Page 39 of A Prudent Engagement

His gaze flickered down to her lips and back to her eyes, then he dipped his head and softly kissed her.

Elizabeth leaned forward to meet his kiss, placing her hand on the lapel of his coat to steady herself.

When they parted again, Darcy found himself smiling wider than he could ever recall.

He was going to marry Elizabeth!

She smiled back at him, but there was more uncertainty in the smile, as though she was almost confused. She pressed her fingers against her lips.

He took her arm, and they walked around the garden for a little while. “What do you wish?” he asked. “I mean—there must be respect shown for your father. But while the celebration must be quiet to show that respect, I want to have the complete right to care for you and the welfare of your family as soon as I might. You surely desire to have their positions and care specified in the marriage settlement. Given your family’s circumstances, if there is no celebration beyond a quiet ceremony, it would still be wholly respectable if we were to marry as soon as the banns can be read. But what do you wish?”

“For when we shall marry?” Elizabeth echoed back.

“Yes—oh, but I—my mind is so full. I am whirling with eagerness for the future, and—”

He turned her towards him again and looked at her, and she looked back at him with that same wide-eyed expression. He ached with joy—she was to be his! He kissed her once again—more firmly than the first time.

Elizabeth’s lips moved with his, and she closed her eyes and sighed.

When their lips parted, Darcy said, “I do not wish to wait longer than we must—but the eagerness of the groom is proverbial. I shall not press you further than you would like to go, nor faster. If you wish to wait until the three months of deep mourning have ended, or even longer, I shall still be happy to know that at the end of that time you will be my wife. My chief goal is to see you happy and well cared for—I had a thought,” he interrupted himself. “As Mr. Collins intends to rent out Longbourn House, I might let it for your family. Your mother and sisters would not need to lose their home.”

Rather than the delight that Darcy had expected to see from Elizabeth at this suggestion, she looked stunned. Her mouth hung open. She did not say anything.

“Do you like this notion?”

“I—I must.” Elizabeth shook herself, as though she were trying to escape from some dream. “I had no thoughts—I had not thought that at all—but, yes, you can simply do that. I suppose that is what it means. I had been so full of thoughts about everything… But yes, I suppose that would be best—but we must ask Mama. Perhaps she will not wish to be so close to the memories? Is that not excessively extravagant?”

“No,” Darcy replied. “Not so much. It would be somewhat more expensive than other choices for housing your family, but not so expensive.”

“I do not want you to spend so much—more than you must. But I am ridiculous when I say that. I am wholly ridiculous.” She looked at him with a bright smile. “I suddenly suspect that you imagine that it might be a little tiresome to be in too close proximity to my mother—I only suggest this because I confess that I do not think that I would like her to always be a five-minute walk away. At least not when we are first married.”

Darcy flushed. “I do not mean to—I intend to show every respect to her.”

“Aha, we are of one mind in this.”

Elizabeth’s expression made Darcy laugh.

“Though Mama has been different from how I expected,” Elizabeth added with a small shrug. “Since Papa died, she has been more sensible and more—she did not curse me for not having married Mr. Collins, as I had feared that she would. Papa and Mama often seemed so separate, as though they did not understand each other. I was surprised by how much grief Mama showed at his death.”

“I am not. They lived together for many years.”

“Yes, yes. You are right—but poor Papa. And I have said something ill about my family.”

“You have not.” He continued cautiously, “I imagine that there is much about every family that can only be seen as unwanted and unpleasant by a stranger. I confess that I always saw much to dislike in the behaviour and opinions of your mother. But it does not surprise me at all that she shows true grief, or that the loss of a person close to her could startle her into being more sensible than she usually is, at least for a time. Your father’s death made me see matters differently as well.”

“What do you mean?”

Darcy felt a little reluctance to speak since he did not wish to pain Elizabeth.

Yet, at the same time, she must know—she was intelligent and perceptive—that he had hesitated before offering for her, and that his reasons for hesitation were natural and just.

“For some time I was not certain whether I wished to marry you,” Darcy said slowly. “While shortly after we met I began to develop an attachment to your person and your mind, the inferior situation of your family, and the occasional…”

What were the precise words that would make the point he wished to convey in a way that would be honest, true to how he understood Mrs. Bennet and Elizabeth’s younger sisters, but yet cut Elizabeth as little as possible.

She grimaced.

He wondered whether she knew what he would say, and that was why the subject made her unhappy.