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Mr. Darcy was quiet for some time, seemingly absorbing this. “Let me understand this, Elizabeth. You owe her to help her find a husband, but why? She didn’t help you find a husband.”

“W-well…” What was she to say to that? Yes, but together, Caroline and I tricked you into marrying me?

“We have come together all on our own, no matchmaking required. And, to be honest, my darling, I don’t mean to poke fun in your occupation or anything of that nature.

Lord knows, intelligent women such as yourself must be quite bored with nothing to do except memorize poetry and cover screens, but I don’t think matchmaking is exactly possible.

One cannot force someone to want someone they don’t already want. ”

“It’s not about force,” she said, feeling belittled by this.

“It’s about finding the point upon which to put pressure, finding the things that a person wants or hates and maneuvering them into seeing the other person in a way that fits with one’s natural inclinations.

I could not make two people who despise each other fall in love, I’m sure, but I could find ways to tease a small bit of attraction into something more intense.

It’s simply about understanding people, you see. ”

He turned to her, raising his eyebrows, clearly not having expected that sort of response from her.

She winced. “I’m not saying I did it to you.” Oh, Lord, Elizabeth, you are denying it? You did do it to him. Denying it makes it worse than a lie of omission. Now, it is simply a lie. Bald and undeniable.

He walked faster. “I see.” His voice was flat.

She walked faster.

“You did, um, protest rather a lot, didn’t you?” he said in a low voice. “So very much. ‘Oh, sir, you must not do anything hasty. You must at least sleep on it.’”

She put her hand on his arm. “I meant it, though. I meant it.”

He glanced down at her, searching her expression.

She took her hand away and stared straight ahead as she pressed on.

“But I would have denied him, Mr. Collins, no matter what you did. I pretended to be more self-sacrificing, more motivated by family and duty than I truly am. I pretended that, because I knew it would sway you, and I suppose I wanted to see if I could do it, but then… you… so fast. You went to asking for my hand right away, and it was too easy, and I felt horrified at myself and I wanted you to take it back if you didn’t really mean it, because I don’t deserve you.

I don’t deserve this. I am not the sort of woman you think I am, and I should have told you before we… before…”

He had stopped walking, she realized, and she was still walking and talking, her voice going shrill. Now, she stopped, too, and turned to look back at him on the path.

He looked at her, brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I lied just then. I did do it to you. I did trick you into marrying me.”

He let out a dismissive laugh. “No.”

She straightened. “But if you had known—”

“If you would have refused Mr. Collins, what would have happened to you?”

What did this matter? “Well, that’s hardly…

you know what would have happened. My mother would have been furious, and he would have gone after Charlotte anyway, an d we would have been left to be turned out when my father died, and I should have likely never gotten another marriage proposal and so none of my sisters would have either and—”

“And this is why I did it,” he said with a shrug. “Because it allowed the selfishness of claiming you, a woman I should not be allowed to claim but that I very desperately wanted, to feel like a noble act in some way.”

She blinked. “Oh,” she said, thinking that through.

A noble act? Had she ever gotten the impression that her husband was a noble man?

He had said something about responsibility once, she supposed, which was a kind of nobility, but no, she had no notion of his being noble, just…

concerned with rightness. But to be truly concerned with rightness, of course, one would have to be noble.

He walked over to her, tilting his head to the side. “How did you think you tricked me, then? What did you think you said or did that swayed me?”

She fidgeted, saying nothing.

“You seemed quite sure you had,” he said. “So, what was it that you thought?”

“I thought… competition,” she said. “I thought you were motivated because there was another man vying for me.”

“Competition?” He shrugged. “Did I do something to make you think I was a competitive sort of person?”

“Well, no, but I had heard a story about you from someone else, and it made you sound…” She let out a breath.

“Who?” he said. “What story?”

“Everybody saw the way you reacted to Mr. Wickham in Meryton, you see, and he told me—”

“Mr. Wickham?” His face went white again, just like it had when he’d seen the man in question. His voice was cold, colder than she’d ever heard it.

She flinched from him.

He noticed and shook himself. “No, no, that’s not for you, my darling.” He seized her hand and tugged it against his chest. He wrapped his other hand around it. “Never look at me like that again, please, promise me. You need not ever fear me. I would never harm you.”

“I-I didn’t think…” Her lower lip trembled. “But are you not angry with me? How can you not be angry for the way I manipulated you?”

“You did not manipulate me,” he said, shaking his head, flattening her hand out, holding it against his heart.

“But I did! I wanted to make you ask me to marry me—or I don’t know, I wasn’t thinking it through, but—”

“No, no, hush,” he said softly. He took a breath, gazing deeply into her eyes.

“All right, there was one moment before, when I doubted, for just a second, because I thought perhaps it was all an act, but then I remembered last night, Lizzy.” His voice dipped lower.

“There was no feigning what passed between us last night.”

“No,” she said. “No, not at all.”

“You and I are in love,” he said. “I am more sure of that than I am sure of the sun rising. And you feel it too. We both feel it.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh, yes, we both feel it.”

“So, none of it matters,” he said with a little shrug.

He leaned in and kissed her forehead. “I would have married you anyway. Maybe if you hadn’t said what you said, it wouldn’t have been now.

Maybe I would have convinced myself to run away and I would have tried to forget you, but I would never have been able to do so.

Something happened when I saw you, and it was all just done . This, my darling wife, is meant to be.”

She let out a sob, a sob of relief, a sob of shame, a sob that seemed to echo against the December sky.

He pulled her in against his chest, stroking her hair as he held her close.

“No, no, don’t. I think you may be too harsh on yourself.

I think you may assign yourself blame you don’t rightly deserve.

If I have come into your life to protect you from that tendency within yourself, you may rest assured I shall consider it my solemn duty from now on. ”

She protested against him, her muffled into his cravat. “Mr. Darcy— ”

“Mrs. Darcy,” he interrupted, “I see you. I see you the way you can’t see yourself. You are a rare beauty. You are a good and kind woman. You are my perfect and flawless wife. You will never say anything to the contrary, do you hear me?”

She let out a moan of relief.

“Do you?”

“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, I hear you.”