Mr. Bennet stood in the doorway. “Mrs. Bennet, I have given Mr. Darcy my permission to speak with Lizzy privately. Based on his description of his feelings for her, I advise you not to leave them too long alone.”
Mrs. Bennet rose, curtsied silently to Mr. Darcy, and left the room, with Jane, Kitty and Lydia following close behind her. Mrs. Bennet reached behind Lydia and closed the door.
Elizabeth sat on the sofa, trying not to tremble. Her eyes were on the carpet, threadbare and worn.
“Miss Elizabeth,” he began.
Her eyes remained on the carpet.
“Miss Elizabeth, I will be honest. I have always believed that romantic fancies were for the weak-minded, but I cannot deny the strength of my feelings.”
She did not look up.
His voice hoarse now, he went on. “I have tried and tried to suppress my inclination, but it will not do. I think of you always; I dream about you; I try to imagine a life without you and it looks bleak and miserable. I love you with all my heart and soul, and I beg you – I beg you! – to say that you have feelings for me, that my love has some hope of being returned!”
She raised her eyes to his; they were wet. “Mr. Darcy,” she said. “I do have feelings for you. I have had them for along time, but had no thought of them being returned until Georgiana told me – oh, no, I should not have said that.”
“Georgiana?” Mr. Darcy was baffled.
“She told me…” Elizabeth’s voice dropped to a whisper. “She told me that her brother was in love with me.”
“I shall have words with her,” he said, beginning at last to smile. “But – it made you happy? What she said?”
“Happier than I ever imagined being,” she replied, finally smiling back.
“You will marry me, my Elizabeth?” he whispered.
“I will,” she whispered back.
And though neither of them could ever recall just how it happened, they were in one another’s arms, his lips on hers, her arms curling around his neck.
“Lizzy!” Lydia’s voice interrupted what had been a most wonderful moment. “Oh, Lord!”
They stepped apart from one another, both breathing hard, still staring at one another’s face.
“Lizzy, Mama sent me in.” Lydia was very evidently trying not to laugh aloud.
Elizabeth retreated at once to her sofa, there to hide her head in a pillow, until her mother and the rest of her sisters came in to laugh at her, congratulate Mr. Darcy, and pass around the tea tray.
“You know, Lizzy,” Jane began, once everyone had settled down.
“Jane?”
“If you hurry, you and I could share a wedding day!”
Elizabeth stared at her sister. “Wait; what is today?”
“Charlotte was married just yesterday, Lizzy, so you tell me what day it is, if you can possibly wrap your mind around it,” Jane teased her.
“Charlotte was married on the fourteenth, so today must be the fifteenth of January. So if the banns were called on the eighteenth, the twenty-fifth, and then the first of February – you are right, Jane! We could marry together on the fourth of February! Mr. Darcy?” Elizabeth looked across the room at her betrothed.
“The sooner the better,” he declared.
Chapter Ninety-Five
She said yes!” Georgiana crowed upon seeing her brother’s face later that afternoon.
“She did, yes,” he said. He was unable to stop grinning like a fool
