“I’m familiar with the sensation.”
Elizabeth settled herself into the chair opposite, tucking her feet beneath her with that easy grace of hers. In the lamplight, with her hair tumbling loose around her shoulders, she looked impossibly young and completely at home.
“You’re wearing the scarf,” she said, and there was something tentative in her voice that made Darcy’s chest tighten.
“It’s very warm,” he said, which was true, if not the whole truth.
“It’s dreadful,” Elizabeth said with a laugh. “I can’t believe you’re being so polite about it. The stitches are all wrong on that one row, and the ends are different widths.”
“It’s not dreadful.” The words came out more forcefully than he’d intended. “I love it.”
Elizabeth’s expression softened. “You do?”
“You learned to knit for me.” Darcy found himself leaning forward, the words tumbling out before he could stop them. “Do you have any idea how extraordinary that is? I can’t remember the last time anyone took that level of trouble over me.”
“Well,” Elizabeth said, colour rising in her cheeks, “you’re rather worth taking trouble over.”
The silence that followed was charged with something Darcy couldn’t quite name. He was acutely aware of every detail. The way Elizabeth was worrying her lower lip between her teeth, the smell of mulled wine, the faint crackle of the dying fire in the grate.
“I’ve been sitting here for the better part of an hour,” Darcy said, “trying to work out what’s wrong with me.”
“Wrong with you?”
“Today was perfect. And yet I feel . . .” He gestured helplessly. “Unsettled. As though I’m waiting for something to go wrong.”
Elizabeth was quiet for a moment, studying him with those dark, perceptive eyes. “Perhaps,” she said, “you’re not waiting for something to go wrong. Perhaps you’re waiting for something to go right.”
Before Darcy could ask what she meant by that, Elizabeth had risen from her chair and was crossing to where he sat. She perched on the arm of his chair, close enough that he could smell the faint scent of coconut from her shampoo.
“What are you doing?” he asked, though he made no move to pull away.
“Investigating,” she said. “I have a theory about your problem.”
“Do you indeed?”
“Mmm.” Elizabeth reached out and began fussing with his scarf, straightening the uneven edges with careful fingers. “I think you’re so usedto managing everyone and everything that you’ve forgotten how to let yourself have nice things without waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
Her hands had stilled against his chest, and Darcy found himself holding his breath.
“And what,” he managed, “do you propose to test this theory of yours?”
Elizabeth’s smile was soft and mischievous all at once. “Well, for starters, I’m going to sit right here until you stop looking like a man expecting imminent disaster. And then—” She glanced up at the ceiling, where a sprig of mistletoe hung from the old light fixture, one of Georgiana’s additions to the decorating scheme.
“Oh,” Darcy said.
“Oh indeed.” Elizabeth’s eyes were dancing now. “I can’t believe you didn’t see it earlier. Rather convenient, don’t you think?”
“Terribly convenient,” Darcy agreed, his voice coming out rougher than intended.
“Of course I wouldn’t want to presume anything. If you’d rather not—”
But Darcy had reached up to cup her face in his hands, cutting off her words with a kiss that made everything else in the world fall away. Elizabeth made a soft sound of surprise that quickly melted into something warmer, her hands fisting in the front of his jumper as she kissed him back with a sweetness that made his head spin.
When they finally broke apart, Elizabeth was smiling that radiant smile that never failed to make Darcy’s heart skip.
“Better?” she asked.
“Much,” Darcy said, and meant it. The restless anxiety that had been gnawing at him all evening had vanished, replaced by something warm and certain and entirely right. “I think Georgiana hung that mistletoe.”
