Page 56 of The Briar Bargain (The Rom Com Collection #3)

"Miss Elizabeth, I am so very sorry," she said, her voice thick with emotion.

"Please believe me when I say that I would never have wished you any real harm.

I was just so angry . . . I merely wanted .

. ." Miss Bingley's voice broke slightly.

"I wanted one last evening as mistress of this house without having to watch .

. . that is, I thought if you were not present, I might have one final dinner where I could pretend things might be different.

But I never meant for you to be in any danger . "

The confession was the most genuine thing Miss Bingley had ever said in Darcy’s presence. Elizabeth's expression softened. "I understand. But perhaps in future, such schemes might be better avoided entirely?"

Miss Bingley nodded tearfully. "Of course. It was very wrong, and I apologise profusely.”

“Well then,” Elizabeth said. “As long as you tell me this shall be the end of it, I shall accept your apology.”

“You have my word, Miss Elizabeth,” she said. She looked at Darcy then.

“I must beg your pardon as well, Mr. Darcy.”

Darcy’s mind sharpened. Susan . The name had drifted back to him when Elizabeth spoke of the girl rescued from the river. She was the same maid who had been asked to rearrange things in Elizabeth’s chamber.

“I,” Darcy said darkly, “am not as forgiving.” He paused. “The maid who was caught with your brooch this evening swears she did not take it. Did you perhaps hide it among her things?”

Miss Bingley closed her eyes briefly before opening them and straightening her shoulders. “I will not dignify that with a response. You have my abject apologies.” She turned and walked out of the room.

Neither chose to follow her; instead, they applied themselves to an exchange of information. Darcy related that Susan had been sent to other duties in the house over her refusal to obey Miss Bingley’s suspicious command. Elizabeth, in turn, described the confrontation she had observed.

“Miss Bingley said she gave Susan candles to take home,” Elizabeth said softly.

“It was more generous than I had believed her to be.

Perhaps that is how the brooch came to be in the basket.

" Her nose wrinkled. "I wonder if her fan was supposed to be placed in my room and Susan hid it somewhere else instead. "

Just as they finished, Miss Bennet and Mrs. Hurst hurried in.

Almost without a word, they gathered Elizabeth up between them and walked her to the stairs.

She turned her head and offered him a little smile as they took her away.

Not a moment later, Bingley and Hurst came inside, rubbing their hands together to warm them.

Darcy glanced down at himself. His coat had been sacrificed to Elizabeth on the rooftop and was now somewhere within the house with her.

His shirt, formerly white, bore the marks of his expedition through a smoke-filled room and the narrow escape that followed.

Black streaks covered his sleeves, and a suspicious handprint marred the right side of his waistcoat. His cravat hung loose around his neck.

Bingley was worse off in the face, if more properly attired. His nose and forehead were marked with sooty smudges, and his hair stuck up oddly on one side where he had run a sooty hand through it. He caught Darcy staring and grinned.

“You know, Darcy,” Bingley said, brushing ineffectually at his sleeve, “this is becoming something of a habit of yours, being half-dressed in Miss Elizabeth’s company.”

Darcy regarded his friend with all the severity he could summon while standing in sooty shirtsleeves .

Mr. Hurst cleared his throat. “I should like the full story of that business eventually,” he said, eyeing both men in turn. “At the moment, however, what I should like is my dinner. I do not suppose it is still hot?”

Bingley let out a bark of laughter. The absurdity of it all—the soot, the rooftop, the proposal—struck Darcy with full force, and he chuckled as well.

Hurst looked between them. “I was not jesting,” he said flatly. “There was pheasant.”

That only made them laugh harder until Darcy, overcome, dissolved into a fit of coughing.

The others fell silent at once, their enjoyment giving way to concern.

But when Darcy waved them off and began to laugh again, wheezing though he was, it set them both off once more, the laughter returning with greater force for having been briefly interrupted.

“I am afraid,” Bingley said, wiping a tear and managing to add another smear of black to his face, “that as I am to be Miss Elizabeth’s brother very soon—”

“You have not yet asked her father,” Darcy replied as he attempted to catch his breath.

“He will say yes, I am sure of it. And I am also sure that when he hears of all that has happened while his daughters were in residence here that he will be expecting a certain question from you as well.”

"In that way," Darcy replied, brushing soot from his sleeve with casual unconcern, "I confess it has proven to be a profitable evening."

"Profitable?" Hurst inquired with obvious confusion.

Darcy looked at both men and offered them a nonchalant shrug. "Gentlemen, you must congratulate me. For I am to be married."

Bingley's face broke into a grin of pure delight. "Darcy! Do you mean you have already proposed?" He stopped, narrowed his eyes. “What did she say? ”

“He said he is to be married, you dolt,” Hurst said with a laugh. “What do you think she said?”

"Miss Elizabeth has done me the honour of accepting my proposal," Darcy confirmed. He knew he was smiling like a fool, but he no longer cared.

"That is excellent, Darcy!" Bingley exclaimed, clapping his friend on the shoulder. "Though I must say, your methods of courtship are rather unorthodox. Most men make do with flowers and poetry."

"Most men," Darcy replied with considerable satisfaction, "do not have the privilege of courting Miss Elizabeth Bennet. She required a rather more . . . adventurous approach."

He had never spoken truer words. Life with Elizabeth would be many things. Challenging, unpredictable, even sometimes daring—but it would never, ever be dull.

Darcy could hardly wait to begin.