CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The decision to journey to Newcastle threw Pemberley into a flurry of purposeful activity.
The following two days were consumed by preparations.
Darcy, with his characteristic efficiency, immersed himself in the logistical complexities: arranging for inns and planned horse changes, dispatching urgent missives to his bankers in London to ensure funds would be available for whatever might be required, and conferring at length with Colonel Fitzwilliam regarding the potential dangers on the road and the necessary precautions they would need to take.
Elizabeth, for her part, found herself working closely with Mrs Reynolds as they made arrangements for Georgiana’s continued care.
She also saw to the provisioning and packing for their journey.
Attire was kept simple; they had decided that neither Darcy’s valet nor her own maid, Sarah, would accompany them.
They could not, in good conscience, ask their household to share in the perils of a city overcome by despair and sickness.
The preparations had kept Elizabeth and Darcy largely apart, their waking hours consumed by their respective duties.
Yet, this was punctuated by brief, stolen moments: a quick word in a corridor, a hand squeezed in passing, a swift, reassuring kiss before separating after breakfast. These small intimacies were a necessary respite from the current of apprehension that still simmered beneath the surface.
The memory of Buxton was a constant, sobering presence.
On the eve of their departure, after Sarah had meticulously plaited Elizabeth’s hair for the night and helped her into her dressing gown, a soft knock sounded at her bedchamber door. Elizabeth’s heart gave a leap. It was late; it could only be Darcy.
She opened the door to find him standing there, his tall frame silhouetted against the flickering candlelight of their sitting room. He was not in his formal evening attire, but instead wore a simple dressing gown over his half-buttoned night shirt, and his dark hair was carelessly tousled.
Elizabeth found herself quite unable to look away, a strange fascination taking hold.
“Forgive the late hour, but there is something I wished to discuss. Perhaps in the sitting room?” He gestured towards the sitting room that lay between their two bedchambers.
“Of course.”
He led her into the sitting room. It was almost entirely dark, save for a single beeswax candle resting on the small table before the sofa. The embers in the hearth had long since died, and the moon, hidden behind the clouds, offered hardly any illumination.
“I am aware that you are still anxious about our magic and about what we might face in Newcastle. And you are right to be so. The power we wield together is considerable.” He paused, then, with a hesitant smile, he said, “Thus, before we embark upon this venture to the north, I thought we might attempt a small trial. One that, should we succeed, might lend a measure of assurance for the challenges ahead.”
“The candle,” she said, realising.
“The candle. The very task at which we failed so spectacularly, so miserably, so many times before.”
Elizabeth looked at the candle, then back at Darcy. To conquer this small, symbolic challenge, to prove to themselves, and perhaps, even more importantly, to each other, that Buxton was truly behind them, that their newfound understanding was real, potent, and enduring…it felt right. Necessary.
“Yes, I believe we should try.”
He met her eyes, an unspoken promise of reassurance in their depths. Then, summoning a gentle puff of air, he extinguished the candle. The flame vanished, and the room was instantly plunged into near-total darkness.
“I am here, Elizabeth,” he murmured, his voice a calming presence beside her in the enveloping dark, “Let us focus on our shared intent.”
This time, as she reached for her magic, she did so with confidence. She felt his magic, his will, reaching out to her, not as a constraint, not as a demand, but as an invitation. A support. And as one, with a synchronicity that was entirely effortless, they willed the candle back to life.
A tiny spark, then a steady golden flame, blossomed in the darkness, casting a warm glow upon their faces. They looked at each other, their eyes meeting over the flickering light, and shared an intimate smile.
It was such a small thing, this single, conjured flame. Yet, as a symbol, its weight was immeasurable.
As the candle flame held steady between them, Darcy let out a drawn-out breath.
His intense gaze never left hers as he said, “The next stage demands a far greater expenditure. That single flame was a carefully measured offering; I now request an unreserved flow. I ask that you trust me, and release your power without restraint.”
Elizabeth’s breath hitched in her throat. The instinct to recoil, to clamp down, was overwhelming, and for a moment, she wavered. But his gaze steadied her. It was a silent assurance of control that was stronger than her fear.
On her next exhale, she let her power surge, far beyond what was needed for a single flame.
This time, she did not just offer her magic; she poured it forth, a flood of pure vibrant energy, holding nothing back, trusting him with an absoluteness that was both terrifying and liberating.
She felt his magic meet hers in a warm embrace.
And then, all around them, in the shadowy corners of the sitting room, on the ornate mantelpiece, along the surfaces of the heavy furniture, other candles began to bloom.
Dozens of them. Small, bright, golden beacons of light, strategically, almost artfully, placed, their combined radiance chasing away the darkness and filling the room with an almost ethereal glow.
Elizabeth gasped softly. It was beautiful. Magical. A radiant, incandescent tribute to the unimaginable beauty of their combined powers.
Darcy was staring at her, his handsome face illuminated by the candles, his eyes shining with an emotion so tender, it made her own heart tighten with a staggering sense of wonder.
Then he was kissing her, or perhaps she was kissing him – the distinction blurred in the breathtaking rush of emotion. Elizabeth was conscious only of the feeling, the overwhelming sensation of his lips on hers, the world condensing to this single, perfect point.
“Elizabeth…allow me, I must clarify — ” he managed, his voice a strained whisper against her lips, the words almost swallowed by the escalating passion of their kisses.
He drew back fractionally, his eyes searching hers, a hint of something almost like abashment, panic, and perhaps a touch of bewildered desire, in their depths.
“The candles…I wish to assure you that my sole intention in arranging them as such was to test the breadth of our control, to see if we could achieve distinct targets on a larger scale.”
His face was flushed as he added, “I intended no other…purpose…however this must appear…” and here he trailed off, gesturing vaguely, before continuing, “Though,” and now his voice dropped, becoming warm with emotion, “I cannot say I regret where this evening has led.”
She laughed at him, she could not help it. He was so flustered. “Indeed? I must admire your dedication to arcane scholarship.” She closed the small distance between them, her lips brushing his with a sweetness that was both innocent and undeniably beguiling.
“Elizabeth,” he groaned, when she finally allowed him a breath, his voice rougher now, with an almost desperate edge to it, and his hands, which had found their way to her waist, trembled. “We should truly talk about certain matters. I would not wish to presume or to misunderstand — ”
Whatever he meant to say next was lost as she captured his lips with another kiss. A playful light gleamed in her eyes as she said, “You continually surprise me, sir. I had not taken you for a man whose inclinations lay more with words than with action.”
He stiffened for a fraction of a second, then his hands tightened almost convulsively around her. “You cannot know…” he breathed, “The effect you have…what those words…”
Feeling rather curiously emboldened, she placed a finger on his lips, silencing him with a gentle touch. “Why, Fitzwilliam, you seem to have misplaced the end of every thought this evening,” she teased, her eyes filled with laughter.
He caught her wrist, turned her palm, and kissed it, his gaze full of a feeling that went beyond mere admiration. “I find I cannot think at all in your presence,” he said.
“What a shocking admission,” she said, with a smile, “And what other qualities are you prepared to mislay in my company? Pray, tell me what now comprises the formidable Mr Darcy?”
She expected a dry retort, perhaps a comment about what little of his sanity she had left him, but the amusement she had anticipated never came. Instead, a look of quiet introspection settled in his eyes.
“In everything I have come to question about myself, there has been one constant,” Darcy admitted. He drew a ragged breath, his gaze never leaving hers, before he said, “My affections and wishes are unchanged, save in one regard. They have only intensified the more I have come to understand you.”
His words were so sincere it seemed to demand an equally unvarnished truth from her.
She met his intense gaze, her own heart pounding with the weight of what she had to say.
“I will not offer you a lie, no matter how much I might wish to give you the answer you deserve.” She saw a flash of pain in his eyes and pressed on quickly.
“The sentiments I now hold for you deepen with each passing day. I ask only for your patience as they find their name.”
Love.
The word hovered just beyond her reach, a word she was not yet brave enough, not yet certain enough to say.
A low, rueful chuckle escaped him before he disengaged entirely, his hold on her first loosening, then releasing as he took a half-step backward. “You have a gift, madam, for administering the most bracing truths at the most precarious moments.”
But the look he gave her was so full of fondness that his words held no bite at all.
Drawing courage from that look, and from the magic of the candles, Elizabeth dared to reach for him, the feeling of abandon a precarious, thrilling thing.
She took his hand, her fingers lacing with his.
His breath caught in his throat. In that instant, she knew she possessed the whole of his attention, and she marvelled at the strange power of it.
“And are you now to be deterred, sir, because I have offered you an honest beginning instead of a perfect conclusion?” she said.
His gaze fell to their hands, then jerked back to her face as if startled, his pupils wide and dark. “Deterred?” he repeated, the word a husk of its usual certainty.
In answer, she gave him a deliberate smile before dropping her eyes to his mouth for the space of a held breath.
Her own lips parted slightly. And she watched, with a flutter in her own chest, as something shifted in his expression.
The muscles in his throat worked as he swallowed, an involuntary movement in the bare line of his neck. He was transfixed.
“Elizabeth,” he rasped, “Perhaps we should not — ”
She saw the smouldering battle in his eyes, the innate honour, the fear of misstepping, of presuming too much, fighting with an undeniable desire. His gaze left her face and then traveled down the line of her neck to where her dressing gown had slipped at her collarbone.
A sobering awareness of her own forwardness abruptly doused her like a bucket of ice water.
What had been a thrilling game a moment before was now a jarring reality, and it was overwhelming.
A small gasp escaped her, a sound of both terror and thrill, a check on an impulse that had carried her far beyond the bounds of her own experience and her engrained sense of decorum.
What had possessed her, she did not not know.
She had been swept by it into a place she did not recognise.
A slow heat suffused her face, the deepening colour rising to her cheeks.
He seemed to feel her sudden hesitation as if it were his own. His fingers pulled away as he exhaled a shaky breath. When he looked at her again, the heated intensity in his gaze had given way to a look of almost abashed apology.
“I had always hoped that when this moment came, it would be with no reservations between us,” he confessed unsteadily.
His withdrawal was a comfort and a pang. Her heart ached for the lost moment, even as she felt a wave of relief. “My feelings may not be complete, but they are true,” she said, the words a tentative offering.
“You have given me a gift with your sincerity,” he said quickly, reassuringly, “Pray do not for a moment believe it is anything less.” He paused, his expression becoming solemn.
“I will not dishonour such candour by pressing for more than you are ready to give. To do so would be to prove myself unworthy of the very feelings I hope to earn. We need go no further tonight.”
A rush of affection, fierce and tender, surged through her. “Must your every action be honourable?” she ribbed him gently, “It is a most disarming habit. And to part now seems a rather unceremonious end. Surely we can mark the occasion more properly than that?”
A smile, different from the one before — this one holding both daring and promise — played across his lips.
“My resolve,” he said, “is not nearly so strong as you believe. Perhaps you might permit me to mark this moment as it deserves.”
The world seemed to fade into an indistinct blur, leaving only the space between them, a distance she made no move to preserve as her breath caught in anticipation.
His lips traced a path from her temple to her cheek, and finally to the corner of her mouth, each touch unhurried.
A quiet sound of contentment escaped her.
His arms went around her again, pulling her flush against him, and his next kiss was deeper. Elizabeth melted against him, her own arms wrapping around his neck, her fingers threading through the soft hair at his nape.
The candle flames around them seemed to flare in response, their light bathing them in a warm glow. For a timeless moment, there was nothing but the sweetness of his lips, the strength of his arms, the steady beat of his heart against hers, and the magic they had ignited together.
Then, with an effort that seemed to require every bit of his self-command, he bid her a tender good night.