Page 53 of Mr. Darcy’s Fiery Passion

Her mouth moved. Her thumb passed once over the back of his hand, very slowly. He lost track of the dance entirely.

He had decided on Monday.

He had decided in the morning room, with his bare hand on her cheek. She had turned her face into his palm and shut her eyes. He could not let her go home to Longbourn after that. They would be acquaintances again. Then he would go back to Pemberley, and never see her again. In a year or two he would hear that she had married someone else.

He would speak to her. Tonight, if he could find a quiet quarter of an hour. Tomorrow, if he could not.

He had the words ready. He had settled them in the night.

He would tell her she need never live on anyone's charity again. He had heard her mother through the library door. I shall not be able to keep you. He could keep her. He could keep all of them.

Her sisters would never want for a roof. Her mother need never lie awake over the entail. Pemberley was large, and he was able. He would see to everything.

It was all he had. He would lay it at her feet.

He knew there was another thing he ought to say. He had tried it in the dark, more than once. I want you. I listen for your step every night. I do not know how to be without it now. He had never got to the end of it. To say it was to ask. To ask was to sit with his hands held out, waiting, as his father had sat.

But a man who offered her Pemberley did not need to say it. Surely she would see it in the offer.

At the end of the fourth set, Elizabeth drew her hand back from under the shawl. "It is very warm in here," she said. "Mr. Bingley has had the conservatory lit. Jane says the orange trees are worth seeing."

"Then you ought to see them."

She looked at the crutch. He looked at it too. It was new ash, pale and clean, cut exactly to her height. She could cross any room in the house on it without help.

She left it against the wall and held out her hand to him. "Will you give me your arm, Mr. Darcy?"

He drew his glove on and stood.

She rose on her good foot and took his arm, and leaned on it. "I warn you," she said. "I have had two ices."

"You weigh precisely what you ought."

"You always say that."

"It is always true."

She laughed. He walked her the length of the ballroom at her own pace. Heads turned as they passed. Miss Bingley had just been led out for the long set, which ran half an hour. She could not leave it without a scene.

Elizabeth had a crutch that fit her. She had chosen his arm.

He let himself hope. All down that long room, with her weight on his arm at every limping step, he let himself.

The conservatory was cool and dim. Bingley's gardener had hung a few lamps among the orange trees. The air smelled of damp earth and green leaves. Through the glass doors the music sounded far away.

There was nobody else there.

He took her to a stone bench beneath a lemon tree and settled her on it. He stood a moment in front of her. He pulled off both his gloves and put them in his pocket.

She watched him do it. Her lips parted.

He sat down beside her. He lifted his hand and touched her face, as he had on Monday. Then he did what he had not dared on Monday, with her mother in the passage. He slid his fingers into the curls at her temple. He traced the line of her jaw with his thumb. He touched her lower lip. "Elizabeth," he said. "May I?"

"You may do anything you like with those hands." Her voice was not quite steady. "You have certainly earned them."

He kissed her. He held her face in both hands while he did it, and her mouth opened under his. For a week he had kissed her with his hands held away from her, useless. Now he could hold her. He could tilt her head where he wanted it. He could feel her pulse leap in her throat under his fingers.

It hurt. The new skin stung wherever it touched.