Some part of his reason shouted at Darcy: Of course she likes you more. You are the one she chose to spend the morning in this intimate tete a tete with.
The sun gazed merrily down on them. The sky was blue above. The forest leaves were green, and the ground beneath them was warm, the flowers sun-kissed and flowing with nectar.
“I can be a fool, just as well as any other man.” Darcy laughed at himself.
“You mean to say,” Elizabeth replied with her teasing tone, “that you can be a fool just as anordinaryman can be.”
“Am I so pompous?” He grinned.
“You are very pompous. But as I am over impressed with myself, I like to see that we have the same flaw.”
“That is what we all wish to have in a companion. Not someone who is perfect, but someone whose flaws match well to our own.”
“And their virtues!” Elizabeth cried. “There are certain virtues which while admirable in themselves, would be wholly insupportable in a dear companion.”
“Such as? I am used to thinking of a virtue as always being a good thing — that is what makes it avirtue.”
Elizabeth flushed. “Perhaps… too much pride?”
It was impossible for Darcy not to laugh. “Do you mean that as a criticism of me? I believe pride to be written in the list of thesins, notthevirtues.”
“Oh, no! I was not thinking of you at all. Perhaps my cousin Mr. Collins. Humility, pliability, gratitude — all virtues. But taken to such an excess as he does, they become insupportable. Or your aunt, but I ought not speak ofher.”
“Ah! You mean pride once more.”
“And a concern for the wellbeing of others.”
“Expressed by a constant string of instructions. I do wonder what Sir Louis was like, to tolerate such a woman. But perhaps she did not lecturehim.”
They both laughed together, secure in having a similar attitude towards Lady Catherine. Darcy smirked at Elizabeth, and she laughed again.
“And I am so besotted,” he added, “that I perceive your flaws as virtues in any case.”
Elizabeth blushed and she rubbed at her hot cheeks. Her eyes were bright and pleased. And she smiled, but she then looked aside.
Ought he ask her againnow? Was the timenow?
“Elizabeth, would you—”
“Please, not yet. I… let me have more time to accustom myself to the thought.”
It was with an odd mixture of dismay and delight that Darcy received that sentence which seemed to have a promise that while it wasnotyet the time, that this time would likely come.
“That is, I hardly know.” Elizabeth stumbled forward. “Oh! I am like my mother. I am in such a flutter. I’ll never tease her for her nervous habits again.”
“What do you not know?” Darcy’s voice was low, and there was a burr in it. He took her hand and held it close.
She looked down, chewed her lip, and wrinkled her nose in a quite adorable manner.
Seeing a fine tree trunk lying near them, she sat on it, and Darcy sat next to her, a little pleased to be able to sit. His feet were tired, as he’d walked more than an hour looking for her before they met.
At last Elizabeth sighed. “I suppose… I do not wish to be forced to choose between you and Caroline. Were I to be your wife, I cannot imagine that…” Her voice trailed off and she shrugged. “That is what I fear.”
“That I would not permit you to maintain a friendship with a woman who wronged me and whose character I despise.”
Elizabeth looked at him with a rueful smile. “The manner in which you speak of her makes my point.”
Darcy held her gaze for a long moment. He looked down at his finely polished black boots. The ridges of the trunk they sat on pressed into his bottom. He absently broke off a piece of the bark, rubbed it against the trunk, and then tossed it away.
