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When he and the colonel joined Georgiana and the Bingleys for tea, he was surprised to see Miss Bennet and Elizabeth amongst them, as well.

“Jane is quite miraculously recovered,” Miss Bingley explained. “Elizabeth came to bring me more megrim herbs, and now I have both sisters as my hostages - they will help me prepare for the ball at Netherfield next week. I believe we all may wish to celebrate the Hursts’ departure.”

“I am always ready to enjoy a ball,” said Bingley, who had done very little in the chaos of the Hursts’ removal, allowing Richard the honor of berating and banishing the schemer and her indolent husband.

Darcy was drawn to Elizabeth, insensible to everything else said of the ball as he took the seat at her side, which Miss Bingley made some excuse to vacate.

It was perhaps flirting with scandal that she and her sister were here when Mrs. Hurst, the ostensible chaperone, was gone for good - but Darcy could not lament any part of the present circumstances.

Elizabeth beamed at him, and Darcy sure that if he had been standing, he might have fallen over from how the sight affected him.

He had admired her before, but now that he had confessed his love to her, she seemed to shine in the glow of his regard, returning it so forcefully that he knew not how he would remain civil to anyone else in the room.

“I was obliged to resort to some chicanery to lure Elizabeth to Netherfield; happily the rain has obliged me in keeping her and Jane here for as long as I desire,” Miss Bingley said airily, in response to a query from her brother.

“Witchcraft,” Richard muttered with a nod of approval.

Elizabeth grinned at Darcy. “We must be under some surveillance, for she heard that we had quarreled.” Her gaze drifted to Richard, who had begun to cough, a twinkle in his eye.

“I see,” Darcy replied. “And not even planning a ball might have tempted you here, if you were indeed cross with me.”

“Not for all the world,” she solemnly agreed.

Richard laughed. “Pish, planning a ball! How are we really to occupy ourselves when the weather traps us indoors?”

Miss Bingley had a ready answer. “To begin with, I think Lizzy has a most amusing story to tell.”

After a little more encouragement, Elizabeth stood and regaled them all with great animation - and exaggeration, he hoped - with the tale of Mr. Collins’ hastily reversed proposal. Darcy was equally impressed and horrified by the scene she play-acted, but joined in the applause at the end of it.

When Richard and Bingley began to demand further entertainment, and spoke of playing charades, Darcy managed to detach Elizabeth from the group by suggesting a game of chess. What he really desired was to speak seriously with her of what had transpired with Mr. Collins.

“I must apologize for my aunt’s interference.

Though it is fortunate that your own clever thinking prevented the situation from taking an undesirable turn, it ought never to have happened.

For too long I have chosen to preserve peace in the family, when I ought to have put an end to my aunt’s expectations years ago. ”

Elizabeth smiled at him. “She must be a formidable woman, that my cousin would allow her to select his bride for him. I hope she will not be too disappointed in my friend - if she will have him.”

“I will take measures to ensure that Miss Lucas is comfortable and well-treated at the parsonage,” Darcy said with a bow of his head.

He studied the chessboard, hardly putting any thought into his next move. All he could think of was the horror of her refusing him, and the immediate bliss that had followed as he took her in his arms and kissed her.

Elizabeth looked askance at him as she captured his knight with a pawn. “Thank you. If she is anything like your other relations….”

“I owe you a thousand apologies for all of them,” he said. “If our courtship reaches the conclusion I desired yesterday, I will not tolerate anything but the utmost respect for you, from all of my relations.”

She looked archly at him. “Whether I desire their good opinions or not?”

“Perhaps their incivility may mean little to you, when you have seen what motives inspire their courtesy. You are too clever to bestow your artless, lively wit where it will not be appreciated.”

Her fingers brushed his as she moved another chess piece, fixing him with a saucy smirk. “Imagine my surprise at learning that I had bestowed my myriad charms where I had not known they would be so valued.”

“The recollection is imprinted on my memory,” he said ruefully.

Her brows furrowed in remorse, but this would not do.

He let their fingers brush again as he nearly captured her knight with a bishop, but made a more innocuous move instead.

Her eyes flared as she saw her mistake on the chessboard.

“You are very beautiful when you are angry,” he whispered.

“Angry? At present - much like yesterday - I am mortified at my own foolishness.” Elizabeth winked at him, and then moved his bishop as he had originally intended, removing her knight from the board. “I have gotten myself out of worse scrapes, and as I said in London, I am not afraid of you.”

Darcy briefly considered scattering every piece from the chessboard and ravishing her upon it. Instead, he lifted her hand to his lips and gave it a gentle kiss. “Does this mortify you?”

Elizabeth held his gaze and gave a slow shake of her head, then glanced down at their game. She moved a rook on the other side of the board into a position that checkmated him. “Does this?”

He placed a hand on his heart, affecting severity. “I am wounded, not by your victory, but that your stratagems have not suffered as my own have, in the distraction of such desirable company.”

“Take heart, for I have not always kept my wits in your company. I was determined to take leave of them yesterday, and I am heartily sorry for it. I regret how I acted, yet again assuming the worst of you.” Elizabeth looked away, busying herself with resetting the chess pieces.

Darcy’s heart shuddered. His voice barely a whisper, he asked, “Do you regret refusing me?”

She kept her head bowed over the chessboard to conceal a blush as she nodded. When Elizabeth finally looked up, she began to fidget with a pawn, biting her lip in a way that drove him nearly to madness. “Shall we begin again?”

Darcy knew not if she meant to ask for another game of chess, or if she wished him to make his proposal again - here, in a room full of people! But he was irrevocably under her command, and if it was what she desired, he would do it, and hear the answer he longed for.

She advanced a pawn two spaces forward and looked at him expectantly. Darcy nodded, putting no more thought into his opening move than he had done in their first game; she could triumph over him forever if she liked.

Within a few moves Elizabeth had freed her queen to reign terror on the board; she aptly inquired, “Shall your aunt make any more mischief?”

“Richard longs for her to try, I am sure. There is nothing she could say or do that would have any impact on my own feelings and wishes - you would probably find her arrogant pretension amusing, since I know you to be impervious to the terrified capitulation she prefers to inspire.”

“Hmm. I am of your cousin’s view of things - I should very much like to meet her.”

“She is not likely to attend our wedding,” Darcy blurted out. He held a breath until she sputtered with laughter.

“Do you mean to dash my hopes, sir, that she will arrive in the middle of the ceremony, amidst a terrible thunderstorm, and kidnap me away, obliging you to charge after her with saber drawn?” She winked again.

“Another novel I shall have to lend you, if only you will hurry along with the first one, so that we might discuss it.”

“Tomorrow,” he said with a smile.

Her eyes shone. “You give me such power, no fear of my abusing it with every whim and demand to do my bidding?”

“You know that I am not afraid of you, either - and that I would give you everything,” he said in a low voice, smiling slowly as he watched the effect of his words thrill through her.

“Yes.” She grinned. “Tell me what you imagine the next fifty years should be like.”

And so Darcy did. He described his home, the Darcy relations he saw often, the family traditions his mother had taught him to love, the ways they might care for his estate and tenants, and a few of the more chaste ways they might occupy their days and years together.

He saw her surprise when he began to speak of how he imagined visits from her sisters might be.

“They would be welcome to visit often?”

“Of course, Elizabeth. And I shall offer to hire them tutors and masters, if you permit it, not because I find them wanting, but because anything I am willing to do for Georgiana, I would do for your sisters when they become my sisters.”

“Now that they have gotten the worst out of the way, I hope they shall all become friends. Georgiana would be a calming influence on them. And we can always ship Mamma off to Lady Catherine if she does not calm her nerves once two of her daughters are settled.”

They had long abandoned their chess game, and Darcy toppled pieces as he reached across the board to take her hand again. “I never imagined I should be obliged to persuade my bride that life at Pemberley would indeed be agreeable.”

“But you would never have been happy with a woman who would have been satisfied simply with Pemberley. She must really love it, as you do - and she must truly love you.”

“You comprehend me perfectly,” Darcy said.

“At last,” she said with a breathy laugh. “And I am very near to such clarity for myself.”

Darcy would press her no further; it was enough that she was closer to giving him the answer that he desired. He would wait for it, even if residing under the same roof as her in the interval proved a tantalizing torment.