17. Chapter Seventeen #2
A dangerous answer. Too vague.
Elizabeth devoted herself to the view and pretended deep appreciation of a hedgerow.
“I have always liked the road here,” he continued after a pause. “In autumn the beeches color first along that slope.”
“How considerate of them.”
“Very. I shall be certain to commend them when the season comes.”
She laughed softly before she could prevent it.
He had a pleased expression, and it thrilled her.
The gig rolled onward. Gravel gave way to a smoother earth road, shaded now by trees that arched overhead. Birds moved in the branches above them. Somewhere out of sight, water ran over stone. Elizabeth allowed herself the smallest glance in his direction.
His profile was severe and beautiful.
That was the word. Beautiful. It seemed improper applied to a man, and yet no other word would do.
There was strength in his features, certainly, and reserve, and intelligence.
But also beauty in the line of his brow, the shape of his mouth when he was not guarding it, the way sunlight caught in the dark of his eyes whenever he faced her.
His legs, braced lightly as the gig moved over uneven ground, were as well formed as any she had ever seen. More than well formed. Excellent.
Elizabeth forced her attention back to the road.
Good heavens.
The mare slowed. Elizabeth did not notice at first. Then the wheels ceased their soft turning altogether.
Mr. Darcy had fallen silent. Her attention drifted from the reins to his face.
He was no longer watching the road. The full force of his attention rested upon her, and with it came the terrible likelihood that he had seen where her thoughts had wandered.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps he merely knew enough of desire to recognize it in another.
The air beneath the trees felt suddenly too close.
“Elizabeth.” Her name from his mouth was nearly her undoing.
She could not answer.
His fingers closed more firmly around the reins. The mare stood patient and mild before them, flicking one ear toward the leaves.
Darcy leaned nearer… an inch. Then another.
Elizabeth did not draw back. Every rule ever taught to her clamored in protest, but they did so at some distance, like voices from another room.
He stopped before his mouth touched hers, so near she could feel his breath stir against her cheek.
His voice came roughened, scarcely above a whisper. “Elizabeth, have I any hope?”
The question brought with it such force that for a moment she could not speak.
His expression searched hers, uncertain, undemanding, and afraid. That undid the last of her resistance.
“Yes,” she whispered.
He let her words wash over him; the word relieved some great burden within him.
Elizabeth, who had been sensible often enough to resent it, moved first. She bridged the small distance between them and pressed her mouth to his. The world narrowed to the warm shock of contact.
Darcy went still for the space of one heartbeat, perhaps two.
Then his hand came up to cup her face with a tenderness that made her tremble.
He gathered the reins into his other hand and turned fully toward her, careful even in urgency.
That arm slid around her waist, drawing her nearer on the narrow seat.
The kiss deepened.
Elizabeth had no experience by which to judge it.
No comparison, no prepared opinion, no witty observation with which to defend herself.
There was nothing but Darcy’s mouth moving against hers, the warmth of his hand at her cheek, the strength of his arm around her while the horse shifted lazily before them and leaves stirred overhead.
It should have frightened her. It did, a little. Mostly it made every moment before this seem thin and unfinished.
Darcy drew back first, though not far. His forehead nearly touched hers. His breath came unevenly, and his thumb rested against her cheek as if he had forgotten to remove it.
“Forgive me,” he said.
“No.”
His eyes opened.
Elizabeth swallowed, suddenly appalled by her own boldness and unwilling to surrender it. “That is, there is nothing to forgive.”
His expression was so nakedly revealing that she had to look down.
“Elizabeth,” he said again, and the sound of her name had changed. Or perhaps she had changed in hearing it.
He gathered himself with visible effort, though his hand remained at her face for one more stolen second before he lowered it.
“I love you most ardently. I know I have said so before with every fault of pride and temper to poison it, but it remains true. More true now, because I know you better. Because I know myself better.”
Her fingers twisted together in her lap.
She had thought she was prepared for such words. She was not.
“At Hunsford,” he continued, each phrase uneven, “I spoke of struggle when I ought to have spoken of honor. I spoke of inferiority when I should have been grateful merely to stand before you. I cannot unsay it. I have wished many times that I could.”
Elizabeth reached for his hand before courage deserted her.
His fingers closed over hers with immediate care, almost desperate in restraint.
“My feelings are so different from what they were,” she said.
His grip stiffened.
“I have never been in love before,” Elizabeth continued, discovering as she spoke that honesty was both terrifying and oddly freeing.
“So, I cannot speak with much authority about the state. But if thinking of you against my will, watching for you when I ought to be attending elsewhere, wishing to know your thoughts, fearing I have wounded you, and being very foolishly happy when you stand near me are symptoms of it, then I believe the condition may be applied.”
A sound escaped him, too breathless for laughter and too joyful for anything else.
“May be applied?”
She lifted her chin. “I would not wish to speak rashly.”
“Never,” he murmured.
Then he kissed her again. This time she knew enough to meet him without hesitation.
It was less startling and more dangerous for that.
His arm drew her close again, and she leaned into him with a trust that would have scandalized her yesterday, last week, last April.
His mouth was warm, reverent, increasingly less restrained until he checked himself with a low sound and pulled back.
They sat in utter impropriety for several seconds, hand in hand, faces flushed, with the mare regarding a patch of grass as if humans frequently behaved foolishly behind her.
Elizabeth began to laugh.
Darcy stared at her, alarmed.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, pressing one hand to her mouth. “It is simply that if Lady Catherine could see us now, she would require a new vocabulary for displeasure.”
Darcy’s eyes lit with sudden amusement. “She would likely begin with ‘obstinate, headstrong girl’ and proceed from there.”
“Do you think she has ever kissed anyone in a gig?”
“I refuse to speculate upon my aunt’s romantic history.”
She smirked. “A prudent man.”
“I try to be.”
That made her laugh harder, which obliged him to smile in a way that ruined any hope of regaining proper solemnity.
The mare tossed her head.
Darcy fingered the slack reins and appeared to remember that they were, in fact, upon a public road, however private it currently appeared. He straightened, adjusted the leather, and guided the mare forward once more.
The silence was changed now. It held embarrassment, certainly, and the remnants of breathless delight, but no uncertainty of the sort that had plagued Elizabeth for days.
She sat beside him with her gloved hand in his, hidden between them where the folds of her skirt concealed it from any distant passerby.
The road climbed gradually toward the ridge. Trees thinned, revealing open pasture and a broad sweep of hills beyond. This time Elizabeth did look. Not because Darcy had pointed it out, though he had done so with adorable determination. Because she wished to share his pleasure in it.
“It is beautiful,” she said.
“Yes.”
She found him looking at her instead of the hills.
“Mr. Darcy.”
“I am admiring the view.”
She raised a brow. “You are not looking at it.”
“I disagree.”
Her face heated. “You have become impertinent.”
“I have been studying under a gifted instructress.”
“You must choose another. This one cannot answer for the consequences.”
His expression was bright. “I shall risk them.”
The flirtation was light, but the feeling beneath it was not. Elizabeth sat straighter, unable to prevent a smile from coming and not inclined to hide it very well.
They drove over the ridge and down toward a lane bordered by hawthorn and low stone walls. Darcy pointed out farms, a small school supported by the estate, and a cottage where an elderly widow lived with two granddaughters and an extraordinary number of cats.
“Do the cats pay rent?” Elizabeth asked.
“In mice, I believe.”
“A useful tenancy.” Mama had forbidden cats at Longbourn… at least in the main house.
“More reliable than some.”
The road curved near a stand of ash trees. Darcy slowed the mare again, though not to a stop. “There is something I wished to ask you.”
Elizabeth’s earlier ease faltered slightly. “Yes?”
“Last night, when Miss Bingley mentioned… after Wickham.”
The name entered the air between them, unwelcome even amid sunlight.
Elizabeth withdrew her hand gently, not because she wished to, but because she needed the occupation of smoothing her glove.
Darcy allowed it.
“I wondered how Lydia knew enough to respond as she did,” he said. “She defended Georgiana quickly. Too quickly for ignorance.”
Elizabeth pressed her lips together. “I did not tell her.”
“I did not think you had.”
“After receiving your letter, I confided in Jane. No one else. Not even my aunt.”
“I know you would have guarded Georgiana.”
His words held no accusation. “Then Georgiana must have told Lydia,” Elizabeth said.
“I believe so.”
“She trusts Lydia very much.” It was surprising, but then Lydia did have a way about her that drew others to her side.
“Yes.”