Page 26 of To India with Mr. Darcy
T he morning felt filled with promise and hope. The air was cool, but the sky was blue and high when Elizabeth stepped out from the house, bonnet in hand. She told no one where she was going, perhaps because she was not quite certain herself. She only knew that her feet had begun to move with a quiet purpose, that something within her was drawing her down the familiar lane past the hedgerow, towards the copse that bordered the edge of the property.
And perhaps because Mr Darcy had mentioned maybe going for a walk himself this morning. A part of her hoped she would run into him, and when she did, her heart leapt. She had not walked far when she saw him.
Mr Darcy stood at the curve of the path, his coat unbuttoned, his hair stirred by the breeze. He had been looking out across the field, but he turned at the sound of her approach. When their eyes met, Elizabeth felt that peculiar stillness again, the same stillness she had felt on the ship in moments that mattered most.
He smiled, just barely, and she returned it.
“I had hoped I might see you,” he murmured.
Elizabeth slowed her pace, then fell into step beside him. “And I had not expected to see you again so soon,” she lied. “You’ve become quite the fixture in Hertfordshire for a man who professed such urgent business at Pemberley.”
His expression tilted towards amusement. “My steward is not best pleased with me. But he has managed without me this long. A few more days will do no harm. I found myself quite unable to leave.”
They walked together, the path narrowing around them, hedges on one side and golden fields on the other. For a while, neither of them spoke.
“It’s odd,” Mr Darcy said eventually. “The sea taught me something I hadn’t expected about how little control we truly have.”
Elizabeth glanced at him, his words capturing her. “And yet you always seem so certain.”
“I rarely am,” he said, without hesitation. “Not anymore.”
They came to a stop beneath a tall oak tree, the light filtering through its branches in dapples across the earth. Elizabeth raised her face to the breeze, closing her eyes for a moment and soaking it in.
When she opened them, Mr Darcy was watching her.
“There’s something I wish to say,” he said quietly.
She met his gaze, and her heart gave a small, startled leap.
He took a breath, his hands folding behind his back, then unfurling again. “You once told me that I spoke only of my feelings and with no regard for yours. That I allowed my pride to shape every word.”
Elizabeth’s breath caught. She had indeed said those things, and she’d meant them at the time.
“I have thought of that moment often,” he continued, not quite able to meet her gaze. “And I see now how right you were. I see how much I needed to change, not just to earn your regard, but to become the kind of man I wished to be.”
She said nothing. Her heart beat so loudly she was sure he could hear it.
He took another step towards her, looking directly at her now. “I ask you again, not out of pride or obligation, not from hope or desperation, but because I love you. I love you wholly and without condition. If your feelings are still what they were, then tell me, and I shall ask no more. But if they are changed—if they have grown—then, Elizabeth, please say you will marry me.”
Elizabeth stared at him. For a moment, all she could do was feel. Her hands trembled, her heart stammered in her chest, and her breath caught on the edge of a laugh and something dangerously close to tears.
She had imagined this moment before—once with anger, once with disbelief, once with a weary kind of sorrow. But never like this. Never with joy blooming in her chest so quickly she could scarcely hold it.
“You love me,” she repeated softly, almost to herself.
He looked pained, cautious, but also open. “I do.”
Her smile came slowly, but it was radiant when it arrived. “Then you are more foolish than I thought.”
His brows lifted in confusion, but she stepped closer, her voice lowering.
“Because I love you too. And I cannot think what took us both so long.”
The relief that broke across his face was so profound, so full, that Elizabeth could not help but laugh. He took her hand at once, as though afraid she might vanish if he did not, and she let him, feeling her fingers fit against his like something long overdue.
“Is that a yes?” he asked, voice rough with emotion.
“Yes,” she whispered. Then louder, surer, she cried, “Yes. A thousand times yes.”
Mr Darcy looked as though he might kiss her, then thought better of it and pressed her hand to his lips instead. It was almost more than she could bear.
Eventually, she laughed again. “We shall have to return to Longbourn.”
“Must we?” he asked, only half joking.
“My mother will think I’ve fallen in a stream. Or worse, run off with a tinker.”
He chuckled at that and offered her his arm. “Then let us return and break the news gently.”
They walked back the way they’d come, the world somehow transformed. Everything looked the same—fields, hedgerows, that familiar gravel driveway—but it all felt different, lit from within by something new.
Elizabeth’s hand remained tucked in Mr Darcy’s arm the entire way. When they reached the house, they found Mr Bingley on the front steps, coatless and smiling in the golden afternoon light. He looked up and froze as they approached. His eyes darted from Elizabeth’s flushed cheeks to the rare softness in Mr Darcy’s expression. Elizabeth gave him a bright, knowing look.
“Well,” Mr Bingley said, folding his arms. “You look very pleased with yourselves.”
Mr Darcy gave a small cough, clearly embarrassed, which only endeared him to Elizabeth even further.
“It seems we have news,” she said.
“Oh?” Mr Bingley said, eyes twinkling.
“We are engaged,” Mr Darcy said. And it really was as simple as that. They were engaged.
There was a moment of stunned silence before Mr Bingley laughed, a sound so full of joy and astonishment that Elizabeth had to join him. He stepped forward at once, clapping his friend on the shoulder and pulling Elizabeth into an uncharacteristically exuberant hug.
“You hopeless pair,” he said. “I should never have doubted it. Jane will be beside herself with happiness.”
As if summoned, the front door flew open, and Mrs Bennet’s voice shrilled through the entryway. “Did I hear something about an engagement? What engagement? Whose engagement?”
Elizabeth exchanged a look with Mr Darcy, equal parts amusement and dread. “Brace yourself,” she murmured.
He smiled down at her, that slow, rare smile that always made her breath catch. “I’m ready.”
And together, hand in hand, they stepped inside.