22. Chapter Twenty-Two #3
Elizabeth turned toward the view because his face was too much. “Miss Bingley spoke cruelly. She also spoke with more pain than I expected.”
“I know enough of what she said.”
“Do you?”
“Georgiana told me what she could. I rather wished your sister had been there—I would have received an unabridged account.”
Elizabeth covered her eyes. “I tremble to imagine it.”
“Georgiana was angry for you.”
“Lydia must have taught her. My sister is very good at being angry.”
“She is also very loyal.”
Elizabeth’s hand dropped. “Yes. She is.”
Darcy moved to stand beside her, facing the same view. He did not touch her. That restraint, after all that had passed between them, made her want to weep and scold him in equal measure.
“I must say something badly,” he said.
Elizabeth turned her head.
He held his hat between both hands. “I have composed better speeches on the road. Several. None survived arriving in your presence.”
“That is unfortunate. I enjoy a well-composed speech.”
“I remember.”
His mouth softened for a moment, then sobered. “At Hunsford, I wounded you with words I can never unsay. I spoke of your family, your connections, my struggle, my objections. I have apologized for the manner of it, but your letter showed me something I had not fully considered.”
“What?”
“That words spoken in arrogance may echo long after repentance.”
Elizabeth looked out toward Netherfield again.
He continued, unevenly now, less polished than she had ever heard him. “When Miss Bingley spoke of trade and rank, she used weapons I had once placed within reach. I cannot blame her for every doubt she stirred when I had once given those doubts a foundation.”
“You did not make her cruel.”
“No. But I had once been cruel in the same direction.”
She turned sharply. “No.”
His brows drew together.
“No,” she repeated. “You were proud. You were insulting. You were very much in need of correction.”
A reluctant sound escaped him.
“But you were not Miss Bingley.”
“Elizabeth—”
“No. If we are to be honest, then let us be honest.” She faced him fully.
“You wounded me at Hunsford and I wounded you too. I believed Wickham without proof, and I repeated my dislike of you with satisfaction. I allowed myself to take pleasure in thinking badly of you because it made me feel clever.”
Darcy’s face fell. “That is not easy to hear,” he said.
“It is not easy to say.”
“I never wished you to blame yourself for Wickham.”
“I do not blame myself for his lies. I blame myself for liking them.”
The wind moved across the hill.
Somewhere below, Darcy’s horse snorted softly.
Elizabeth drew a breath. “I was angry with you. Some of that anger was deserved. Much of it was not. I thought myself perceptive. I mistook wit for judgment.”
Darcy looked down at the grass.
“I mistook reserve for superiority,” she continued. “I mistook charm for goodness. I mistook my own mortification for moral certainty.”
His hand shifted on his hat. “I gave you reason to dislike me.”
“Yes.”
That answer startled him.
Elizabeth’s mouth curved despite herself. “You did. We need not pretend otherwise merely because I love you.”
He went still.
There. She had said it.
Not hidden in a letter.
Not wrapped in condition or fear.
Plainly.
Darcy’s hat dropped from his hands.
It landed in the grass between them. Neither of them reached for it.
“I had intended,” he said, voice roughened, “to earn that word before hearing it.”
“You have. Repeatedly. Though you might retrieve your hat before it becomes a casualty of romance.”
He stared at her.
Then, to her surprise and delight, he laughed. Not loudly. Not long. Enough to break the tightness between them.
He bent and picked up the hat, brushing grass from the brim.
“I love you,” Elizabeth said again, because the first time had felt like stepping from a cliff and the second felt like learning she could fly. “I did not understand it at first. I was too busy being astonished, then pleased, then frightened. But I love you.”
Darcy took one step toward her, then stopped. “May I?”
The question encompassed more than touch.
Elizabeth answered by offering her hand.
He took it carefully, then with less care, closing both his hands around hers. His gloves were dusty. His skin beneath them warm. His eyes held a week of travel and sleeplessness and relief too deep for elegance.
“I love you most ardently,” he said. “Still. Always, I think. Though I hope to express it with better judgment than I once did.”
“I prefer this version.”
“I am glad.”
“It is a marked improvement.”
His thumb moved over her knuckles. “Your praise is generous.”
“It is accurate.”
He looked toward the valley, then back to her. “I do not ask you to ignore what Miss Bingley said. Society may speak. Lady Catherine certainly will. My family may not all receive the news with grace. I cannot promise ease in every quarter.”
“I know.”
“But I can promise this.” His fingers closed into a fist. “No one’s disapproval will make me regret choosing you. No relation, no rank, no expectation formed without my consent. I have lived too long according to what I thought I ought to value. I know what I value now.”
A lump rose in Elizabeth’s throat. She disliked it. She welcomed it. Both feelings existed together.
“You brought Georgiana all this way?”
Darcy shrugged nonchalantly. “She wished to come.”
“And Miss Bingley?”
“Gone north with the Hursts.”
Elizabeth absorbed that. “Was it dreadful?”
“Yes.”
“I am sorry.”
“I am not.”
Darcy’s jaw worked once. “Georgiana said she did not wish Miss Bingley to remain at Pemberley. That was enough.”
“Good for Georgiana.”
“Yes.”
The pride in his voice warmed her.
They began walking without agreement, following the ridge of Oakham Mount where the grass lay short beneath their feet.
Darcy kept her hand upon his arm now, proper enough if one ignored how closely they walked and how neither of them wished for distance.
Elizabeth felt the pressure of his sleeve beneath her fingers and the tremor still moving through her from the sight of him climbing the hill.
“I thought you might write first,” she admitted.
He smiled. “I considered it for perhaps four seconds.”
“Just four?”
This time he laughed. “I was already ordering the horse.”
“That is very gratifying.” How gallant of him to ride off into the sunset to see her!
“It was not a dignified departure,” he admitted.
“I wish I had seen it.” Elizabeth regarded him.
Darcy’s expression remained solemn for perhaps one second too long.
Then she burst into laughter.
Darcy’s mouth tilted. “I am pleased my peril amuses you.”
“You were in peril?”
“A goose obstructed the lane.”
Elizabeth laid a hand on his arm. “My poor Mr. Darcy.”
“I endured.”
“Bravely, I am sure.” She could imagine an angry goose chasing his horse.
“With moderate dignity.”
Oh, how she adored him! “Did the goose survive?”
“Yes.” He said it somewhat grudgingly and grinned when she laughed again.
“How merciful of you.”
They resumed walking.
The humor faded gradually, not because sorrow took its place, but because something else pressed in.
The hill, the afternoon light, the distance from Longbourn’s noise.
Elizabeth had dreamed of seeing him again, feared it, trusted it, doubted her trust, then scolded herself for the doubt.
Now he walked beside her, dusty from travel and real enough to touch.
“I do not want us to spend our lives apologizing for Hunsford,” she said.
Darcy basked in the feel of her hand on his arm.
“No.”
“But I do not want to pretend it never happened either.”
“Nor do I.”
“It changed us.”
“Yes.”
She waited.
Darcy took several steps before continuing. “Your refusal stripped away the comfort I had taken in my own judgment. I was angry first.”
“I remember.”
“I was humiliated.”
“I remember that too.”
“That persisted longer.”
A smile tugged at her mouth despite the seriousness of the moment. “I am sorry.”
“No, you are not.”
“No,” she admitted. “Not truly.”
His laugh was brief and startled, and she treasured it.
“I read your words many times,” he said. “They were much kinder than the letter I gave you. The letter I wrote after… well, it was meant to defend myself. By the end, it had accused me more thoroughly than I intended.”
“It changed me too.”
“The letter?”
“Yes. I did not wish it to. That was extremely inconvenient of you.”
“I shall try to be more considerate next time I dismantle your understanding of a man’s character.”
“See that you do.”
They walked farther, past a clump of thorns and where the path dipped between patches of late summer wildflowers. Elizabeth gathered her skirt, and Darcy slowed to match her steps without making a show of assisting.
“Wickham frightened me after I knew the truth,” she said.
Darcy’s attention came to her.
“Not because I feared him for myself. Because I had liked him so easily. Because his charm had cost Georgiana so much and might have cost Lydia—” She stopped. “It might have cost Lydia more than any of us understood.”
“Yes.”
“I still think of what Georgiana told her. Lydia needed the truth, though I do not believe she could ever have accepted it from me.”
“I do not think she would have.”
Elizabeth nodded. “I only hope she understands that the confidence was Georgiana’s to share and not hers to repeat.”
“She has altered. Besides, Georgiana made that plain. Miss Lydia appeared to understand.”
“She has. I keep expecting to discover she has hidden her old self under the bed and will retrieve it when no one is watching.”
“Perhaps she has brought parts of it.”
“The noisy parts.”
“The loyal parts.”
Elizabeth looked up at him. “You are fond of her.”
“I have made peace with the fact.”
“You poor man.”
“She is determined to be related to me.”
“She said that?”
“More than once.”
Elizabeth pressed her lips together, but laughter slipped through anyway. “That is Lydia.”
“It no longer alarms me as much as it should.”
They reached a place where the hill sloped gently down toward a stand of trees. Longbourn’s roof could be glimpsed through the leaves below. Elizabeth stopped.
Darcy stopped with her.