Page 136 of Faceless

“Sit down,” she said at last, and her voice was almost ordinary again. “Standing at the fire scowling does not improve the topology.”

“I am not scowling.”

“You are about to scowl. I am intervening. Sit down.”

He sat down on her sofa because she had told him to. She sat beside him, and Falstaff arranged himself across their feet with the solemnity of a creature attending to important business, and Darcy laid his head back against the cushion and closed his eyes for a moment. He could feel her shoulder against his. It was the only thing in the room that was not entirely awful.

“Fitzwilliam?”

“Mm.”

“I know you have been counting.”

He opened his eyes.

She was not looking at him. She was looking at Falstaff’s ear, where she had taken hold of it. Her voice had gone slightly lower.

“Counting what?”

“You know what.”

“I might. I might be hoping you would name it.”

“I am late.”

His hand found hers between them on the sofa without his quite directing it to. “How late?”

“Enough that I should have spoken yesterday. Perhaps last week. I had not — I wanted to be more certain than I yet am, and I did not want to add to… everything else… until I was. You may say something now.”

He could not, for the moment, say anything. Several things were happening in him at once, and none of them had assembled into language yet. He brought her hand up and pressed it against his mouth instead, and held it there, and did not let it go.

“Fitzwilliam, you are crushing my fingers.”

He slackened his grip at once. “I am sorry.”

“I am not asking you to stop. I am only reporting.”

He laughed once into her hand. It came out unsteady. She turned her hand in his and laid her palm against his cheek and held it there.

“I had not meant to tell you on a Tuesday after a burning letter.”

“It is a better Tuesday than it was five minutes ago.”

“Is it?”

“Considerably.”

She let out a breath that was almost a laugh, and her hand on his cheek stayed. He turned his face into it.

“You understand,” he said, against her palm, “that I do not know whether to shout for joy or put you on the next ship for Amsterdam. It may be the only thing that saves you. It may also —”

“I have been thinking of it for a week, Fitzwilliam. I have got there ahead of you. We can have that conversation tomorrow. Today, I would rather you simply be pleased for a moment, if you can manage it.”

He could manage it. He found, to his considerable surprise, that he could manage it. The rest of what was true would still be true tomorrow.

“I am pleased,” he said. “Elizabeth, I am — I am beyond what I can say to you at this moment. You’ve no idea how many times I hoped… what it means to… Good Lord, I cannot even think of the words! Give me until supper.”

She was quiet for a long moment. “Very well,” she said. “Then let us talk about something else.”