Page 12 of An Offer of Marriage (Engaged to Mr Darcy #7)
IMPROVED ON FURTHER ACQUAINTANCE
G ood lord!
Darcy hoped, rather than believed, he might find a bracing wind, or even a light rain to cool his heated blood when they exited the Gardiners’ home for their walk.
Alas, it was not so, but seeing Elizabeth tilt her face to receive the sunshine was too delightful for regrets. Get yourself under regulation, man.
He had always suspected that Elizabeth had a passionate nature but kissing her had certainly proved it. Or perhaps when there were two people so well suited to one another, the passion always ignited? He knew not and it mattered not. Their marriage would be a wonderful union in more ways than one.
He smiled down at her, thinking how right it felt to have her on his arm.
What he really wished to do was to tell her all the thoughts of his heart, and to do a better job of it than he had with his proposal.
He had been so dreadfully anxious, wanting nothing more than to speak his piece!
In truth, he hardly knew what he had said, but he did know that he had much more to say.
That he truly loved her and meant to make her blissfully happy all her days.
That her beauty overwhelmed him. That he hardly felt worthy of her, of her goodness and her sweetness.
But she had said very little of that sort of thing, and he realised that such sentiments were likely not usual at Longbourn. He had seen no evidence of any great love between Mr and Mrs Bennet; theirs was not the sort of marriage to which he aspired.
Mr and Mrs Gardiner seemed to have an exemplary union.
When he had left to return to his warehouses yesterday, Mr Gardiner had kissed his wife on the cheek and said, “A few hours, my dearest, and I shall be back to torment you.” And Mrs Gardiner had blushed and told him to go on, but in a voice that showed how well she liked his teasing.
Lord and Lady Matlock had a similar intimacy.
They spent nearly every moment they could in one another’s company, and he had once seen Lord Matlock pinch his wife’s bottom when he thought no one was looking.
At a ball. At the Duchess of Beryll’s home.
When he realised that Darcy and Fitzwilliam had seen him, his lordship had grinned like an unrepentant schoolboy and said, “Married thirty-two years and I can still make her blush, boys. You should be so fortunate in your own marriages.”
Gracechurch Street thrummed with people. Loving the countryside as she did, Darcy wondered what she must think of it, then realised he would do better to ask her rather than wonder silently.
“I wonder if all of these crowds are agreeable to you?”
“What do you mean? ”
“Just that I know how much you enjoy verdure. There seems to be precious little of that in this area.”
She glanced over at him. “Do you dislike it? It is not at all what you are accustomed to.”
He sensed that his answer to this was important and so thought carefully before replying, very honestly, “I like it a great deal, in truth.”
“You do?” Elizabeth sounded and appeared sceptical. “What about it do you like?”
“I am reticent,” he admitted. “And too much given to sobriety. Being in quieter surroundings only enhances those qualities. Indeed, I find that there are some days that I go to bed scarcely having uttered more than five words. Or none at all if replies to the servants’ queries do not count.
Being here, amid such people as this, living their busy lives”—he gestured with the hand holding his walking stick—“it makes me feel much more alive myself.”
If he knew anything about it, it seemed he had answered well. Elizabeth appeared considerably less doubtful.
“I feel the same. I enjoy looking at everyone, wondering what they are about, whether they are happy or sad, whom they love, if they are in an argument with someone…’tis fascinating to me to imagine their stories.
Not that I do not love rocks and trees just as well, but as you said, being too much alone with one’s thoughts can be… lonely.”
“I am glad to know it. I do enjoy being in London for a fair part of the year,” he said. “Mostly the Season and then around Christmas as well.”
“And here I had believed you did not much enjoy parties,” she said.
“I will enjoy parties much more as a married man, no doubt,” he said with a laugh. “What freedom it will be to be able to talk to a woman without someone in the crowd marrying me off to her!”
They both chuckled at that, but Darcy did observe that Elizabeth continued to send him questioning peeks around the side of her bonnet. Did his preferences surprise her so much? Was she still attempting to sketch his character after all this time?
He stopped walking. “I know that there is a good bit that we do not know about each other. I remember that you once said that we had a great similarity in the turn of our minds.”
“Did I?” She reached up to fiddle with the curls coming from her bonnet. “Your memory is vastly superior to mine it seems.”
“You particularly may be at a disadvantage here as I was somewhat intentionally aloof in Hertfordshire.”
“Intentionally aloof? Why is that?”
He shook his head and they began again to walk, slowly. “The matter with Georgiana and Wickham…it was still very recent when I joined Bingley’s party.”
“Was it?”
“It had happened at the end of August. A little over a month before I came into Hertfordshire. I never should have come at all had Georgiana not begged me to leave her.” Elizabeth looked over at him, and he gave her a wry smile.
“It seems I was hovering over her, worried about every breath she drew. She was excessively melancholic, having thought Wickham in love with her, when he wanted only her fortune.”
“It must have been very hard not to hover,” she said sympathetically, squeezing his arm with her hand. He raised his hand to cover hers.
“I shall never forget the feeling of having so nearly lost her. She is all that is left of my family and I—” He was forced to pause and swallow and gain control of himself again.
“She needed me to be away, but it did not follow that I wished to go. Hertfordshire was a good compromise as I could have been back in London in a few hours on horse, had she needed me. But me needing to be in Hertfordshire did not make me an agreeable guest, I fear. A less obliging man than Bingley would have tossed me out on my ear.”
“I cannot imagine how you felt when Mr Wickham appeared in Meryton!”
“A dreadful coincidence, to be sure, but then I was glad to have my eye on him,” said Darcy warmly. “But enough of these depressive musings. I only mean to say that I am glad to have the opportunity to know you better, and I hope you feel likewise about me.”
To this she made no direct reply, but she did, again, squeeze his arm and smile up at him and it was more than enough.
He left the Gardiners’ home shortly after they returned from their walk.
It had been exceedingly satisfying for him, their time spent together, and he believed it was for her as well.
Before he went, he extended Georgiana’s invitation to Mr and Mrs Gardiner, as well as Miss Bennet, to come to dine at his house on the following Monday evening.
Georgiana had written a little note of invitation to them all; Mrs Gardiner admired the paper and admired her hand before accepting the invitation with charming deference, adding to his pleasure of the morning.
Elizabeth found Jane in the nursery playing with their aunt’s youngest son. Little Henry was a charming young lad, robust in appetite and figure, and had only just begun to toddle about. His antics were an endless source of sweet diversion for both Bennet ladies.
Elizabeth sat on the braided rug on the floor beside Jane, watching him as he went round the room with straight-legged, thudding steps. “He is improving, I think,” Elizabeth said finally.
“Mr Darcy?” Jane asked.
Elizabeth laughed. “I was referring to Henry but…I suppose you could say that Mr Darcy is as well. He is so very different from what I believed he was, and I think he is truly a good man. He means to speak to Mr Bingley about?—”
“Not about me, I hope?”
“About his mistaken understanding of your feelings, yes.”
“Oh, Lizzy. I pray he would not,” Jane said with a quick little lunge forwards to rescue Henry from a fall.
“He does not mean to influence his actions, only to correct the misapprehensions.” Then Elizabeth, her eyes fixed on Henry’s movements, added, “It does mean something, I suppose, that he is willing to admit to his mistakes, and remedy them as he can.”
“It does,” Jane allowed. “And thus remove the last obstacle between you?”
“I hardly know.” Elizabeth nibbled her lip for a moment. “Perhaps.”
“Enough to marry him? To love him?”
“Scarcely three days ago I should have told you that you were mad even to suggest such a thing, but now…”
“Now he is a wealthy, handsome man with a far better character than you believed, who is in love with you and wishes to marry you. ”
“And to whom a vast number of people already think me engaged.”
“In that regard, the die is cast,” Jane observed. “I daresay it might all be for the best.”
A strange fluttery warmth erupted within Elizabeth’s chest. Joy? The first stirrings of romance? Not love, it was far too soon for that, but perhaps like? Like with the promise for more?
“Maybe it is,” was all she said.