I will love you until the end of my days.
“Does this mean I may call on you tomorrow?” Fitzwilliam asked softly.
Elizabeth raised her gaze, returning his smile in the fading light. “Yes, please do, but would you not care to remain for dinner tonight?”
“I would not be imposing?”
“Does my mother know you are here?”
“She directed me to find you in the garden.”
“Then she will already have set you a place.”
“Then I would be delighted to dine in Longbourn this evening. Shall we go in?” He un-clasped their fingers, but only to proffer his arm.
Elizabeth turned them the long way, back around to the front of the house, asking, “How is your sister?”
“All has been resolved as amicably as you can imagine, and of more import, she is much recovered from her sorrow. Much more herself.”
“That is wonderful news.”
“Rumor has you to thank.”
“Are you one to believe rumors, Mr. Darcy?”
He halted, turning to her. “I am not, but in this case I suspect the rumor to be true.” His fingers caressed her cheek, strong, yet feather light, a caress from which Elizabeth could easily turn away.
She leaned into the warmth of him. “And while I know I permitted falsehoods to remain between us, I could not have meant it more when I asked you to call me Fitzwilliam.”
“Fitzwilliam,” she breathed. “In truth, that is how I think of you.”
He continued to stroke her cheek, staring down at her with breathtaking intensity. Elizabeth’s heart fluttered with the rapidity of a swirl of butterflies above a flower-filled meadow. She came up on her toes, needing to be closer to him.
Fitzwilliam closed his eyes, his lips moving as he softly counted.
“What are you counting?” To Elizabeth’s surprise, her voice came out a whisper.
“The seconds until I feel able to look at you without doing something that makes this the shortest courtship ever, moving us directly to the point of betrothal.”
She settled her hands against the front of his coat. “Would that be a terrible thing?”
His eyes opened. “You agreed to a courtship, and a courtship you will have.” His palm cupped her face. “We have forever together. There is no need to hurry past moments we will cherish.”
“It occurs to me, however, that we can have a courtship even if we both know, in our hearts, that it will end in an engagement.” And now that Elizabeth had made up her mind, and Fitzwilliam stood before her under a darkening sky, stars winking to life above him, cherished memories or no, she found she was done waiting.
“You present a very cogent argument.” He dipped his head.
“In truth, such a courtship may be the very best type,” Elizabeth murmured, and pressed her lips to his.
If his gaze had warmed her, his mouth was fire. Elizabeth leaned into him. His arms came up, strong and sure about her. His long body seemed molded to hers, as if they had both been formed for this very moment. Created for one another.
“Elizabeth?” Lydia’s voice called.
“Mr. Darcy?” Kitty’s added.
“Are you out here?”
“Mama says it is time to come in for dinner.”
With aching slowness, Fitzwilliam raised his head. His eyes sought hers, warm and questioning.
Elizabeth smiled. “If I am being honest, as we have agreed to be, I have never heard a single good thing said about a long courtship.”
His lips brushed hers again, light and coaxing. “Nor have I.”
Longing for more than that gossamer touch, Elizabeth again came up on her toes.
“Elizabeth?” her sisters’ voices chorused from around the corner of the house.
“She must be out here somewhere,” Lydia said.
“She is probably by the sundial. She always goes there.”
Fitzwilliam dropped his forehead to rest against hers, his breath ragged at the edges. “We are saved from our bad behavior, it seems,” he murmured. He took a step back and proffered his arm.
Elizabeth accepted, hoping the growing darkness hid her blush, though her heart pounded so forcefully, surely her sisters would hear.
“There you are,” Kitty exclaimed as the two came around the corner. “Mama sent us to bring you in. You ought not be alone in the dark with Mr. Darcy.”
Lydia looked Elizabeth up and down. “You do not appear at all rumpled.”
“Rumpled?” Elizabeth exclaimed, the heat in her cheeks increasing. “Do not be absurd. Does Mr. Darcy seem the sort of man to rumple a miss in a garden?”
Lydia turned her all too knowing scrutiny on him. “I would say so, and for your sake, I hope he is.”
Fitzwilliam coughed.
Elizabeth hadn’t feared before that moment that mortification could in fact kill, but so acute was her embarrassment that it made her dizzy. “Lydia!”
Fitzwilliam hugged her arm to him. Elizabeth cast him a quick look to find only amusement on his face. Relief washed through her.
“You are so ill-mannered,” Kitty declared to Lydia. “Mr. Darcy is never going to introduce you to any of his wealthy friends.”
And with that, Elizabeth’s embarrassment redoubled.
“His wealthy friends will introduce themselves to me, because I am fun.” Lydia tossed her curls. “Unlike you.”
“Dinner,” Elizabeth said with enough volume to cut into whatever Kitty meant to retort.
Kitty huffed, but she turned back the way they’d come.
Dinner progressed in a similar manner, with Mrs. Bennet joining her youngest two daughters in badgering Fitzwilliam about when they could meet more of his friends and relations.
Mr. Bennet, predictably, did nothing to curtail their behavior.
The only relief he provided was, for a time, to engage Fitzwilliam in a detailed discussion on the value of Welsh sheep and how better suited their strains were to the English countryside than Scottish rams and ewes.
From her suitor’s bland expression, Elizabeth could not ascertain which of her family members taxed Fitzwilliam more.
Finally, the evening concluded, Elizabeth walked him out to where one of their men had brought around his horse.
Once they were far enough from the house not to be overheard, though in full view of the front parlor’s wide window against which two faces pressed, Elizabeth said, “I am sorry for their behavior. You endured them well.” A trill of worry went through her.
Despite those wonderful stolen moments in the garden, she and Fitzwilliam merely courted.
If her family dismayed him too greatly, he could choose never to ask for her hand.
“They are boisterous, I admit, but they have been nothing but kind, even after they learned of Richard’s lie. And not only kind to me but to Georgiana. My sister had not smiled, nor played a single note except in dreary misery, in over a year. Your sisters, and you, helped her heal.”
“For which I applaud them as well, but surely your gratitude for Miss Darcy’s restoration will dim, and my relations will still behave as they do.”
“I believe I find open, but well meaning, avarice and highly informed discussions on livestock preferable to relations and friends who perpetuate deceit upon an entire community, while drawing unsavory individuals in.”
Elizabeth’s lips crooked. She’d spent so many years worrying over the behavior of her mother and younger sisters that she had not paused to put their actions into such context. “Perhaps you are correct. A bit of ill manners is not so terrible.”
He smiled. “No. Not so terrible.”
“And perhaps still correctable, in my sisters,” Elizabeth said thoughtfully. “Especially were they separated. I should discuss Kitty visiting my aunt and uncle in London.”
“I should like to meet your aunt and uncle there,” Fitzwilliam said. “If she is as kind as Mrs. Phillips and he as practical as Mr. Phillips, I am certain we will get on.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Now you are being too generous, for I know that my Aunt Phillips is very similar to my mother, and that Uncle Phillips’ conversation is quite dry. You will, however, adore Aunt and Uncle Gardiner, I assure you.”
Fitzwilliam kissed her hand. “I am certain I will.”
Not ready for him to leave, Elizabeth did not relinquish his fingers, even though Kitty and Lydia watched. “Are you staying at Netherfield Park? Surely, you do not mean to ride from London and back every day?”
“You do not believe that, for you, I would ride twice as far, twice as often?”
“I do not believe you should have to, and I would not ask it of you.”
He kissed her other hand, for no reason Elizabeth could ascertain, though she had no desire to protest, then offered, “I am certain Patrick, my valet, has secured me a room at the inn.”
It pleased her that Fitzwilliam was a gentleman who would refer to his valet by name.
“And if the inn is full, I will impose on Bingley.”
“It is good of you to make that your second option.” Especially as, though Elizabeth doubted Fitzwilliam knew as much, Jane and Mr. Bingley definitely required their privacy.
First, because their union had begun on rocky footing, and more recently because of Mary and Mr. Collins insisting they be put up.
Fortunately, it had taken Mr. Bingley only a few days to find them accommodations outside of the manor house…
living and working with Farmer Grason. As his wife had passed on years ago and his children had all elected to move away, he had the space and required the assistance.
Her thoughts on Jane and Mr. Bingley’s argument, Elizabeth asked, “You do not have any dark, hidden secrets in your past that I should know of before we marry, do you?”
“You mean aside from those you already know?”
She smiled slightly. “I suppose I do.”
“If I do, they are so dark and so deeply hidden that I do not know them myself.”
“I imagine I will be content with that.”
This time, he brought both of her hands to his lips. “Thank you.”
“Elizabeth,” Lydia called, singsong, from the front stoop. “Mama says it is time to come in.”
“Good night, Mr. Darcy,” Kitty added.
With another smile and a final caress, Fitzwilliam released her hands. Elizabeth stepped back as he mounted, then turned his horse down the drive. A happy sigh leaving her, she watched him ride away. Soft warmth unfurled inside her.
Her sisters came out, halting on her left and right.
“You know, at first I thought even one Mr. Darcy was one Darcy too many,” Lydia said. “Then he said so many rotten things about everyone, and I decided he was fun.”
“I agree,” Kitty replied, to Elizabeth’s surprise. Kitty and Lydia never agreed. “And then we got another Mr. Darcy, and he did not say entertaining things. He was far too serious and boring.”
Lydia nodded. “We decided we did not like him as well as the first one, but that was before he decided he likes you.”
“And now?” Elizabeth asked, her gaze on the end of the drive, where Fitzwilliam had waved once more before turning onto the lane and disappearing into the darkness of the roadway.
“Now I like this Mr. Darcy,” Lydia said. “He is not so stiff or brooding as he seemed, and he lets us write to Georgiana.”
“And he undoubtedly has some very wealthy friends.”
“Yes, and he is not going to marry Miss Bingley.”
Kitty nodded. “Even wealthy friends cannot be worth enduring her.”
“We think you picked the right Mr. Darcy,” Lydia concluded.
Elizabeth chuckled. “Thank you. I am happy you think so.”