Page 32 of Her Affections and Wishes

Her eyes shone with interest. “It is a beautiful piece, but how does one move it to the bookcases?”

Darcy bent down to see the casters had been removed. “You could only push this heavy table a little way. I suppose no one reads much here.”

“I am not surprised,” she muttered. “I am fascinated by the table but upon the whole”—she gestured around her—“well, this is a…an interesting room.”

“It is ostentatious,” he insisted, “and has very few books.”

She sighed in relief at their agreement. “It is awful, just like the rest of the house. Every surface, niche, and shelf has some ornament on it. It is no wonder that vase above the stairs fell.”

The library, like most of the rooms, was ornamented with a profusion of gilding, from the painted ceiling to the carved chimney-piece to the bookcases. One could not outstretch their arms without touching a vase or a sculpture or gilt panelling. “I think it is the tawdriest house in the universe. Tessier says that in the sixties its owner laid out thirty-five thousand pounds in making Woodcote like this. But when his father bought it, the owner sold it for twenty-three. All was to have gone together, furniture, statues, books, china, pictures—few of which are good. But his mother thinks it is beautiful.”

“I know little about art and architecture, but I well know the difference between finery and elegance.” She looked round the room as he put the table to rights. “But it is a good enough room to use to avoid the others.”

Her tone struck him, and he wondered how deeply Julia’s rudeness at dinner about her being single distressed her. It had taken all his strength not to silence her by admitting he had been dying to marry Elizabeth. He dared not hope she was jealous of the way Julia recklessly threw herself at him.

“Has Miss Metcalfe been unkind to you?”

“We all have trials to bear,” she said evasively. “I keep my silence when she mentions how grateful I must be to be amongst grand people with the hope of finding a man to take me.”

“Do not let Miss Metcalfe’s spitefulness concern you. She may feign surprise at your not being married, but it does not surprise me. You have unparalleled principles and should compromise for no one. And your mind, being endowed so far beyond most men’s, would overpower many of them. You were kind not to give her the set down she deserves.”

She had been standing by the metamorphic table and now paced a few nervous steps. He had embarrassed her, but he could not let his admiration for her go unspoken, certainly not after kissing her so thoroughly an hour ago.

“Well, this is what we do,” she stammered. “We are polite. We sit with those we despise and do not make a spectacle. Like when you saw Mr Wickham in Meryton.”

“It is frowned upon to shoot people in the street, no matter if they deserve it.”

She laughed. “I agree. In fact,” she added softly, “I think your disposition touches with mine in more points of sympathy than I ever before realised. We get along better now than we ever did.”

Hope was a strange thing. Two days ago, he hardly dared to hope that Elizabeth did not hate him. Yesterday, he scarcely hoped that she wanted to kiss him in a parlour game. Today, he hoped she might come to love him.

And now he had the pleasing hope that she already loved him back.

“We both misunderstood a great deal,” he said carefully, “about each other and ourselves.”

“I am still ashamed I snapped a judgment.”

“I made it easy for you to judge me poorly.” His heart pounded fiercely, but he could not stand another day without knowing what her feelings were. He took a few steps nearer. “How do you judge me now?”

It was forward of him, as forward as impulsively kissing her or saying that he admired her eyes. But she was not the sort to toy with him. He had to know if his hopes were real or the imagined yearnings of a heartbroken man. If his kiss had been unwanted, she would tell him she regretted it and dismiss him.

He watched her carefully consider her answer. “I once thought you were not a man who could respect me, someone I could never have affection for. And I would not offer my affections to anyone whom I was not confident would hold me in a high place in his esteem. Now, I think very favourably of you, Darcy.”

He wanted to render all the devotion he held in his heart, so he simply had to ask. “Are your feelings for me still what they were last month?”

Her pretty lips blew out a breath, then she said, “Not at all. I shall always retain a grateful regard for the esteem you honoured me with, assuming”—her voice caught—“assuming your affections and wishes are unchanged.”

“I am ever constant,” he said in a rush, “but you err in calling what I feel for you ‘esteem.’ It is not merely regard or approval or even respect.”

She avoided his gaze, and he hoped she was eager to hear of his tender sentiments. He took her silence as at least a willingness to hear him, but he had been disappointed before.

“Elizabeth, I have an unalterable attachment to you. I have always loved you, with a faithful, honest, noble, generous passion. If you accept my love, I shall be supremely blessed. Will you marry me?”

He watched her cheeks redden, and she trembled. But, raising her head, she cast a look of ineffable tenderness on him and whispered, “Yes.” She gave a delighted smile. “I am so glad we met here and I could be restored to your good opinion.”

The strong emotions of his delighted soul made him grasp her hands. “Your agreement does not restore you to the empire over my heart, for you always had a claim over me whether you knew it or not, whether you loved me or not. And all I have wished for and aimed at is the possession of your heart in return—if I could ever endeavour to earn it,” he insisted. “Your reproofs at Hunsford made a deep impression on me.”

She curled her fingers around his. “I was far from expecting them to make so strong an impression. I had not the smallest idea of their being ever felt in such a way.”