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“Anything but that.” He looked at her with the directness that she had, somewhere along the way, stopped finding difficult to receive. “The proper forms have their own value, but they ceased to be my primary motivation some time ago… I am not entirely certain when I began to feel something for you. Some version of it was present before I had any reason to call it by its correct name.”

Elizabeth thought about the study. The hairpin and the cold floor and his jacket around her shoulders. The way he had positioned himself between her and the door, not because it would help, but because it was the thing to do. She thought about all the things she had accumulated and called by other names. “And if you were to say when it began?” Elizabeth asked softly. Come what may, she would hear it from his own lips.

Mr Darcy looked down for a moment, hesitating. Then, suddenly, he looked up and met her eyes, and a smile flashed across his lips, at once rueful and glad. “Since the study, if I must own the truth. Or possibly even earlier.”

Elizabeth’s heart raced at such a confession. It was a long moment before she could steady her breathing enough to reply. “I cannot claim that my own feelings are of such long duration,” she said at last. “Then, I did not know you. Not truly. But it has been many weeks now since I have known you for the man you are. A man whose honour and judgement have won my deepest admiration.”

Mr Darcy leaned forward slightly. “Elizabeth.”

It was the first time he had addressed her with such familiarity. With such intimacy. Elizabeth felt her cheeks grow warm.

“I would do anything for you,” he said. “That is not merely words for me. If you wished to dissolve the engagement, if you sat here today and told me that was what you wanted, I would find a way to make it as painless as I could. Nothing is without consequences, but if you wished to be free, I believe we could find a way.”

He held her gaze with an earnestness he rarely permitted himself to show. “But you must know that my own wishes are entirely the reverse. I do not now consider our engagement to be an unfortunate accident, nor do I wish it dissolved. I consider it rather as the luckiest chance of my life.”

Elizabeth thought about all the words she had arranged and rearranged over the past weeks into shapes that did not quite say what she meant, and decided that the shapes had cost her enough. “So do I,” she said.

“Then we are,” Mr Darcy said slowly, “perhaps in agreement.”

“We appear to be. It is a somewhat more straightforward position than the one we have been occupying.”

“Considerably.” Something crossed his face that was close to an almost-smile, but arrived, this time, completely. “I should have come to speak with you in October.”

“You had not, in October, spent a sufficient number of evenings watching me be uncharitable about locks.”

“No,” he said. “That was a significant factor.”

Elizabeth felt something loosen in her chest that she understood, in its loosening, had been there for months. Relief quietly replaced her fear and everything else she had been holding.

The morning had moved on without them, the house around them going about its business. Somewhere upstairs, Lydia could be heard in conversation with Kitty, its volume sufficient to pierce through the walls. The ordinary noise of Longbourn, indifferent to the fact that the parlour had just become a different room than it had been an hour ago.

Mr Darcy stood. Elizabeth rose with him, and they faced each other across the hearthrug, each overcome with an irresistible smile. Each feeling the weight and the lightness of the truth.

“I believe our private audience cannot last much longer,” Mr Darcy said reluctantly. “Though I confess myself most unwilling to bring our time together to an end.”

“Then perhaps you ought to visit me again tomorrow,” Elizabeth suggested. Upon making the suggestion, her heart dropped a little, remembering another obligation. Surely it was only right that Mr Darcy should know all the truth — and that included knowing who was truly responsible for their situation. With their hearts truly open to one another, it would not do to keep a secret of such importance.

“Tomorrow,” Mr Darcy agreed. “And I will take my leave, for I imagine your family’s patience is growing short.” They laughed together for a long moment, in relief at many weeks of tension eased as much as amusement.

“I should let you know,” Elizabeth said before he turned to leave, “that my mother will require a full account of this visit within approximately two minutes of your departure.”

“What will you tell her?”

She considered. “That we had a very productive conversation about the hymn for the wedding.”

Mr Darcy shook his head, amused. “That will not satisfy her.”

“No. But it will give me a few minutes of peace.”

He smiled fully at her once again. Elizabeth had seen the brilliance of his full smile rarely enough that it still surprised her. She rather thought she might like to see it more often.

“I will call again tomorrow,” he said.

“I will be here tomorrow,” she replied.

She inclined her head, and Mr Darcy bowed and was gone. Elizabeth stood in the parlour with the fire and the grey light and the embroidery she had not touched.

Her mother was in the room within the predicted two minutes. “Well?” Mrs Bennet said, clutching a hand over her heart.