CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE #2
She lifted her chin in response, and he met her with an ardent kiss.
How glorious she felt in his arms! How sweet her lips!
Passion surged through him, the experience heady and novel, as if they kissed for the first time.
It was the first time, he reasoned. In the light of day, without masks, and as their true selves.
The knowledge that she was to be his, that she returned his affections, lent the kiss significance beyond compare.
He wanted to pour the profoundness of his love into the embrace but would not smother her with the force of his feelings.
Indeed, only a lifetime of kisses could demonstrate his devotion.
Taking her mouth, he claimed her for his own.
Their kiss deepened, and it seemed, as she pressed her lips eagerly to his, that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.
Desire flared between them. He felt the heat in his groin and down his legs.
Before they were tempted to do more than kiss, they parted for air. He folded her into his arms.
“Dear Lizzy, how happy you have made me!”
“And I had thought for certain you were lost to me,” she said.
He pulled back to look at her. “How could you think that? My love for you has only grown since you spurned me.”
She hesitated before answering, “Lady Catherine—your aunt—came to see me, to voice her objections over our potential union. I thought it more than probable that, once she had spoken to you, what attachment you might have had for me would defer to the wisdom of her arguments.”
“Then you had both underestimated my love for you.
Catherine did call upon me in London, and related to me her journey to Longbourn and the substance of her conversation with you.
It was clear she wished to obtain the promise from me which you had refused to give.
But the effect of her efforts were quite contrary to her wishes.
It taught me to hope as I had scarcely allowed myself to hope before.
I knew enough of your disposition to be certain that, had you been absolutely, irrevocably decided against me, you would have acknowledged it to Lady Catherine, frankly and openly. "
She coloured and laughed as she replied, "Yes, you know enough of my frankness to believe me capable of that. After abusing you so abominably to your face, I could have no scruple in abusing you to all your relations."
"What did you say of me, that I did not deserve? For, though your accusations were ill-founded, formed on mistaken premises, my behaviour to you at the time had merited the severest reproof. It was unpardonable. I cannot think of it without abhorrence."
"We will not quarrel for the greater share of blame annexed to that evening. The conduct of neither, if strictly examined, will be irreproachable, but since then, we have both, I hope, improved in civility."
"I cannot be so easily reconciled to myself.
The recollection of what I then said, of my conduct, my manners, my expressions during the whole of it, is now, and has been many months, inexpressibly painful to me.
Your reproof, so well applied, I shall never forget: 'had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.
' Those were your words. You know not, you can scarcely conceive, how they have tortured me;—though it was some time, I confess, before I was reasonable enough to allow their justice. "
"I was certainly very far from expecting them to make so strong an impression. I had not the smallest idea of their being ever felt in such a way."
"I can easily believe it. You thought me then devoid of every proper feeling, I am sure you did. The turn of your countenance I shall never forget, as you said that I could not have addressed you in any possible way that would induce you to accept me."
"Oh! do not repeat what I then said. These recollections will not do at all. I assure you that I have long been most heartily ashamed of it."
“My letter to you following—did it soon make you think better of me? Did you, on reading it, give any credit to its contents?"
She explained what its effect on her had been, and how gradually all her former prejudices had been removed.
"I knew," said he, "that what I wrote must give you pain, but it was necessary. I hope you have destroyed the letter. There was one part especially, the opening of it, which I should dread your having the power of reading again. I can remember some expressions which might justly make you hate me."
"The letter shall certainly be burnt, if you believe it essential to the preservation of my regard; but, though we have both reason to think my opinions not entirely unalterable, they are not, I hope, quite so easily changed as that implies."
"When I wrote that letter, I believed myself perfectly calm and cool, but I am since convinced that it was written in a dreadful bitterness of spirit."
"The letter, perhaps, began in bitterness, but it did not end so.
The adieu is charity itself. But think no more of the letter.
The feelings of the person who wrote, and the person who received it, are now so widely different from what they were then, that every unpleasant circumstance attending it ought to be forgotten.
You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure. "