Darcy
Iwas blown away by how stunning Lizzy looked in her old-fashioned dress.
I’d organized for it to be made, so I knew the shape and the color, but I wasn’t prepared for how that green brought out the flecks in her brown eyes, how the silk skimmed over her curves and showed off her sun-warmed skin.
Her curls were half up and bouncing around her radiant but puzzled face.
My heart was pounding in my ears. I was nervous but excited to say what I wanted to say in front of her friends.
Here went everything.
“Lizzy, when I first saw you, right here in this room, I was a weak shell of a man. All grumpy, grouchy, negative energy and hating everyone and everything.”
“Got that right,” Lizzy’s mother said, not even trying to speak quietly.
Thinking of that version of myself made me prickle and squirm, ashamed.
But there was also this ache of compassion for the man I once was, who’d felt so alone.
Grief and humiliation had done that to me.
Hollowed me out, leaving only irritation and arrogance on the surface and, beneath, a seething anger that never slept. Then came Lizzy.
“But even amid my pathetic, reduced state,” I went on, “I could recognize that I had met someone truly special. By the next morning, during our—my—cooking debacle, I knew I was already falling in love with you. But I was too hopeless to acknowledge that. It was all there—the racing heart, the butterflies in my stomach, the way I said idiotic things when I was around you.”
Her bottom lip dropped open, and her eyes went glassy with unshed tears and emotion. Darcy, she mouthed, and that made me even braver about finding the words for what I loved about her in front of so many people, what was in my heart.
“I already saw how unassuming you were, how easily you moved through the world, smiling and laughing and having fun. Optimistic. You loved your black coffee in the morning, walking Oodles through the forest, your family and friends, your readers. That day, I became one of your devoted readers, but that wasn’t enough for me.
I wanted more, Lizzy. I wanted desperately to be the person you chose to walk dogs through the forest with.
I knew I didn’t necessarily deserve more of you, but as you know from the cooking debacle, I don’t back down, even if I think the odds are against me.
Even if I don’t have the requisite skills.
I must have taken a leaf out of your books and from you, because I was hoping. ”
Lizzy bit her lip and took my hand.
“I made loads of mistakes that weekend—”
Lizzy’s mother cleared her throat loudly. Yep, she wasn’t going to let me off that easily.
“Okay, I made some major stuff-ups. But when I came to my senses, I knew I couldn’t let you go. And somehow you must have liked something about me and thought you would take a chance. Or maybe it was simply that we are both such keen bird-watchers.”
She laughed, and the rest of the group laughed too.
I got a real kick out of the fact that our interaction by the lake at Pemberley was now legendary among friends and family.
And readers too, as Lizzy had recreated many of our interactions in her latest novel, with my blessing and with huge success on publication.
We’d spent most of our evenings on the couch in our cottage, her reading out passages to me.
Me either howling with laughter or cringing at past-me and his pompous idiocy.
But more often, me putting down my coffee or glass of wine on the coffee table, taking hers from her and setting it down too.
Then dancing her back into our bedroom, my heart loosened, aching and warm with tenderness, or fired with need and hunger for her all over again.
“I want to be the one you share coffee with every morning, I want to be the one you fall on, the one you walk with, and the one you lean on. I love being able to lean on you. For the last six months, with you by my side, hearing about your day, I’ve felt my responsibilities did not fade exactly, but it was as if I could handle them and have some sort of life too.
Some things became a joy, because you were by my side. ”
She put her hand over her heart at my words, and heat flooded her face.
I lowered myself to one knee.
Her breath left her in one sharp, startled rush.
My pulse fired up, suddenly more nervous than I’d been in my life. “Lizzy, I love you so much, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you be my wife?”
She didn’t answer, but she clasped my hands together with hers, and tears filled my eyes.
“Oodles?” I said. “Come.”
Knightley released Oodles as we’d planned, and Lizzy’s pup padded up to me as I’d trained him to do. I checked around Oodles’s neck. Yep, still there. Hanging from his collar was the tiny satin bag I’d secured while Lizzy was upstairs.
Oodles was doing brilliantly, and Lizzy was beaming with pride, now looking pretty sure of his role in this evening.
Max was lingering behind Oodles, wanting to get in on the action too.
Then Oodles’s ears went up. He halted.
A rustle sounded from through the open kitchen door.