Page 62 of Yearning

“So, then, is there any chance that you will not send me away and you will not marry my cousin?”

“I don’t see why I have to marry anyone,” said Elizabeth. “I am a widow now, and I have this very nice dower house, and if I get married, I have to give it up.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Darcy in a different voice. “Well, I suppose I see what you are saying.”

She eyed him. “Were you here to propose again?”

“I…” He shook his head. “No, I have long ago made peace with the idea I would not marry, and it is not anything I need. Whatever you will give me is all I want. And I know I don’t deserve anything. You would be well within your rights to throw me from the house and never speak to me again.”

“I would indeed,” she said. “And do not forget that.”

ELIZABETH ASKED HIM where he was staying. He had seemingly not made arrangements, because he had been utterly convinced that she would turn him out and he would be heading back to London that evening. He said that perhaps he had thought he would put a curse on the entire enterprise if he had made too many arrangements.

She said he should stay with her.

He said he absolutely could not do that. It was the height of impropriety. People would talk.

She said that it was unlikely anyone would know. The new baron and his wife were in London, because they were having all manner of things done to the main house. They were in the process of tearing down the ballroom and replacing it. They would not be in residence there in a while, she did not think.

Her servants here at the dower house were all her most trustworthy and loyal. If she did not wish them to speak, they would not.

And anyway, she was a widow, and he was practically a eunuch, and she did not think there was much to the scandal, anyway.

“We shall say that we are old friends,” she said. “We shall say that we think of each other like brother and sister.”

“Definitely not,” he said. “And why did Richard say that anyway?”

They were walking at this point. It was early autumn. The air was still warm, but the trees were starting to change colors. She had not been on a walk like this with him in some time, and it made her think of when they were still young and the world had been full of promise and he had declined to keep kissing her because he would not be able to stop himself.

He was walking again.

She could look up at him, and there was his handsome, slightly crooked, face. Her heart felt like a thing with wings, even if she could not really believe that he was here, that he had simply surrendered to it all. After all this time, could they really be together?

“I have no notion why Richard said that,” she said now. “I do not even understand the context.”

“He said that he began to feel as if he was in bed with his sister, and that he stopped, and that he did not…” Mr. Darcy turned a shade of red. “Well, that there were reasons he thought it was unlikely he was the father of the babe.”

“Yes,” she said. “I do not know how it happened. Some kind of awful bit of luck, I suppose. I spoke to one of my maids and she says it can happen sometimes. That things weep out of the head of a man, which I suppose I have noticed, and that sometimes it has seed in it.”

“That would make sense,” said Mr. Darcy, as if he had not put that together entirely.

“And here we are,” she said. “I am not… oh, perhaps I should be, because everything is so topsy-turvy, but I always did want another babe, so I have been rather pleased about it.”

“Good,” said Mr. Darcy. “And I am a bit pleased as well. So, we shall simply leave it at that.”

“You are not angry with me?”

“Would I have any right to be?”

“Well, no, obviously, no, but it seems rather remarkable of you, just the same.”

“I am jealous,” he said. “I am fiercely envious. But I have told you about my envy before. It is constant. And I have achieved so much since we last saw each other, so it is a bit of a balm, I suppose. And you have not cast me out, so… overall, I am simply grateful.”

She cast a sidelong glance at him. This man. This man who once seemed so very arrogant to her, how he had been brought low. And yet now, he had a certain quiet dignity and a kind of ease with the world—come what may, he was steady. She respected that about him, admired him in a way she had not before. It was good. She moved closer, rubbing her shoulder against his. “Your apologies are simply terrible, but your overall attitude is admirable, I think.”

“Is it?”

“It is because you have met your suffering, been to the very depths, and pulled yourself back from the brink, I think.”