“If I did not have the highest confidence in Mr. Darcy’s character, I would not risk marriage with him. But my duty to my children must be my chief aim. I thought about this matter over the night, and I am convinced that I never would have trusted myself sufficiently to enter a marriage upon a ‘romantic’ basis.”
She looked at Darcy, wondering how he would take this.
Their eyes met.
His expression was at first serious, but then he smiled at her.
Georgiana said, “Lizzy, you cannot say that—I hope to marry someday. And I hope for it to be romantic. I must believe that one can make a serious mistake in such a matter and still exercise happy and good judgement in the future.”
“I do not denyyou, yourright to trust your own judgement. I only note that when I examine myself, I realize that I do not trustmine—Mr. Darcy, I hope that this profession of my own deficiencies does not leave you witha sense that the ‘prize’ which you have won has less luster than you imagined.”
“Elizabeth, I trust you, and your judgement.”
Something in her stomach fluttered.
“Oh, come now, come. Do not both look at each other in such a manner.” Colonel Fitzwilliam said, “Not till I have absented myself. But Mrs. Wickham, asyouare to marry my cousin, I beg you to not think more highly of his good sense than you ought.”
He grinned at both of them.
“What do you mean by that?” Darcy asked.
“Only that you are an idiot. If you were a clever man, you would marry her because she was a fortune hunter, but as you are not, you shall marry her even though she is not one at all.”
“What?” Elizabeth tilted her head. “I do not think I follow your reasoning.”
Darcy though rolled his eyes. “I do well enough. But he is wrong. And it was badly phrased.”
“If you think I badly phrased what I said, perhaps you misunderstood,” Colonel Fitzwilliam replied. “But the time has come for me to absent myself.” He bowed low to all. Hands were shaken, and he embraced Georgiana, looked at her closely, and then said, “Take care of yourself, and do continue to listen to Mrs. Wickham, especially once she is Mrs. Darcy.”
“Of course,” Georgiana replied.
Colonel Fitzwilliam took Emily for a minute, swung her around several times, and then solemnly and in a most gentlemanlike manner took his leave of little George with a shaken hand.
And then the officer was off, whistling as he walked to the inn yard where Darcy’s carriage stood to take him along the first stage of the journey.
Later that day Georgiana seemed to have a notion that the two of them must wish for some privacy, and so she eagerly took the children off to the beach again, while leaving Elizabeth with Darcy in the too warm drawing room.
It was reasonably proper. The room was open to a full house of awake servants, and they were in any case engaged, but Elizabeth felt a frisson go through her when she found herself alone with Darcy.
She changed his bandage again, and the open portion of his wound was visibly smaller than it had been only two days before, with the scab crusting over on the inside. Just a few more days before it would likely stop leaking anything, but she imagined that there would be some pain from the inner wound for a long time, perhaps forever.
But despite that, Mr. Darcy had wholly given up the use of the laudanum a week prior, stating that he simply did not feel enough discomfort for it to be worth speaking of.
Elizabeth sat near Mr. Darcy, trying to find something to say.
Her heart hammered. She could not look at him, and she knew shemustnot look at his lips. Elizabeth picked up a fine blue painted cup from the tea tray and she turned it around and around in her fingers. She admired the Wedgewood mark on the bottom.
“Elizabeth,” Darcy said.
His low voice drew her attention to him. They looked into each other’s eyes for a seeming eternity, before he looked away. “When would you wish—” his voice cracked, “for us to solemnize the marriage.”
Elizabeth blinked.
“We might marry from this house by common license before we leave Ramsgate. But I do not know…you wished to reconcile with your father, perhaps from your home county. Or…I do not know…”
“My father!” Elizabeth laughed. “I wonder whatheshall think when he hears that instead of hiring out as a nurse, I shall marry again. And quite suddenly.”
She stood and paced. She kept a hold of the cup. Around and around and around. “No, no, no. No. I do not wish to see my father until the deed is done.”
