Page 34 of Done for the Best (Engaged to Mr Darcy #5)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

THE WISEST AND BEST CONCLUSION TO THE AFFAIR

E lizabeth had never fumbled and fudged as much in her life as she did in the hours after giving her letter into the care of Saye. She tripped going up the stairs and slipped coming down again. She dropped her book so many times that her mother accused her of shattering her nerves. She was inattentive at the dinner table and ate next to nothing yet still managed to get a stomach-ache from it. Mrs Hill was quick with a remedy for it, but there was one perilous quarter of an hour when her mother considered keeping her home.

She regretted giving the letter as much as she was relieved to have given it. She could not envision it, how Darcy might be. Would he ignore her completely? Treat her coldly? Would it at last put the misunderstandings and mistakes of the past behind them?

A row between Kitty and Lydia, and Mary’s reluctance to attend, made them late. It afforded Elizabeth ample time to decide that her hair looked worse than it ever had and that her gown was unflattering. Alas, just when she had resolved to go back to her bedchamber and put on a different gown, everyone was ready to leave.

“You do look terribly pale, Lizzy,” Jane fretted as they all climbed into the carriage, and Elizabeth could give no reply but to squeeze her sister’s hand with her own ice-cold fingers.

The carriage ride was interminable, but at last they arrived at the Merry Fox where the assembly would be held. Elizabeth ascended the stairs behind Jane and her mother, with her younger sisters coming behind her. Because Jane and her mother were both taller than she, and ahead of her on the stairs, she could see nothing until she had finished climbing.

Darcy was standing near the door, and he looked so very handsome, so serious, that it made her breath stop. Then their eyes met, and time itself seemed to stop until he smiled at her. With no regard to any person ahead of her, Elizabeth flew to him and he to her; he took her hands and gazed at her warmly, but they could do nothing more beyond that as she felt the eyes of those within upon them.

“A walk?” she murmured, and he agreed. Elizabeth quickly went to her mother and informed her of her intention to walk outside with Darcy. To this her mother replied with a smirk and a “I knew you would come to your senses,” which might have vexed her another time but could not—not when filled with the relief of Darcy’s continued devotion.

She turned back to him, and they descended the stairs and went outside. The harvest moon lit their surroundings, and the autumn air was still and scented with the pipe smoke of the various coachmen who lingered a short distance away. Darcy guided her around a corner so they would be unobserved and then took her in his arms, bringing her close to his chest. “May I kiss you?”

Unable to speak, she looked up at him and nodded.

His kiss was like nothing she had ever known or imagined, and it was perfection. He took her face in both hands, beginning with a gentle touch of his lips on her own but quickly deepening it to a true lover’s kiss that might have made her swoon had she not been holding onto him so tightly. One of his hands eventually dropped so his arm could circle her waist, and one of hers moved into the curls at the nape of his neck. She hoped and prayed it might never end.

“Was that our first kiss?” she asked, her voice sounding strangely husky when they at last parted.

He chuckled then said, “Our first, yes, and then a second—” He kissed her lips again. “—and our third—” He kissed her once more then pulled away and merely looked at her. She returned his gaze until it made her shy and then tried to look down, but he would not have it. With one finger beneath her chin, he tilted her face towards him. “Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” she replied. “But only if you promise to kiss me like that every single day.”

His laugh made his chest rumble. “You have my word on that.”

“How can you continue to love me?” she asked quietly. “I have occasioned nothing but pain upon you! I first recognised it one afternoon when Jane and I were speaking of how she wished a lady could simply say what she felt to a gentleman. And I replied that, yes, but then we would have also the horrors of rejection to face as well.”

She swallowed, then added, “The last hours have been abysmal. I cannot imagine how you must have felt the night of my first rejection, or all the days since.”

“It has not been easy,” he confessed. “Deserved though much of it was. There were lessons, hard-learned, but necessary, particularly in regards to my treatment of your family.”

“I love my family very dearly,” she said. “But I confess that I do see why others might be dismayed by them.”

“Nevertheless, I will show them due respect as I perhaps did not before. And in the Gardiners, I perceive people I might truly form deep and lasting regard with. They are charming people.”

She could only smile warmly in reply to that, then added, “When you went off this morning, when I appeared so suddenly at Netherfield, I thought the very sight of me was abhorrent to you.”

“Of course not,” he said. “I was only distressed by my belief that you despised the sight of me. Saye had tricked you into coming. I could hear you in the hall, not wishing to enter the drawing room, reluctant to see me. You wished to avoid me.”

“I could not bear to meet your indifference or your anger.”

“Indifference and anger?” Now he looked at her searchingly.

“You were angry with me for the matter with Mr Wickham. You cannot deny it.”

“I do not wish to deny it. Yes, I was angry at you for trusting him when you did not trust me. But being angry with you did not mean I should stop loving you.”

“You said you wanted nothing from me.” Her heart ached with the remembrance of that, his words, and his looks.

“No,” he said. “I could not have.”

“You did,” she insisted. “Believe me, the words have echoed through me ever since.”

He gave her a gentle kiss on her forehead. “Yes, perhaps I did, but I said it only because I despised hearing your gratitude. I hated that you thanked me for coming to your rescue.”

“Hated that I thanked you?”

“Who but I should be troubled on your behalf? Who but I should be your rescuer? Had I not told you a multitude of times by then how I loved you? How much I wished to care for you?”

“Yes, but it does not follow that you should need to scamper about the countryside, offering bags of money to reprobates, because of my foolishness!”

He closed his eyes briefly. “The last thing I should ever want is your gratitude for anything. Your forgiveness, yes, your love, completely, but do not be grateful to me.”

She was so astonished that she was silent until a giggle broke forth. “Never? So whatever you give me, henceforth, I should receive as my due? Perhaps a small grunt of acknowledgement would be permitted?”

He chuckled with her, then said, “If I have your love, I will have everything I need, everything I want from you. When you would look at me, back in Kent, with all you felt showing in your beautiful eyes, I could never have wished for anything more.” He touched her nose with his finger and added, “Just as you look now.”

To this she could only smile, thinking that with as much smiling as both were doing in that moment, she would surely wake in the morning with sore cheeks…and gladly so.

“Speaking of Kent,” she said, “I do not wish to revisit painful subjects, but honesty is of critical importance to me. I know that I can trust you?—”

“Elizabeth, what was done was done for the best, on your behalf.”

“I know.”

“Disguise of every sort is my abhorrence. I have always been taught that complete honesty is the only way. It was why, the night of my first proposal, I said such…cruel things to you about your family, rather than speaking the words of love you deserved. I believed it was honesty that was required. To deceive you as I did went against my reason and my character, but I believed it was best for you. And I confess I would do it again. Anything that brought you back to good health, to your vigour as you stand here today, I would have done.”

“But henceforth…will you be completely honest with me?”

He considered that briefly before saying, “No.”

“No?”

“I think we all must be a little dishonest to those we love, for the sake of kindness.”

“I do not think that is sound at all,” she replied.

“If you wear a gown I think suits you ill, I will still tell you that you are beautiful. Is that objectionable to you?”

“Yes,” Elizabeth insisted. “Otherwise, I will keep wearing it and looking ugly in it.”

“And what if someone said something cruel about you. Shall I tell you? My inclination would be to keep it from you, for there is no good to come of it.”

He did have a point there. Elizabeth never did see the point of needlessly hurting people with gossip. “I suppose if it was someone I thought was my friend?—”

“Let us say, for the purpose of discussion, it is not. Someone you already dislike.”

Slowly, Elizabeth admitted, “I suppose I need not know that. No doubt Miss Bingley has already said a great many things I would never wish to hear.”

“There are a myriad of little things that I might not be wholly honest about because I do not wish to see you hurt. And I give you leave to do the same for me. It is what people who love one another do.” He paused. “You can trust me to always have your best interests at heart. You can trust that I will always love you. You can trust that given any chance to make you happy, I shall do it.”

She had no idea how to answer any of that, but there were two things she did know. The first was that she did trust him, enough to put her heart and her life in his hands. The second was that she wished to kiss him again. Rising up on her toes, she placed a gentle kiss on his lips, revelling in her right to do so. Barely had she returned to a usual position before he claimed her lips again but not with the passion she might have anticipated. He was gentle, tender, offering her three caresses on her mouth with his own. Then he pulled back and brushed away a curl from her temple. “I love you.”

In a voice barely above a whisper, she replied, “I love you too. And…and I wish to make you happy, too.”

“Then tell me again you will marry me,” he said. “That would make me the happiest man alive.”

She looked up into his gaze, so steady and warm upon her. “I cannot wait to be your wife.”

The smile of true, heartfelt delight which came upon his countenance made him look different to how she had ever seen him, and she squeezed a tight hug upon him, feeling his kiss on her head before he pulled back.

“My mother has been understanding, allowing us to hie off so long out here. I fear if we linger too much longer, she may come to find us.”

“Or worse, my cousin, although Miss Goddard has seen fit to grace the assembly tonight. He may have found his own corner to kiss her in.”

She laughed and they linked arms and moved back towards the entrance.

“It has been nearly a year since we danced together,” he mentioned. “I confess I am eager to dance with you.”

“Oh.” She stopped in her tracks. “I do not think I can.”

“Why not?”

“I cannot remember the steps,” she said with a light laugh. “Of all the silliness.”

He considered it then asked, “Will you trust me to lead you?”

She did not hesitate when she replied, “Always.”