22. Chapter Twenty-Two #4
For a moment they stood in silence, though it was not empty. The breeze moved through the grass. A bird called from the hedge.
Elizabeth turned to Darcy.
“What happens now?”
The question came out smaller than she intended.
His face sobered, but not with doubt.
“Now I call upon your father.”
Her fingers tightened on his arm.
“And then?”
“If he permits me, I ask you a question I have been wishing to ask properly since Derbyshire.”
She swallowed.
“Here?”
“If you wish it.”
“Not yet.”
He searched her face.
She touched his sleeve. “Soon. I only—” She stopped and laughed once at herself. “Good heavens, I do not know why I say not yet when I have been waiting a week.”
“Because you are human.”
“That is generous. I was going to say foolish.”
“Both may be true.”
She swatted his arm.
He caught her hand.
The motion was swift. Gentle enough for propriety, if viewed from a distance. Intimate enough to make her forget every field and hedgerow in Hertfordshire.
“I have not kissed you since Derbyshire,” he said. “I have no right to presume upon what has passed between us.”
“You do not presume alone.” She reached up and touched his cheek.
“It has been a severe trial.”
Elizabeth glanced toward Longbourn, then back to Darcy. “We are in sight of three counties.”
“Merely one, I believe.”
“That does not improve matters sufficiently.”
“No.”
He did not move closer.
That was the trouble. He had become very good at restraint, and Elizabeth had begun to resent restraint in particular circumstances.
She stepped nearer.
His eyes darkened.
“Elizabeth.”
“I have missed you.”
The words left her without ornament.
She could see the struggle in him: propriety, desire, reverence, the memory of all they had risked already. She loved him for the struggle and would have loved him more had he lost it.
Instead, he raised her hand and pressed his lips to her knuckles, the kiss lingering through her glove.
It was not enough.
It would have to be enough.
For now.
They began walking down the mount toward the lane, slower than necessary.
“When did you arrive?” Elizabeth asked.
“At Netherfield? This morning.”
“And you waited until afternoon?”
“I had a few mishaps along the way and needed to recover.” Darcy recounted how his horse had lost a shoe more than once, and that at one inn, there had not been a mount available, which required him to wait until the following day to continue.
Rain had further hampered his journey. “I needed to make myself presentable enough that your mother would not refuse me entry on the grounds of appearing like a highwayman.”
“She might have preferred that. It would be exciting.”
“I shall remember that if gentility fails.”
“Did you sleep?”
“Some.”
“Fitzwilliam.”
He smiled tiredly at her. “Not much.”
“You should have rested.”
“I tried,” he insisted.
“You are impossible.”
“Yes.”
“Do not agree so easily.”
“I am fatigued.”
That admission softened her annoyance. “Will you go back to Netherfield after speaking with Papa?”
“If he does not throw me out.”
“He will not.”
“Will he mock me?”
“Yes.”
“Severely?”
“Probably.”
“I shall endure.”
“He likes you better than most gentlemen.”
“That is a low bar.”
“Still an accomplishment.”
Darcy smiled, then sobered as they reached the lower path.
“Elizabeth.”
“Yes?”
“If your father consents, may I come back tomorrow morning?”
Her mouth went dry.
“For what purpose?”
He gave her a look.
She smirked saucily. “A gentleman should be precise.”
His answer came low and warm. “To ask you to marry me.”
The path beneath her feet became suddenly interesting. “Then yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes, you may.”
“And if I ask?”
She looked up.
The road dust marked his boots. Travel had creased his coat.
Weariness shadowed his face. None of it diminished him.
If anything, it made him dearer, because he had come not as the master of Pemberley receiving admiration, but as a man who had ridden through rain, moonlight, and fatigue because she had asked him to come.
“If you ask,” Elizabeth said, “I shall answer you.”
His breath left him unevenly.
She enjoyed that.
Perhaps too much.
Darcy pulled the reins from the tree but did not mount.
“I will walk with you to Longbourn.”
“You need not.”
“I know.”
They walked along the lane together, Elizabeth on the inside away from the road, Darcy leading the horse between himself and the hedge when the path narrowed.
It was ordinary in the best way, awkward in places because the horse disliked stopping and Elizabeth’s skirt caught once on a bramble.
Darcy freed it with the grave attention of a man handling priceless lace, though the gown was one of her older walking dresses.
“You will make it vain,” she said.
“The bramble?”
“The gown.”
“It has reason.”
“You flirt better when tired.”
“I do many things better since knowing you.”
That was too much. She had to look away.
Longbourn came into view through the trees.
Her home appeared smaller with Darcy beside it. Dear, familiar, flawed. A house of noise and partiality and teasing indolence, of sisters and nerves and laughter, of mistakes survived and affections altered. For the first time since leaving Derbyshire, Elizabeth did not wish it were Pemberley.
She wanted both.
The thought frightened and pleased her.
At the gate, Darcy stopped.
Elizabeth turned.
“I should go in first,” she said.
“Yes.”
“You will follow?”
“Yes.”
“Do not be alarmed if my mother says something dreadful.”
“I have survived Lady Catherine.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No. Lady Catherine is less curious.”
Elizabeth laughed, then pressed both hands to her cheeks for one moment, attempting to restore herself into a lady who had merely taken a walk and not returned with the man she loved.
Darcy watched her with open affection.
“Ready?” she asked.
“No.”
“Good. Come anyway.”
She opened the gate and went ahead of him toward Longbourn.
Behind her, the horse snorted. Darcy murmured something soothing to it, then followed.
From the house, Lydia’s voice rose through an open window.
“Kitty, I told you he would come!”
Elizabeth stopped on the path.
Darcy came to stand beside her.
After a moment, he said, “Your sister has excellent hearing.”
“She has dreadful restraint.”
“I have noticed.”
The front door opened before they reached it.
Mr. Bennet stood in the doorway, book in hand, eyes traveling from Elizabeth to Darcy to the horse and back again.
“Well,” he said. “This is a more interesting afternoon than I was promised.”
Elizabeth drew in a breath.
Darcy bowed.
“Mr. Bennet, may I request the honor of a private conversation?”
Her father’s eyes sharpened with amusement and something more difficult to read.
“I suspected you might.” He stepped aside. “Come in, Mr. Darcy. Lizzy, you may wait in the parlor and pretend not to listen.”
“Papa.”
“I said pretend. I know my family’s limitations.”
From somewhere upstairs, Lydia shrieked, “He came!”
Mrs. Bennet answered with a shriek of her own, though hers contained no information whatsoever.
Darcy regarded Elizabeth. The corner of his mouth moved.
Elizabeth lifted her chin. “Welcome to Longbourn.”
He leaned just near enough to speak for her alone.
“I came to you.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “You did.”
Then Mr. Bennet cleared his throat with theatrical patience, and Darcy stepped inside.