His gaze dropped for a moment, then returned to her face with a steadiness that made it difficult to look away.
"You stand there," he said, quieter still, "and tell me it signifies nothing, and yet you have not moved from me once."
"I am not afraid of you," she said, though it came out more quickly than she meant.
"I did not say you were."
"Then do not speak as though I ought to be."
"You have refused me," he went on. "I do not mistake that. But I cannot pretend it alters what I feel, nor what has passed between us. You may choose to call it folly if you wish. I do not."
"I do," she said, though the word came slower now.
"You have bewitched me," he said, the words quieter than before, but no less certain. "Body and soul. I do not know how to put that aside as you would have me do."
For a moment she said nothing. Then she drew herself up, gathering what remained of her composure.
"You must recover yourself," she said. "Because I will not answer to it. Not in that way."
He did not look away. "You feel nothing, then."
She hesitated, and she saw it. "I feel enough to know that I ought not," she said, more carefully.
His hands remained where they were for a moment longer, as though he had not yet decided whether to release her. Then, very slightly, he pulled her towards him.
Elizabeth’s breath faltered. He did not kiss her. Instead he wrapped his arms around her, as tenderly as if he thought she might break at the pressure of it. She felt the faint brush of his breath near her temple. He inhaled deeply and the moment stretched in a way that made it difficult to think at all.
For a second she did not move. Then she turned her head, settling into his broad shoulders and feeling the pull of him. The need to press herself against him and lose herself in the solid mass of him was so strong that she wasn’t sure she could move away if her mother, Mrs Makepeace and the local vicar descended on them in this moment.
"You must not," she said, softer now, her voice muffled between them.
He closed his eyes briefly, moving back and bringing his forehead to rest against hers.
"You see," he said, "that we fit together so easily."
There was a faint sound from within the room.
"Lizzy?" Jane’s voice, low with sleep.
Elizabeth stepped back at once, his hands falling away as she moved.
"I am here," she called.
"Goodnight, Miss Elizabeth," he said.
"Goodnight, Mr Darcy."
She went in without looking back.
Chapter Seventeen
Darcy was out before the house had properly woken. A thick mist had rolled in from the sea during the night and settled itself over Lyme with stubborn determination. It swallowed the harbour and reduced the town to damp stone and the occasional indistinct figure emerging unexpectedly from the grey.
He walked without any particular destination in mind, though this was not unusual. Darcy had always walked when troubled. The difference was that he generally preferred to persuade himself there was some practical purpose behind it. This morning there was none. He had asked Elizabeth Bennet to marry him. She had refused. Worse still, she had refused him after a succession of actions which appeared increasingly indefensible the longer he considered them.
The proposal itself had been poorly managed. There was no gentler way of describing it. He had inferred an obligation, acted as a rake, demanding it of her in the middle of the night.Hehad presented himself outside her chamber like the villain in a melodrama and then felt wounded when she refused to receive his declarations with enthusiasm.
Yet even that had not been the worst of it. There had been the field, which became more inappropriate every time he remembered it. Inappropriate and yet so entirely glorious he could not bring himself to regret it.
