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"Mr. Pettigrew says you are to be kept quiet," I tell him, as the Colonel sets the chair at the bedside.

"I am perfectly quiet. I have been quiet for an hour. I have counted the roses on the bed curtains. There are two hundred and fourteen, and one of them is upside down." He holds out his hand. "Sit, Miss Bennet. Please."

I sit. I put my hand in his. It seems the simplest thing to do, and nothing about this is simple.

His hand is warm today. His thumb moves once over my knuckles, slowly, the way one might smooth a page, and my breath goes somewhere and does not come back for a moment.

"Better," he says, very low.

I do not trust myself to answer.

Mr. Pettigrew is hovering by the hearth. "A quarter of an hour, sir," he reminds us anxiously. "Pleasant conversation only. Nothing stimulating."

"We shall discuss the weather, Pettigrew."

"Very good, sir."

"It is fine," Mr. Darcy says to me gravely. "I am told it is very fine. I have not seen it myself, because Pettigrew will not let them open the curtains past a hand's width. There. We have discussed the weather."

"So we have."

"Then I may ask you what I have been wanting to ask you since six o'clock this morning."

Over his shoulder I see Charlotte go very still at the window. I see the Colonel, by the door, glance at Mr. Pettigrew. I see Lowe, in the corridor beyond, pause with a tray in his hands.

Mr. Darcy sees none of it. He is looking only at me. His thumb has stopped moving on my knuckles. He holds my hand as though he has been waiting a very long time to hold it, and is afraid of being made to give it back.

"Miss Bennet," he says softly. "Tell me about the moment you said yes. I cannot remember it."

Chapter Six — Darcy

She is quiet for so long that I begin to think she has not heard me.

Then she looks down at our hands, and says, "You were very nervous."

I breathe out. I had not known I was holding it.

"Was I?"

"Dreadfully." Her voice is low and a little uneven. "You came in, and you would not sit down. You walked to the hearth and back four times. I counted."

"That," I say, "I can believe."

Behind her, at the window, Mrs. Collins makes a small sound. When I glance over, she has her handkerchief to her mouth and is studying the park with great attention. Fitzwilliam, by the door, has found something absorbing on the ceiling. Pettigrew, at the hearth, is polishing his spectacles for the third time since they came in.

I do not care. Let them all stare at ceilings. She is telling me.

"Go on," I say.

"You knocked over Charlotte's workbasket," she says. "Her wools went all across the carpet. You stooped to pick them up, and then you stood there holding a skein of green worsted as if you had no idea how it had come into your hand."

Mrs. Collins's shoulders shake once.

"Good God," I say.

"So you see," says Miss Bennet, and there is the faintest unsteady curl at the corner of her mouth, "I was quite right yesterday. You did make a hash of it. The beginning, at least."

"And the rest?"