No Walls Between
Elizabeth found Darcy alone in the library.
He stood by the window with a book unopened in his hand.
“Do I interrupt something?” she asked.
“Only my thoughts.”
Elizabeth closed the door. “Those are generally improved by interruption.”
His mouth shifted. She knew that movement now. At Redbourn, she had known only his voice; since October she had learnt the expressions that belonged to it.
She crossed the room. He held out his hand.
She took it.
“I remembered something this morning,” she said.
“That sounds ominous.”
“Something you said through the wall.”
His fingers stilled upon hers.
“You said a great many things.”
“Most of them instructions you disregarded.”
“I disregarded only the unreasonable ones.”
“You were remarkably liberal in your judgement of that distinction.”
Elizabeth smiled. “You told me to escape and leave you.”
His expression sobered. “Yes.”
“I never told you that I turned back.”
Darcy stared at her.
“When I reached the wood, I heard you shout,” she said. “I had my chance. Wickham was behind me, but I might have kept running.”
“You should have.”
“There. Precisely that tone.”
“Elizabeth—”
“You had put yourself into their hands for a woman you had never met, and yet you expected her to leave you to them.”
“Your escape was the purpose of my being there.”
Elizabeth held his gaze and stepped closer. “There is something I must understand.”
“What?”
“When I spoke of what my absence might do to my name, you said that if any consequence attached to it because you were there, you would answer it.”
His eyes changed. “You remember.”
“Every word.”
He looked away.
“What did you mean?” she asked.
“I think you know.”
“I want you to say it.”
His gaze returned to hers. “Why?”
“Because there is no wall now.”
Darcy drew a slow breath. “If your reputation had suffered because we were held together, I intended to offer marriage.”
Elizabeth stared at him. “Without having seen me.”
“Yes.”
“Without knowing whether I was handsome?”
“Yes.”
“Agreeable?”
He hesitated. “I had evidence against that.”
She laughed. “Mr Darcy.”
His mouth curved.
“I would have refused you.”
“I know.”
Her brows rose. “You know?”
“You had already forbidden me to pity you. An offer made from obligation would hardly have improved matters.”
“No. I should have found it intolerable.”
“I suspected as much.”
Elizabeth looked down at their joined hands. “Kerr believed everything was a debt. Blood owed blood. My father owed suffering because someone before him had suffered.”
Darcy’s fingers tightened around hers.
“Wickham understood only price. Georgiana had one. I had one. You had one, if he could discover it.”
“They were wrong.”
“Entirely.”
She looked up. “You cannot purchase what is freely given.”
Darcy said nothing.
“You came for me because you chose to come.”
“Yes.”
“I turned back because I chose to turn back.”
A faint look of protest crossed his face, but he remained silent.
“And I shall marry you because I choose you.”
Something in his face yielded. “Elizabeth.”
“My Christian name, sir?”
“Yes. You have forfeited the right to object.”
Elizabeth smiled at him. “Mr Darcy, that was almost gallant.”
“Almost?”
She rose upon her toes and kissed him. “Do not become ambitious.”
His surprise lasted only a moment. His arms came around her waist.
“There is one advantage to having heard you before I ever saw you.”
“Which is?” he asked.
“I never had to wonder whether you possessed courage.”
His mouth curved. “And I never had to wonder whether you possessed opinions.”
“That,” she said, “sounds like the voice I first heard.”
Darcy lowered his head. “There is no wall now.”
“No,” Elizabeth said, and met his lips halfway. “There is not.”