CHAPTER 39 #3
They contained no flourish, no sentiment spoken for effect. Only decision. She would not have him at a distance. She would not take his name and leave him to stand outside the life she offered. She was not merely accepting his proposal; she was altering the terms by which he had survived.
“Then Portman Square,” he said.
“Our home,” she corrected.
His throat tightened.
“Our home.”
The words felt impossible.
They also felt true.
A silence followed, softer than any that had gone before. Darcy thought he might live in that silence a long while and never exhaust it.
Then Elizabeth, because she was Elizabeth, rescued them both from too much feeling, though not so completely as before.
“You may call tomorrow.”
His eyes lifted.
“May I?”
“You may accompany me to church.”
He looked at her.
“That is a public privilege.”
“A respectable one.”
“And a noticeable one.”
“Very likely. But not yet an announcement. Only a beginning.”
Only a beginning.
He had not known four words could possess such breadth.
“Then I shall come.”
“Good.”
Her fingers still rested in his.
“You now have a just reason to call on me every day.”
“Had I none before?”
“Not one that could be explained to Mrs. Doddridge without effort.”
“Then I am grateful for the improvement.”
“So am I,” she said.
There was no jest in it.
The evening was lowering. He ought to leave. Every principle of propriety, and several of endurance, said so. Yet the idea of stepping out of that room and returning alone to his chambers seemed briefly absurd, as if the world had forgotten to make provision for the transition.
Elizabeth seemed to know that too.
“You must go,” she said.
“I know.”
“Before Mrs. Doddridge decides that congratulation must be reinforced by seating herself between us.”
“She would be right.”
“She often is.”
Neither moved.
Then Darcy rose, because if he did not, he was in danger of remaining until Monday and explaining himself to Hartwood from the sofa.
Elizabeth stood with him.
The action placed them nearer than strict necessity required. They were alone; yet the door, the servants, the house, the whole great structure of respectability stood nearby. Darcy kept her hand. She did not withdraw it.
He meant only to bow over it.
That had been his intention.
Elizabeth looked at him as if she knew the whole history of intention and considered it unreliable.
He bent and kissed her hand. Then, because they were no longer pretending the hand was the only place where feeling might safely reside, he drew her nearer and kissed her mouth with a tenderness steadier than the first wild disbelief of acceptance.
It was not the first astonishment of permission now.
It was the quieter wonder of being expected.
When he released her, he did not step back at once. Nor did she. Her hand remained in his, and the nearness between them had lost the character of accident.
“You will come tomorrow,” she said softly.
“Yes.”
“Then I shall not be required to be sensible for very long.”
He looked at her.
“Are you sensible now?”
“Not entirely.”
The admission was quiet, and it struck him more powerfully than any jest.
He lifted her hand once more and held it against his lips for a moment longer than strict necessity could defend.
“I shall come tomorrow,” he said.
“Good.”
At the door, she allowed him one more look before Mrs. Doddridge’s domain swallowed him into propriety. It was perhaps as well that the companion did not appear; Darcy’s powers of looking innocent had been damaged beyond immediate repair.
Below, his coat was brought. His hat and gloves restored. The servant opened the door upon the cool evening, and Portman Square lay before him, orderly, lamp-lit, and entirely changed.
He had crossed it before as a visitor. As adviser. As anxious friend. As a man summoned by business, drawn by hope, restrained by honour, and once driven by fear.
He left it now as the man Elizabeth Bennet meant to marry.
The distinction was so great that he could not at first walk quickly.
By the time he reached his chambers, full evening had settled.
His rooms received him exactly as they always had: the fire laid with professional economy, the papers stacked in their proper place, the chair by the desk turned at the same precise angle, his life arranged in all the careful sufficiency of a man who had taught himself not to expect welcome.
They had not become contemptible because Elizabeth would not live in them. They had, in fact, become dearer for having sheltered him when he had nothing better to ask of the world.
But they were not home.
That was the difference now.
Portman Square had not yet received his books, his clothes, his servant, or his name. Elizabeth had not yet opened whatever rooms she meant to alter for him, though he had very little doubt she would begin before Monday if not physically prevented.
Still, the thing had been spoken.
It will be our home.
Darcy stood just within the door, gloves still in hand, and looked about him.
The rooms were respectable. Orderly. Clean. His own by use, if not by affection. They had served him well enough when service was all he had asked from any place.
But for the first time in years, they looked not reduced, but temporary.