He stood with his hand on the back of the chair. He looked at his hand for a second as if it were holding something he had not asked it to hold. “Elizabeth. I did not come downto you this morning to tell you about a man on the road. I came to ask you a question. You know which one.”
Her hand made a small movement on the book. “I know.”
“Your sister did not give me the seconds. I do not hold it against her. I tell you now only because I shall not have you suppose I came to you this afternoon in any other character than the one I came in this morning. The question is not different for what has happened in between.”
She flinched, and he hated himself for seeing it and not moderating. Hated himself more for not being able to stop.
“Do not,” she said quietly, “suppose I am insensible to the justice of your reproaches of last night.”
“I suppose no such thing. I suppose you feel them very well and still continue in the course that makes them necessary.”
Elizabeth rose too quickly, forgetting the leg until pain caught and held her by force against the sofa arm. Darcy moved at once. She lifted one hand and stopped him without touching.
“Do not come near me unless you mean to hear what I say rather than what you have already resolved to answer.”
The command, or plea, checked him more effectively than any physical barrier might have done. He stayed where he was, one pace too far from her and therefore aware of every inch. “Speak then.”
She drew breath. “You know what I have done.”
“I know. I do not care about what you have done.”
“Mr Darcy —”
“I have had a night to think on it, Elizabeth, and a morning, and an hour beside the timber in the south field. I do not care about what you have done. I care about something else, and it is what I came in here to find out.”
“What?”
“Whether you will let me into the rest of it. Whether you will trust me to choose this knowing what it is. Whether you will stop being noble about it on my account.”
She had set the book aside. Her hand had gone toward her throat. The fingers had not quite reached the throat; they had stopped a half-inch short of it. “You would be ruined.”
Something like a laugh burst from him. “Ruined! I have not slept. I cannot finish a letter or read one. I went into the south field to see fresh timber and could not see it. Ido not care about being ruined, Elizabeth. I care whether I shall stand in this room in a fortnight’s time having acted in a way that will satisfy my conscience. I will not look back on my actions after hearing what you have said, and then fail to do what I might. That, of all of it, I will not bear. But I need… I need something from you before…”
“You are asking whether you can trust me.”
He opened his mouth, and was dismayed to find himself trembling. “In part.”
She did not look away. “I have told you everything. You can trust that. You should not trust me… not in the way I think you mean.”
For one second he did not understand her. Then he did. She had folded the refusal into the trust line. She had given him the refusal before he had reached the question, so the question could not be asked.
“You cannot do that, Elizabeth. You cannot answer me before I have asked.”
“Sir —”
“I came to ask you to marry me. Not at some hour you have chosen, in a room you have not been waiting in since four. Now. This afternoon. As soon as a special licence can be brought up from London. I had been falling in love with you, Elizabeth, since the second night, when your fever was so high I had to keep my hand on your wrist to feel that it was your wrist still, and you in your sleep took my hand and would not let it go. Some piece of it has stayed with me since. I did not know what it was for some weeks. I have known beyond doubt since you went out of my parlour on a torn leg meaning never to come back to it. I am asking you to marry me. I am asking you to do it within the week.”
She closed her eyes. “Mr Darcy. No.”
The tone was wrong. He heard it as he might have heard a piece of music played at the wrong tempo. “Try that again.”
“No, sir.”
“Once more. With less effort behind it. Make me believe you.”
She opened her eyes. “That is unkind.”
“Yes. I shall be unkind for as long as the unkindness keeps you from a refusal I cannot in any case believe. That was a refusal made of love, Elizabeth. I have been listening to your tones for thirty-odd nights. I know what was in that one. You are not refusing me. You are refusing what you suppose marriage to you will cost me.”
