Page 8 of A Prudent Engagement

It smelled like him, and that was oddly comforting.

In that moment, with her mind wholly clear but wrung out and tired, she acknowledged that Mr. Darcy had been exceedingly kind to her, and she noted that he generally sought her out whenever they were in company, and that she liked that he did so. She even realised, looking at her own opinions like an impartial magistrate might hear the narration of a quarrel between two beggars, that much of the reason she had been so angry with him when he called her merely tolerable was because she had expected that he would dance with her after Mr. Bingley suggested it—and because she thought he was a particularly handsome man.

These thoughts had little emotion attached to them.

Except gratitude.

Elizabeth was deeply grateful to Mr. Darcy for sitting with her as she sobbed. He almost felt like a true friend. And he had given her the handkerchiefs, and he had dismissed Mr. Collins from his own drawing room for her sake, and he had poured her tea.

It made her feel safer and more protected in a way that made very little sense.

Elizabeth slowly drank her tea and settled herself.

Mr. Darcy watched her with warm eyes.

She did not understand him, but there was a patience in him that she had never seen before.

Perhaps it was simply what he had said: he knew what it felt like.

“I am grateful for your kindness,” she said to Mr. Darcy.

He nodded.

It seemed as though there was something that he wanted to say but that he found it difficult to speak.

Charlotte said suddenly, in what Elizabeth half thought was an artful tone, “Eliza, you must not think of taking the stage to London tonight.”

“What is this talk of the stage?” Mr. Darcy asked.

Elizabeth had half forgotten that scheme, but after crying and after saying to herself that she believed her father was really dead, she had less of that desperate franticness to be away and to be home.

No longer home. You no longer have any home. She would not find her papa laughing about how ridiculous it was that Mary had been so convinced he was dead that she had written a letter to Elizabeth, when no report of the sort had any substance.

“Elizabeth wishes to return to Longbourn as quickly as she might and naturally does not wish to wait for when Mr. Collins and I travel there ourselves.”

“Naturally not,” Mr. Darcy agreed.

“I will go tonight,” Elizabeth said. “I only need a bag with one day’s clothes. You can bring my trunk with your baggage when you come. You can take it to…well, wherever we are. Perhaps with the Phillipses while we search for a place we can afford to rent.”

“Oh, Eliza, I promise that Mr. Collins will be in no hurry to take possession or see you removed.”

“What does that matter? Whether it is in three days or three months, we must find a new home, and one that can be afforded with our income. I want to see them—my sisters.”

“It would be wholly inappropriate for you to take the stage or to go by post,” Mr. Darcy said. “If you are willing, I shall convey you in my own carriage.”

“I will not wait until Saturday,” Elizabeth said with some frustration.

“I mean this evening,” Mr. Darcy replied. “As soon as we finish speaking, I shall give the orders for all to be prepared, and we can be gone within two hours.”

“Oh,” Elizabeth replied with some surprise.

This offer, and from such a quarter—from a man who she had always believed disliked her—utterly astonished Elizabeth.

But as she looked into his warm eyes, she felt a flush in her cheeks and something like an odd flutter in her chest that she did not understand.

“I shall not insult you by asking whether you are serious, even though I am extremely surprised,” Elizabeth said.

Mr. Darcy frowned.