Page 109
“Was that why my name was in your notebook with those two other ladies?” asked Lizzy in a soft voice.
“You saw that? Oh, how embarrassing! I had completely forgotten about that page! Know that those two other ladies were suggested by others, and that your name was the only one that ever came from my heart!”
“Oh!” said Lizzy, reeling from the fact that this awkward moment had suddenly turned into a fairy tale.
“Could you love a blind man, Elizabeth?”
“You know that your blindness is not important,” she said softly, squeezing his hand. “I have always admired your intellect, and you still have that.”
“Then will you marry me, my dear?”
“Yes,” she replied without hesitation, taking his hand and squeezing it.
Darcy drew her hand to his lips, but before he planted a kiss there, he reconsidered. “Wait! This is not how I meant things to go! Is there a bell pull? I need Finn!”
The bell was rung.
A startled Mr Gardiner—who had been pulled into the parlour to be berated by his wife—stuck his nose into the corridor. He was just in time to see Finn pass him carrying a blue bandbox. This box had accompanied Darcy when he had originally called, hoping he might have a chance to see Elizabeth alone.
Arriving in the study, Finn placed the box on a side table beside Darcy, removed the lid and departed.
After fishing around in the box, Darcy produced the cameo, which he presented to Elizabeth. “Finn modified the ribbon for your cameo. He attached a clasp to it; so hopefully you will not lose it again.”
“Oh! Thank you!” said Elizabeth, receiving it back sheepishly.
“Now, I am going to do this properly,” said Darcy. “So, you need to sit down and close your eyes. Then we are even.”
Elizabeth sat in the opposite wing chair and dutifully closed her eyes.
“Very well,” she said. “I have done so.”
Darcy leaned forward quietly to find her feet. Then, taking her left slippered foot, he brought it up to his knee. “Do you remember?” he asked, “After you injured your foot at the Netherfield ball, asking me to remove your slipper?”
Elizabeth blushed. How forward she had been when she thought she was just being practical! “Yes.”
“Do you mind if I remove your slipper now?”
Elizabeth wondered where this was going. As they were now betrothed, she supposed there could be no impropriety. “No.”
Darcy deftly undid the ribbons and removed her slipper so that he held one stockinged foot in his hand. Reaching into the box, he pulled out a shoe and wriggled it onto her foot.
“It fits,” he said. “Elizabeth Bennet, will you please be my wife?”
Elizabeth opened her eyes to see not a glass slipper on her foot but one of the boots she had left at his townhouse. “Oh!” she gasped in surprise and then laughed at the joke. “Yes!”
Leaning forward, she gave Darcy a tentative peck on the cheek.
He smiled.
“I have one more present for you!” he said, fishing in the bandbox again and pulling out a jewellery case.
He opened it and presented it to Elizabeth. It was a gold seal ring, with a figure of Athena and her owl.
“Oh, Fitzwilliam! It’s beautiful! It looks Roman!”
“It is. So perhaps they would have called her Minerva. Finn bought it from an antiquities dealer. He had to go to five shops before he found what I wanted.”
“Oh, thank you!” said Elizabeth as Darcy took the ring and carefully pushed it onto her finger. The touch of his large but graceful hands as they held hers was exquisite.
