Chapter 23
Darcy stood at the window of Netherfield's study, watching the sky threaten yet more frost whilst Bingley consulted with his steward about some matter concerning the tenant farms. The legal documents requiring his attention after his journey into Kent lay scattered across the desk behind him, but his thoughts had wandered far from matters of law and entailment.
He had just turned back to his correspondence when movement at the edge of the distant fields caught his eye.
A horse was galloping hard across the frozen ground, its rider bent low over the animal's neck in a manner that spoke of either desperate urgency or reckless disregard for the treacherous conditions.
Darcy frowned and moved closer to the glass, for the pace seemed wildly imprudent, and as the figure drew nearer, his frown deepened into bewilderment.
The rider was a woman, mounted astride with her skirts bunched about her knees in a display of impropriety that would have sent his aunt Catherine into an apoplexy.
Dark hair streamed behind her like a banner, having escaped whatever arrangement had once contained it, and even from this distance he could see that her habit was speckled with muddy snow nearly to the waist.
As horse and rider thundered up the drive, scattering gravel in their wake, Darcy's bewilderment transformed into alarm, for he knew that horse and he knew that figure, and no amount of mud or dishevelment could disguise the woman he had loved in secret for better than a year.
He kicked his chair back with such force that it toppled to the carpet, and then he was striding through the house, past startled servants and through the entrance hall, emerging onto the front steps just as Elizabeth Bennet brought her lathered mount to a halt.
She was attempting to dismount, her movements stiff and ungainly from what must have been a punishing ride across frozen fields.
Her face was flushed crimson from cold, her lips had taken on an alarming bluish tinge, and when she turned to look at him, her teeth were chattering so violently she could barely keep her jaw still.
“Miss Elizabeth.” He descended the steps in three long strides, reaching her just as her boots touched the gravel.
“Last time you trudged to Netherfield through the mud and arrived with your petticoats six inches deep in filth, and this time you ride astride in icy conditions and arrive half frozen.” He heard the scandalised note in his own voice and found he could not suppress it, though whether it stemmed from genuine disapproval or merely from the shock of seeing her here when he had resigned himself to never speaking with her again, he could not have said.
“I find myself wondering what manner of dramatic arrival you are reserving for your next visit to this house.”
She opened her mouth to reply, but her teeth chattered so fiercely that whatever words she intended emerged as nothing more than stuttered fragments.
Her whole body was trembling with a violence that spoke of more than cold alone, and there was something wild in her eyes, something urgent that cut through his astonishment and spoke directly to the part of him that had loved her longer than he cared to admit.
He unfastened his cloak and swept it around her shoulders without thinking, pulling the heavy wool close about her shivering frame whilst she clutched at the fabric with fingers gone white at the knuckles.
Her gloves were soaked through with mud and melted frost, and he suspected her boots were in similar condition.
“Come inside at once.” He took her arm and guided her up the steps, then called to the housekeeper who had appeared in the doorway. “Mrs Henderson, hot cider if you please, and quickly. And please, have a stableboy tend to the horse as well. Some warm hay, if you please.”
The drawing room fire had been built high against the chill, and Darcy led Elizabeth to the chair nearest the hearth, settling her into it with considerable care. Bingley appeared in the doorway a moment later, summoned by the commotion, and stopped short at the sight before him.
“Good Lord. Miss Elizabeth? What on earth has happened?”
“Cider first,” Darcy said shortly. “Questions after she has thawed sufficiently to answer them.”
The housekeeper returned with a steaming cup which Darcy pressed into Elizabeth's trembling hands, steadying them with his own until he was certain she could hold the vessel without mishap.
He watched her take a long swallow, watched the colour begin to return to her lips and the violent trembling ease by degrees into something merely pronounced.
“Mrs Henderson,” he said quietly, once he was satisfied Elizabeth was in no immediate danger of succumbing to the cold, “I wonder if you might remain with us. For propriety.”
The housekeeper nodded and took up an unobtrusive position near the door, her face carefully neutral despite what must surely be considerable curiosity about the circumstances that had brought Miss Elizabeth Bennet to Netherfield looking like a creature escaped from some Gothic romance.
The minutes stretched on in silence broken only by the crackle of the fire and the occasional clink of cup against saucer.
Bingley had taken a seat across the room, his expression hovering between concern and bemusement, whilst Darcy remained standing near the hearth with his gaze fixed upon Elizabeth's face, waiting.
At last, her teeth ceased their chattering, and her hands grew steady enough to set down the cup without rattling it against the table. She drew a long breath, reached into the pocket of her mud-stained habit, and withdrew the folded packet, creased and worn at the edges.
“I received your letter,” she said, and though her voice was hoarse, it held a quality that made Darcy's breath catch.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your letter.” She held it up, and he recognised his own handwriting on the direction, the bold strokes he had laboured over for hours whilst trying to find words that might convince her to meet him. “The one you sent asking me to come to you at the pond.”
Inside him, confusion warred with something that felt dangerously close to hope. “But you did not come. I waited until well past midnight, and you never appeared.”
“Because I never received it.” Elizabeth's eyes met his, and he saw tears gathering there, bright in the firelight.
“The imposter intercepted it before it could reach me, and he kept it hidden until he placed it in my hands, two days since, just before departing Longbourn forever. It has taken me two days to find the courage, Mr Darcy, because I could not bear another moment of you believing I had rejected you once more.”
The room seemed to shift beneath Darcy's feet as he absorbed her words.
All those hours in the freezing darkness, stamping his feet to keep warm and straining his eyes for any glimpse of her figure on the path.
All those days afterward at Pemberley, nursing wounded pride and shattered hopes, certain she had read his confession and found it beneath notice.
And all the while she had been unaware of any letter, whilst he stood alone in the cold.
“Is this why you rode all the way here in such conditions?” His voice emerged quieter than intended, rough with emotions he could not contain. “To tell me you received the letter?”
Elizabeth held his gaze without flinching. “I did not want you to think I did not care for you, Mr Darcy.” She paused, and when she continued, her voice had steadied into something fierce and certain. “Because I care very much indeed.”
From the corner of his eye, Darcy caught Bingley's grin spreading across his face, but he could not spare his friend any attention.
“Do you?”
“Yes.” Elizabeth set down her cup and rose from her chair, crossing the distance between them until she stood close enough that he could see firelight dancing in her dark eyes.
“Not because you helped unmask Mr McLeod, though I am grateful for that service to my family. Not because you have proved yourself a man of honour, though you have done so many times over. But because beneath all that reserve, you possess the kindest heart of any man I have ever known, and I have come to understand that when you care for someone, you will labour for their happiness without ever seeking recognition.”
She met his eyes and did not look away.
“I know that whatever trials may come, I can place my trust in you without fear of disappointment. I know you will stand beside me through every difficulty, and I know your constancy, once given, will never waver.” Her voice softened.
“If I had received your letter when you sent it, I would have come to that pond without hesitation, and I would have told you then what I am telling you now.”
Darcy found that every speech he had rehearsed during those bleak weeks at Pemberley had fled his mind entirely, leaving nothing but the overwhelming truth of what he felt for this woman who had ridden through mud and ice simply to tell him she cared.
“Elizabeth.” Her Christian name fell from his lips unbidden, and he saw her eyes widen at the intimacy.
“I have loved you since I scarcely know when. Since that morning you walked three miles through mud to tend your sister, perhaps, or since the Meryton assembly when you laughed with Miss Lucas and I found I could not look away. I have tried to fight it and reason myself out of it, tried to convince myself that the obstacles between us were insurmountable, and I have failed utterly at every turn.”
He reached out and took her hand, heedless of the mud still clinging to her glove.
“I love you,” he said, for in the end the simplest words were the truest. “I have loved you longer than I knew it was possible to love anyone, and if you will have me, I will spend my remaining days proving myself worthy of such a gift.”
Elizabeth's fingers tightened around his. “Then I shall have you, Mr Darcy. Most gladly and with my whole heart.”