Page 96 of The Longbourn Bloodline

“What exactly are you inquiring of me?”

“I wish to know the instant when you fell in love with me.” His eyes were warm, teasing, but beneath the lightness she could see the genuine question—the need to know that she had chosen him as deliberately as he had chosen her.

“Ah.” She withdrew her hand from his—slowly, deliberately. “I think I shall make you guess. If you can identify the moment correctly, I shall own it. If you cannot—” She tilted her head, considering. “If you cannot, you must walk into that church knowing you have failed the most important examination of your life.”

“That seems rather high stakes for a guessing game.”

“If you have to guess, then you do not deserve to know, Mr. Darcy.” She licked her lips. “Besides, marriage is rather high stakes. One might think you would have noticed by now.”

Heat kindled in his gaze, that spark of competitive intelligence she had first glimpsed across the card table at Lucas Lodge—the very look he wore when she bested him at Commerce, taking his pocket full of sixpences.

“The tenant walk,” he hazarded. “The afternoon I tumbled into the drainage ditch.”

“I experienced a profound, unchristian delight in your misfortune. That is not love, Fitzwilliam; that is simple human malice.”

“When I told you that you did not hate me? When you said you did, and I said—somewhat insufferably, I will admit—that you did not?”

“You were insufferably certain of yourself.” Elizabeth’s mouth curved. “And you winked. I wanted to slap you and kiss you in equal measure. That is attraction, sir. Not even close to love.”

“Perhaps when we rescued the rabbit?” he pressed. “You named him Henry and kept him in your bootroom.”

Elizabeth felt her eyes roll. “Kindness to small creatures is a virtue, Mr. Darcy, but not the sustenance of love.”

He absorbed this with a slight inclination of his chin. “The evening I kissed your hand. After you played the pianoforte, and you said I should ask you to play more often.”

She could feel her heart soften. He really looked so boyishly eager to know. “That evening I stopped pretending I was indifferent to you.” She met his eyes steadily. “It is not the same thing.”

“You are a formidable opponent.”

“You quite mistake the matter, sir,” Elizabeth murmured, her gaze dropping to his lapel before rising with a slow, wicked smile. “I was never your opponent. I was merely the only person in the room who refused to let you be dull. Though I admit, I am remarkably daunting when I set my mind to making you lose your composure.”

Darcy’s brow furrowed, his composure clearly too lost to be found. But he would not retreat.

“The evening I offered to change the entail. When I gave you Longbourn without condition.”

Elizabeth felt her breath catch. This was the closest he had come—the answer that brushed the truth without quite touching it.

“That was the night I realized you were a good man,” she said softly. “But I had known good men before. My father is a good man. And goodness, Fitzwilliam, is a remarkably poor substitute for falling headlong into ruin.”

“Then when?” His voice was almost plaintive. “Elizabeth, I have interrogated every hour I can recall, every quarrel, every single time you looked as though you wished to murder me with a teaspoon—tell me before I freeze to this gravel!”

“Oh, no,” Elizabeth laughed, stepping backward. “If the master of Pemberley cannot solve a simple riddle before the church bells ring, I shall simply have to spend the rest of our marriage wondering if you ever truly understood me at all.”

“Lizzy!” Jane’s voice carried across the garden. She appeared in front of them, resplendent in white muslin with a crown of winter jasmine in her hair. “Lizzy, you are meant to be at the altar, not in the shrubbery! And Mr. Darcy, if Mamma discovers you here, she will have you married in your current state, and I do not think that cravat will survive the ceremony.”

Elizabeth giggled at Darcy’s moody look. “You will have to keep guessing, or you will be married to a mystery.”

She slipped from his side and followed Jane back into the house, choosing the servant’s entrance lest her mother decide to recite the vows herself in the scullery.

The Longbourn parish church was small, decidedly cold, and brimming with people—a bitter pill for Mrs. Bennet, who had wept three lace handkerchiefs over their inability to secure St. George’s in London before resigning herself to local infamy.

Half of Meryton had assembled, lured by the spectacle of a double wedding and the irresistible scent of scandal. Lady Catherine’s recent confrontation had furnished the neighborhood with enough gossip to last through Lady Day and perhaps well beyond.

The pews were packed, the gallery crowded. Elizabeth’s eyes found Georgiana at once, seated primly in the front beside Colonel Fitzwilliam and his distinguished family. The Viscount, his elder brother, whose striking looks captivated every unmarried lady present, sat beside a matriarch whose bearing held a chill distinctly reminiscent of Lady Catherine. On their side, a sea of familiar faces filled every space: the Lucases, Mrs. Long, the Philips, the Gardiners, and a host of neighbors, all eager for the ceremony to begin.

She did not trouble herself to look for Caroline or Mrs. Hurst; her attention was claimed by her mother’s shrill voice, crowing with more pride than a late-rising rooster.

“She has been marshaling the entire village since dawn.” Jane adjusted the delicate lace of Elizabeth’s veil. “I firmly believe she considers this her crowning masterpiece.”