She looked slightly confused and breathless. “Which is?”
“I would much rather call you Mrs Darcy in company and Elizabeth in private.”
That got a gasp out of her, and her eyes got big as saucers (quite attractive, if I do say so myself).
She sputtered a bit, but finally settled for, “Say more.”
“Simply put, I admire and love you, and hope to be afforded the privilege of becoming your husband. I know it sounds sudden, but I have thought about it a great deal, and we have known each other for five years. Would you hear me out?”
“I shall insist on it.”
I tugged on her hands to pull her slightly closer, and she came willingly.
“When you were shy of fifteen, I liked you as a child. To be honest, you were a little spitfire, and I enjoyed your company. You were honest, clever, and brave to the point of foolhardiness, but you were not sitting at home whinging about your dismal situation like others might.”
“Others do!” she replied with a frown.
“Absolutely! At sixteen, you were still a child, but less of one. I began to respect and esteem you in a fraternal sort of way. You seemed like the daughter of a good friend, or a niece, or similar. I saw that you would be a woman of worth one day.”
“Do you stand by that?”
“Of course. I can safely assert I have earned all the boasting rights in the world for my prescience. I hit the mark dead centre.”
She laughed gaily and seemed a bit less nervous.
“By the time you were nineteen, there was no longer any dispute that you were a woman—a lady—and quite a beautiful one at that. I liked you quite a lot by then but was not yet aware of something.”
“Which was?”
“I shall come to that. By the time you were twenty, I was nearly desperate to think some lucky man would snatch you away from the best hour of my year.”
“You were more optimistic about my prospects than I was.”
“Perhaps that was why I did not quite realise until after Georgiana’s rescue that I was in love with you, I had been forsome time, and if I was very-very good, I might be that lucky man. I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun."
“You are in love with me?” she whispered softly.
“I am, and it is not the work of a moment. I liked you even as a fifteen-year-old hellion. I respected you as the sixteen or seventeen-year-old young lady working tirelessly to rescue her family from her parents’ indolence and foolishness. I admired you as an eighteen-year-old beauty who would be breaking hearts if she grew up just a bit more and could be placed in better company. There was even a time I considered helping make that happen.”
“What happened to those thoughts?” she asked nervously, as if it was still something worth considering.
“I got greedy. Oh, you can be assured that if you cannot come to love me as I love you that I will arrange it, but I have been a selfish being all my life, and on this most important task, I must give it my best effort.”
She seemed stunned, so I let her think about it a minute before continuing, “You deserve a love match, Elizabeth. If you can love me, I will gladly offer you that; if not, I will help you find one. You deserve the world.”
By that time, I was as nervous as Mrs Bennet was reputed to be.
“I know this is very abrupt, even by our standards, and I am happy to give you a proper courtship for as long as it takes for you to come to know me well enough to decide rationally. We have always been honest with each other and now would be the wrong time to prevaricate. That is why I act now, as precipitous as it may seem. To have the ambition and remain silent would be dishonest.”
She nodded, and I could tell she was thinking furiously; none could blame her.
She finally looked me full in the eye. “Can I give you an answer in the form of a history.”
“Of course.”
“When I was fifteen, I thought you a proud and arrogant man, but wealthy and useful for my purposes. I was, as you so accurately portrayed, a bit of a hellion then.”
“Your assessment was not wrong. You have helped smooth out my rougher edges. I suspect that without your influence, you would call me a proud and arrogant man today! I honestly believe I would be looking for the kind of society lady my parents taught me to seek. Stepping out of my life for a few hours a year, plus taking advantage of your excellent advice on at least two occasions, taught me to see the world differently. It expanded my horizons. I am not the man I was—I am more.”
