Sixteen days at Pemberley…
“ How beautiful,” said Elizabeth on a breath. She was standing on top of an enormous configuration of solid rock on the edge of Pemberley’s woods. It had taken her nearly an hour to reach the top, but the view was well worth her effort.
She could see every aspect of the surrounding area for miles.
Darcy stood beside her, protective and close as the wind caused her gown to billow like a sail on a ship. “Lambton is over there,” he said, pointing towards the village in the distance. The high street wound through the centre of it, from the line of neatly kept houses at the edge of the village to the ale house at the opposite end of it. “And that is Kympton.” He indicated a second village approximately three miles to the south of it which was slightly larger in size. “My father would take me there often when I was a boy. During the summer months, my cousins, Colonel Fitzwilliam and his brother Viscount Emerson, would spend time at Pemberley. Emerson is eight years my senior and preferred to keep his own company, but Fitzwilliam and I were always together. We were forever thinking of ways in which to best the other. Our favourite pastime was that of racing one another to the village. The pump in the church yard there has the coldest water I have ever tasted, and a wall of blackberries at least ten feet high.”
Elizabeth smiled. She could easily imagine Darcy as a boy, running from Pemberley to Kympton, wanting nothing more than to best his cousin and closest friend. “And were you victorious?”
Darcy shook his head. “Not often, no, and never by much on the occasions I did happen to win. Fitzwilliam was older, and therefore taller and faster. But his advantages over me did not outlive boyhood, and so his days of victory were numbered.”
“You cannot mean to imply you have raced each other to Kympton as men!”
“It was only once,” he admitted, “right before I left for Cambridge. Fitzwilliam had just purchased his commission. It seemed a fitting way to mark the occasion.”
“Did you win?”
“I did.”
He looked so proud of himself that Elizabeth could not help but smile. “A long-awaited victory, then, and well earned.”
“Indeed,” said Darcy, and grinned.
A sharp gust of wind caught her skirts then, twisting them around her ankles, and Elizabeth was suddenly propelled forward towards the very edge.
Darcy caught her arms, holding fast to her, and pulled her back. “Elizabeth!” His grip was sure and strong, but the words he uttered beneath his breath were harsh and unintelligible.
Elizabeth’s legs shook slightly as she endeavoured to calm her racing heart. Had she been alone, or with her aunt and uncle—who would not have accompanied her all the way to the top—she might have fallen to her death.
Darcy urged her to sit, lowering himself onto the bare rock and then guiding her to sit beside him. When she was settled, he released her with an exhalation.
Not yet ready to lose the reassurance of his touch, Elizabeth reached for his hand.
He surrendered it willingly, without hesitation, and squeezed.
Elizabeth relished his closeness; the feeling of his hand wrapped protectively around her own. There was a comforting weight to it, and a warmth that made her feel cared for and safe. A lump formed in her throat, and she swallowed thickly in an effort to dislodge it. If her aunt and uncle were not standing several hundred feet below them with Georgiana, patiently awaiting their return, she might consider remaining where she was indefinitely.
Instead, she tightened her grip on Darcy’s hand.
“Will you show me the woods?” Elizabeth asked him later, once they were back at Pemberley and she had been told by her aunt Gardiner to rest. She had tried, but her head was too full, and her heart was too full, and she did not know what to do with herself.
Darcy set aside the letter he had been reading before she entered his study. He had risen to his feet immediately and bowed, but in his haste, he had not relinquished his letter. “Are you well, Miss Bennet?”
When he had clasped her arms and pulled her away from the edge, he had called her by her Christian name. At the time, Elizabeth had been distressed and had barely noticed. At the time, there were more pressing matters to consider. Now, after the fact, she recalled him doing it with startling clarity.
She longed for him to do it again.
Her lips lifted infinitesimally. “I am well enough to take a walk, sir.”
Darcy regarded her with an inscrutable expression before inclining his head. Stepping away from his desk, he offered her his arm. “Shall I summon my sister?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “No,” she told him quietly, and immediately felt her complexion become heated in the face of her boldness. “Not this time. I would prefer it to be only us.”
They left the house through a door set before a garden ripe with summer blooms—hydrangeas, roses, and lilies of every variety and colour. An intimation of a smile appeared upon Elizabeth’s lips as she beheld it, but she remained silent as they walked past the garden and continued towards the woods. Her aunt had called Pemberley’s woods some of the finest in the country. When they reached them, and stepped from the paved, gravel path onto the soft, damp loam of the forest floor, Elizabeth had to admit Mrs Gardiner had not exaggerated in the least. Everywhere she looked she saw mature trees—sturdy oaks, sycamores, and elms. Interspersed among them were fragrant evergreens. Their canopies extended nearly a hundred feet into the air, a majestic tapestry of verdant leaves and needles that, despite its vastness, made Elizabeth feel insulated from everyone and everything as though she had entered another world.
“It is very beautiful here, and peaceful,” she said to Darcy. “It would be a shame if a band of gypsies were to suddenly appear and demand recompense for our trespassing.”
“That it would,” he replied in a similar tone, “especially as I have left my purse at home.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Perhaps the badgers will save us, then.”
“Perhaps,” said Darcy, with a slight, almost teasing smile of his own.
They came to a clearing where sunlight shone through the canopy, dappling the forest floor. Birds flitted from branch to branch, ruffling their feathers, their songs light and pleasing. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves on the trees. A few fluttered to the ground, lazy and meandering and slow.
At the far side of the clearing, there was an old stone bench, littered with seeds. Darcy led Elizabeth towards it, swept it clean with a brush of his hand, and gestured for her to sit. She hesitated when she saw there was an inscription carved into the top of it, ancient and worn, so much so she could not make it out. “Do you know what is written here?”
Darcy shook his head, leaned over the top of it, and ran his hand over the letters. “No. The inscription was as illegible when I was a boy as it is now. But according to my grandmother, who is long dead, it is a monument of sorts.” He frowned. “I know nearly everything that there is to know of Pemberley and its history, but I do not know this. It has always grated on me.”
“You like to know things.”
“I do, but I believe that is a universal trait. Most people have an innate curiosity about the world in which they live and the people who share it. At least, that is my experience.”
She looked at him then—at his handsome face, and his dark eyes, and his firm jaw. She could not see his neck, only a sliver of skin barely visible above his cravat. The sudden compulsion Elizabeth felt to trace her fingertip along that sliver of skin, to feel the softness of it, was immediate and compelling. Instead, she curled her fingers into fists so she would keep her hands where they belonged: to herself.
Darcy, however, had no such compunction. He reached for her hand and gently uncurled her fingers, first the left and then the right, before raising each one to his lips to press a lingering kiss to her palms.
The intimacy of such a gesture made Elizabeth’s breath hitch. Neither of them wore gloves. She had not given a single thought to it before that moment; now, the impropriety of it was glaring. In the house, her only thought had been to get away, to be in a quiet place out of doors so she could clear her head and find the courage to ask Darcy why, when his every action spoke of loving her, did he persist in remaining silent about it. Of course, voicing such a question would be as impertinent as it would be inappropriate.
If he would not speak, and she could not speak, then what was left?
In cases such as these, perhaps it was better to let her heart speak for itself.
Before Elizabeth could change her mind, she boldly placed Darcy’s left hand upon her sternum, directly over her heart.
His intake of breath was as sudden as it was sharp, but he made no attempt to retract his hand. After what seemed like a small eternity, he spoke. “Your heart…” he said roughly, but the words caught in his throat, and he paused for a long moment, struggling for composure. Once he obtained it, he murmured, “Your heart is beating like a hummingbird’s wings, as though it will take flight.”
“And what of yours?” Elizabeth whispered unsteadily.
“It is the same.” Slowly, brazenly, his thumb caressed the supple flesh above the collar of her gown, making her shiver. Darcy exhaled heavily. “Surely, by now you know I love you. I have not stopped.”
“I know,” she said as her heart soared and her belly tightened, and her mind refused to be still. To say she was relieved by his declaration was an understatement. She was overjoyed and overwhelmed by a flood of emotions, and the tantalising pleasure of his touch. Wanting nothing more than to be closer to him—to touch him more intimately in turn—Elizabeth pressed her other hand to his coat, where she felt his heart was in fact beating every bit as violently as hers. “Your every action, your every look gave you away, but you remained silent.”
Darcy shook his head. “I did not want to rush you. I knew your opinion of me had changed for the better. You welcomed my society with pleasure, yet I did not know whether that pleasure was afforded to your friend or your lover— No . Not to your lover. To your husband.” He paused. “I have long known my own heart, Elizabeth, but I do not know yours.”
Elizabeth’s throat felt impossibly tight. “I believe you do.”
“Do I?” he asked almost desperately. “You are too generous to trifle with me…”
His eyes were so full of emotion, so full of hope and love, all of it for her. How had she ever thought of him as cold? Elizabeth felt the hot pressure of tears in her eyes, and a lump form in her throat. Somehow, she managed to say, “You do. You do know it. It is yours, and you will always have it.”
He stepped forward then, closing the distance between them to inches. The hand on Elizabeth’s sternum slid upward, and the tip of Darcy’s forefinger caressed her clavicle with a tenderness that was maddening. “And will you marry me?” he asked, with no little emotion.
Elizabeth’s eyelids fluttered closed. “I will,” she promised, urging him closer until she felt the solidness of his body against her own, and his warmth, and each exhalation of his breath on her face. “I love you,” she said resolutely, with all her heart. “I love you dearly.”
“As I love you.” His right hand found purchase on her hip; his left caressed her cheek with unexampled gentleness. “Dearest, loveliest, Elizabeth,” he whispered, and pressed a reverent kiss to her forehead, each eyelid, and the tip of her nose. “I love you, most ardently.” His voice sounded endearingly uneven.
Elizabeth released a slow, tremulous breath and tilted her face towards the sky. Dappled sunlight shone behind her closed lids—warm, muted shapes of orange and yellow and red. She smiled.
It was then Darcy’s lips descended upon her own, soft, definitive, and sure as he kissed her with all the tenderness and yearning, ardency and passion he had claimed to feel for her before, and which Elizabeth knew, beyond any doubt, that he always would.
The End