“I am quite good at guessing. What else?”
“He went to great lengths to provide for his sister’s happiness by arranging for her to have a friend.”
“Only after he made many dreadful mistakes with regard to her.”
“She told me.”
“What? Everything?”
“Hmm. Her loneliness at that fashionable boarding school and Mrs Younge’s insinuation into her life, and well…you know the rest. She even wept a little for having disappointed you and made such a fool of herself over a fortune hunter.”
“My word, she must trust you a great deal to have sharedthatsecret. I am glad of it.” We continued in silence for some way, and seeking to steer us towards another, more pleasant subject, I said, “But wait. Were we not speaking of some stupid farmer in Derbyshire?”
She stopped so abruptly that I wheeled to face her out of concern. In a voice that quivered with a sudden passion she said, “Enough! I can endure this no longer, Mr Darcy!”
“What have I done?”
“You have made me love you so-sopainfully!” Her chest rose and fell in agitation. “My knees shake when I hear your voice, and when you look at me as though I am the only person in the room, my heart begins to beat so loudly I fear everyone can hear it.”
“Do you not hear mine just now? If I have been cruel to your feelings, you have been equally cruel to mine. You have known them for a very long time. I know you have. It is only very lately that I have ceased to wonder if my declaration would be unwelcome.”
“Not welcome?” she demanded. “How can you be so dense? Do you not know why I begged you not to let the world know you had compromised my reputation?”
This question had thrown me into such a state of confusion, my reply was sadly tentative. “Be-because you did not want to marry me?”
She glared at me. “I did not want your obligation!”
“What did you want?” I asked stupidly.
“Your adoration! Must I say it any?—”
I did not let her say it more plainly. I ripped her hand away from my arm and pulled her roughly into my arms to kiss her more forcefully than I should have. But then again, she was kissing me with a determination to match my own and—Lord, we were in a public park!
Instead of contritely ending our embrace, which I should have done given we were in danger of being seen by half the polite world, I whirled the woman in my arms into the glade on the side of the path, pressed her against a tree, and continued to kiss her.
“Are they gone?” she eventually whispered.
“Our sisters? I should hope so. I have not yet finished confessing my feelings. Your face…” I murmured, kissing her brow, her eyelids, her cheek. “I worship the sight of you.”
“Do you? Why have you waited so long to tell me?”
“I did not want to take a step wrong with you.”
“You have not taken a step wrong since-since I do not know when. If you had paid your addresses to me the day after our arrival in London, I would have accepted them willingly.”
“So soon? What an idiot I am! But you see,” I said, taking her hand to my lips, “I first had to make sure I was worthy of your respect. For until then, what had I ever done to earn it? I have had everything handed to me on a silver salver, yet your dislike of me, which I felt so clearly, taught me I could not have what cannot be bought.Somethings must be earned.”
“Is that why you walked across all of the northern counties?”
“I had to discover for myself my worth and value. I cannot explain it, really, but something in me had to break, and it did. Did you suffer for my hesitation?”
“I cried a great deal,” she said resentfully. And then, as I explored the contours of her collarbone with my fingertips, she murmured, “but I too came to know myself better. I misjudged you terribly.”
I smiled at her with great tenderness. “You did not misjudge me. But go on.”
“Oh, I cannot describe the changes wrought in me. Only I wished to be a lady you could admire, and I havetriedto be less of an irritant.”
“Hush, my little nettle,” I said, stilling the impulse of my wandering hand. “We have found our way through, have we not? Might I speak to your father about settlements?”
