Page 69 of Elizabeth Bennet and the Scottish Laird

At last, her teeth ceased their chattering, and her hands grew steady enough to set down the cup without rattling it against the table. She drew a long breath, reached into the pocket of her mud-stained habit, and withdrew the folded packet, creased and worn at the edges.

“I received your letter,” she said, and though her voice was hoarse, it held a quality that made Darcy's breath catch.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your letter.” She held it up, and he recognised his own handwriting on the direction, the bold strokes he had laboured over for hours whilst trying to find words that might convince her to meet him. “The one you sent asking me to come to you at the pond.”

Inside him, confusion warred with something that felt dangerously close to hope. “But you did not come. I waited until well past midnight, and you never appeared.”

“Because I never received it.” Elizabeth's eyes met his, and he saw tears gathering there, bright in the firelight. “The imposter intercepted it before it could reach me, and he kept it hidden until he placed it in my hands, two days since, just before departing Longbourn forever. It has taken me two days to find the courage, Mr Darcy, because I could not bear another moment of you believing I had rejected you once more.”

The room seemed to shift beneath Darcy's feet as he absorbed her words. All those hours in the freezing darkness, stamping his feet to keep warm and straining his eyes for any glimpse of her figure on the path. All those days afterward at Pemberley, nursing wounded pride and shattered hopes, certain she had read his confession and found it beneath notice. And all the while she had been unaware of any letter, whilst he stood alone in the cold.

“Is this why you rode all the way here in such conditions?” His voice emerged quieter than intended, rough with emotions he could not contain. “To tell me you received the letter?”

Elizabeth held his gaze without flinching. “I did not want you to think I did not care for you, Mr Darcy.” She paused, and when she continued, her voice had steadied into something fierce and certain. “Because I care very much indeed.”

From the corner of his eye, Darcy caught Bingley's grin spreading across his face, but he could not spare his friend any attention.

“Do you?”

“Yes.” Elizabeth set down her cup and rose from her chair, crossing the distance between them until she stood close enough that he could see firelight dancing in her dark eyes. “Not because you helped unmask Mr McLeod, though I am grateful for that service to my family. Not because you have proved yourself a man of honour, though you have done so many times over. But because beneath all that reserve, you possess the kindest heart of any man I have ever known, and I have come to understand that when you care for someone, you will labour for their happiness without ever seeking recognition.”

She met his eyes and did not look away.

“I know that whatever trials may come, I can place my trust in you without fear of disappointment. I know you will stand beside me through every difficulty, and I know your constancy, once given, will never waver.” Her voice softened. “If I had received your letter when you sent it, I would have come to that pond without hesitation, and I would have told you then what I am telling you now.”

Darcy found that every speech he had rehearsed during those bleak weeks at Pemberley had fled his mind entirely, leaving nothing but the overwhelming truth of what he felt for this woman who had ridden through mud and ice simply to tell him she cared.

“Elizabeth.” Her Christian name fell from his lips unbidden, and he saw her eyes widen at the intimacy. “I have loved you since I scarcely know when. Since that morning you walked three miles through mud to tend your sister, perhaps, or since the Meryton assembly when you laughed with Miss Lucas and I found I could not look away. I have tried to fight it and reason myself out of it, tried to convince myself that the obstacles between us were insurmountable, and I have failed utterly at every turn.”

He reached out and took her hand, heedless of the mud still clinging to her glove.

“I love you,” he said, for in the end the simplest words were the truest. “I have loved you longer than I knew it was possible to love anyone, and if you will have me, I will spend my remaining days proving myself worthy of such a gift.”

Elizabeth's fingers tightened around his. “Then I shall have you, Mr Darcy. Most gladly and with my whole heart.”

For a moment neither moved, and the only sounds were the crackling fire and the distant tick of the longcase clock. Then Darcy raised her hand to his lips, and when he looked up, she was smiling at him with such warmth that he felt something loosen in his chest that had been bound tight for months.

“There is something I must show you,” he said, releasing her hand with reluctance. “Something I had intended to keep secret until the matter was fully resolved, but I believe you ought to know of it now.”

He crossed to the desk and retrieved a sheaf of papers from beneath the legal documents. When he returned to Elizabeth's side and placed them in her hands, he watched her face as she examined them.

“What is this?”

“I met with Mr Collins in Kent three days since. After considerable negotiation and the application of certain persuasive arguments regarding his future prospects, he agreed to relinquish all future claims to Longbourn in exchange for a substantial settlement — a sum sufficient to purchase a comfortable living elsewhere and secure his prospects independent of the entail. The arrangement required my solicitors and Collins’s to work together, and it is not concluded yet; there are papers still to be drawn up and signed before a magistrate. But Collins has given his word, and I have his written undertaking. The entail cannot simply be extinguished in a morning — the law does not permit it — but with Collins’s cooperation, the property may ultimately be conveyed to a trust that protects your family.”

Elizabeth's lips parted, but no sound emerged.

“The estate will, when the legal process is complete, pass into a trust I intend to establish for your mother. While Longbourn is officially under my name, Mrs Bennet will have the use of Longbourn for her lifetime. Collins will receive his settlement, and your family will be secure.”

“You purchased Longbourn?” Elizabeth stared at the papers as though they might transform into something else. “For my family?”

“I could not bear the thought of your mother and sisters turned out of their home when preventing it lay within my power,” he said quietly. “I have more fortune than I know what to do with, and I can think of no better use for it than securing the happiness of the woman I love.”

Elizabeth opened her mouth to respond, but the sound of wheels upon gravel reached them from outside, wheels travelling at considerable speed. Even in the distance, she could hear the loud screeches of a woman’s voice raised in agitation.

Elizabeth glanced toward the window and sighed, though amusement glimmered in her eyes. “I do not need to look out of that window to identify our visitor. I should recognise the particular timbre of that shrieking anywhere, and I fear you are about to receive a comprehensive introduction to my mother's constitution.”