Darcy sighed. “They have constructed a fiction in which I have been secretly in love with you for years, wasting away in London while nursing my hopeless devotion. The fact that we met last Michaelmas has not deterred them in the slightest.”
“How terribly dramatic of you. I had no idea you were such a romantic figure.” Elizabeth’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “Though I must say, for a man supposedly consumed by years of secret longing, you hide it remarkably well. Not a single declaration. Not even a dramatic sigh.”
“I am known for my restraint.”
“So I am beginning to understand. I expected at least one midnight confession by now, or perhaps a rain-soaked declaration of eternal devotion. The heroines in novels always seem to get those.”
“Perhaps Derbyshire will oblige with rain later. I cannot promise midnight confessions, but I am told my brooding silences are quite effective.”
She laughed—a real laugh, open and unguarded—and the tightness in Darcy’s chest eased. This was the Elizabeth he had glimpsed at the Meryton assembly when she had believed herself unobserved among her friends. Witty, warm, entirely herself, with a laugh that belonged to a woman who had not yet learned to be careful.
“The day is young.” The words escaped before he could stop them. Elizabeth glanced at him sharply, and he saw something flicker in her eyes—surprise, perhaps, or something warmer. Then she looked away, and the moment passed.
Clouds gathered once they emerged on the far side of Lambton, where the road curved back toward Pemberley through rolling fields dotted with sheep. And then, as they passed over the bridge, the sky, which had been merely threatening all morning, began to make good on its promises—first a scatter of fat drops, then a quickening patter, culminating with sheets of rain all in a matter of minutes.
“There’s a hay barn up this way,” Darcy said. “We can shelter there until the worst is passed.”
He urged the horses into a steady canter, worrying that Elizabeth might slip from the side saddle as her bonnet collapsed and her curls became soaked through. The barn was a solid stone structure at the edge of the north fields, used for storing winter feed, and the heavens truly opened as they made it through the wide doors into the dim, sweet-smelling interior.
Elizabeth laughed, breathless and dripping, water streaming down her face. “Good heavens. Does Derbyshire always make such emphatic statements?”
“Only when it wishes to welcome its newest bride.” Darcy shook water from his coat, leading the horses to the far endwhere they could shelter properly. “I did warn you about the weather.”
“You warned me about toads and pheasants. Weather was not mentioned.” She wrung water from her bonnet ribbons, surveying the damage with rueful amusement. “I believe my riding habit has taken mortal offense. It may never speak to me again.”
“I shall write to the modiste and explain the circumstances. Perhaps she will grant clemency.”
“You are very good.” Elizabeth moved to the wide doorway, watching the rain sheet down. “How long do these squalls typically last?”
“Minutes or hours. There is no predicting.”
“Then we shall have to entertain ourselves.” She turned to face him, water still dripping from the curl at her temple. In the grey light, her eyes seemed darker, her expression harder to read. “Unless you find my company too tedious for extended confinement.”
“Your company,” Darcy said carefully, “is the very opposite of tedious.”
She shot him an arch look tempered with a smile and turned back to the rain. The silence between them, rather than being empty, seemed filled with everything they had yet to say.
“May I ask you something?” The words came before he could think better of them.
Elizabeth glanced back at him. “You may ask, but I reserve the right to deflect with wit and misdirection.”
“A fair bargain.” He paused, searching for the right words. “The romance the county has invented for us—the secret love, the dramatic passion. Do you find it… absurd or insulting, perhaps?”
“Absurd, certainly. The timeline alone defies logic.” Her mouth curved. “Though I confess I find it more amusing thaninsulting. The county possesses a most fertile imagination, if not a particularly keen regard for the truth.”
“But you did not have that. A true courtship and romance.” He heard the roughness in his own voice and did not know how to smooth it. “You had a proposal in your father’s study and a wedding arranged in haste. No declarations and no… no gestures.”
Elizabeth was quiet for a moment, and when she spoke, her voice was lighter than the words warranted. “Are you asking whether I feel cheated, Mr. Darcy?”
“I only wonder what you would have wanted. Before… before circumstances made other considerations more pressing.”
The rain drummed on the roof, and Elizabeth turned fully to face him. She looked up at the rafters, pensive.
“What every girl wants, I suppose: a man who saw me—truly saw me, not the second-prettiest Bennet sister or the one with the sharp tongue. Someone who made me laugh and challenged me, who chose me for myself and not for my dowry or willingness to manage his household.” A ghost of a smile touched her lips. “Grand dreams for a country squire’s daughter with four thousand pounds divided five ways. I was always more practical than romantic, Mr. Darcy, even before it became a necessity.”
“And now?”
She tilted her head, considering. “My family is secure. Jane’s letter arrived yesterday—my father is responding to the treatments. The cough is less wet, less strained. He sleeps through the night now, which he has not done in months. And the roof repairs at Longbourn are finally underway, after years of my mother’s complaints falling on deaf ears.” She paused. “You have given me that—the ability to help them without sacrificing my sisters’ futures or my own dignity. I am… satisfied.”
