Page 52 of Courting Elizabeth

“You’re sending me away?”

“Before I forget all my good resolutions.”

She stood. Her unbound hair covered her back. At the door, she turned.

“Fitzwilliam?”

“Yes?”

“I didn’t come out of duty.”

“I know.”

“And I didn’t stop because I don’t want you.”

I clenched my hands to keep from going to her.

“I know that too.”

She entered her chamber and closed the door softly.

I remained alone, my body on fire, certain that what she had given me was worth more than a night taken too soon.

Chapter 13

DARCY

The first ball Elizabeth gave at Pemberley made me more nervous than our wedding.

I never told her.

She was to receive nearly eighty people: landowners from the surrounding area, families from Derby, officers on leave, distant cousins, and neighbors—some of whom considered every change in the house a personal affair. All were coming to meet the new Mrs Darcy. Some wished to love her. Others hoped to confirm that a young woman from Hertfordshire, without fortune or illustrious connections, could never belong.

I knew this world. Elizabeth did not.

I knew which ladies would smile while cataloging every fault in her bearing, which men would find her wit charming so long as it was not aimed at them, which mothers had once imagined their own daughters at the head of Pemberley. I also knew that Elizabeth would accept neither pointed advice nor visible protection.

So I spent the morning giving unnecessary orders.

The flowers were moved twice. I checked the lighting in the ballroom, the arrangement of the card tables, and the temperature of the music room. Mrs Reynolds finally regarded me with the patience one reserves for feverish children.

“Everything will be ready, sir.”

“The floor near the doors is slippery.”

“It has been polished as it is every year.”

“Have it checked.”

“Yes, sir.”

Elizabeth appeared in the doorway.

“Should I also be checked?”

I turned.

She still wore a simple day dress. A notebook was tucked under her arm, a lock of hair escaping from her coiffure. Nothing justified the relief I felt upon seeing her.