only.
“Good morning, sir,” she replied with a slight blush, aware from his look that he would rather have been kissing her lips than her hand. “It is an unexpected pleasure to see you this morning.”
“You overestimate my ability to stay away from you. It looks as if your departure is imminent; I am glad that I arrived in time.”
“Yes, I believe we will be off shortly.”
“May I beg a moment to speak with you separately first?”
“Of course.” She led him away to a distance that would not allow easy eavesdropping.
“Since we have but little time, I will refrain from remarking on how you look lovelier every day and how much I missed you last night, and limit myself to mentioning how passionately I adore and admire you—and how much I hate it when you wear gloves,” he said, touching the offending article.
Elizabeth colored, suddenly cognizant that their engagement would open the way for a new kind of courting that could be as demanding as his kisses. “Well, sir, my mother has instructed me to please you in all matters, so I will risk shocking my family,” she said with a smile, and removed her gloves.
He immediately took her hand and raised it to his lips again. “Much better,” he murmured, his eyes dropping to her mouth. “You are a delightful and charming temptation, Elizabeth, and you are distracting me from what I came to say.”
She raised an eyebrow, impressed with his ability to make her name sound like an intimate endearment. “And what, pray tell, is that?” she asked, her lips tingling as if he had in fact kissed them.
He drew a letter from his pocket and held it out to her. “I wrote this for you to take with you, hoping that you might find time to read it tonight.”
She smiled at him warmly. “Thank you. I am glad that I may safely take it this time!”
“There are advantages to being engaged.
“When we have more time, sir, I shall make you enumerate them all for me,” she said playfully. She was beginning to consider the possibility that she was destined to spend their entire engagement blushing.
“It will be my pleasure to do so, my love. But I would not wish to make a poor impression on Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner this early in our acquaintance by delaying them simply so that I can enjoy a few moments more in your presence, so perhaps I should return you to them.”
“Perhaps so.” As they were walking back to rejoin the others, she said, surprising even herself, “I shall miss you.”
The startled look on Darcy’s face could not hide the delight he felt. He was painfully aware that Elizabeth had neatly avoided ever saying anything that would indicate the state of her affections regarding him, even when accepting his proposal, and he had suffered occasional moments of distress since then when he remembered Mr. Bennet telling him that he had instructed Elizabeth to accept his proposal, and wondered what role that may have had in her acceptance. “You will be in my mind constantly,” he said quietly.
She looked up at him with a sober gaze, unsure how best to respond in a serious interchange of this sort with him. She had worked to keep their conversations in the past light-hearted, and was more intimidated than she cared to admit by the prospect of a serious discussion of their feelings. In fact, she found the idea terrifying. Fortunately, rescue was at hand in the form of her family.
Darcy paid his respects to the Gardiners, who were already seated in the carriage, and to Mr. and Mrs. Bennet before taking the liberty of handing Elizabeth in. After a brief but heartfelt farewell, they drove off. Elizabeth turned to watch him as they departed, trying to memorize his features, and marveling at the amazing sight of Darcy ensconced among her family.
The travellers stopped for the night in Oxford, arriving with enough daylight left to wander the streets and see the sights before settling in at their inn. Elizabeth duly admired the beauty of the ancient buildings of the colleges, and the newer, but equally striking, Radcliffe Camera. She had looked forward to visiting Oxford, but now she found that her mind tended to wander from their surroundings to a certain dark-haired gentleman. Climbing the tower of the magnificent University Church provided some physical relief for her agitated spirits, and she managed to enjoy the spectacular view over the spires of the town for some minutes before her thoughts drifted to the letter Darcy had given her, wondering what it contained.
She waited to read it until she had some privacy at the inn after dinner, while her aunt and uncle went out to enjoy a twilight stroll along the river. She held it in her hands for several minutes before opening it, and finally broke the seal with the Darcy crest—
There was so much that I would have liked to have the opportunity to say to you today, so many thoughts I would have liked to share with you on the long hoped for occasion of your acceptance of my hand. But it was not to be, given the circumstances, both joyful and distressing, which distracted us from the important business of communicating to one another our thoughts and feelings on this time of change. I know that your interest in considering marriage to me is very recent, but it is no less dear to me for that.
I was surprised, nay, astonished in Kent to discover that you were ignorant of my interest in you—in fact, I must confess that I went so far as to wonder if you might have feigned lack of knowledge of it for reasons of your own, until I recalled that such deception would not have been in your character, and that had you known of my interest, you would have no doubt found some method to preclude matters reaching the point they did. But my admiration of you was real, and had been powerful since the first days of our acquaintance, and all my time away from Hertfordshire had not been sufficient to put you out of my mind for a single day. Yet I must confess with some shame that from where I stand today, I can see there was something lacking in my regard for you at that point, a quality that would have advanced it from the point of fascination and ardent admiration to the kind of devotion and respect that I have always felt—based on the example of my own excellent parents—should exist between a man and his wife. It was not until I thought that I had lost you completely and irrevocably that I came to recognize all of your admirable qualities that had promoted the depth of my attraction to you. I cannot tell you of the power of my despair in those days as I gradually grew to comprehend that you had been right to refuse me, and to acknowledge that I had caused my own downfall. Your reproof, so well applied, I shall never forget: ‘had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner.’ You know not, you can scarcely conceive, how those words tortured me; though it was some time, I confess, before I was reasonable enough to allow their justice. I did not expect ever to encounter you again, yet as I recognized my failings, my first desire was to make myself into a man of whom you could be proud were you ever to meet me again. I cannot tell you how deep was my trepidation when I decided to lay my heart at your feet once more, but by that time I had come to realize how necessary you were to me, and how little I could conceive of any sort of future that did not include you at my side.
I cannot tell you the joy it gives me that you have consented to be my wife. You have taught me so much already, my beloved Elizabeth, for which I am eternally grateful, and the knowledge that we shall face the future together is of great comfort to me. To know that I will have the privilege of seeing your smile each day is to feel gifted with the greatest delight imaginable.
I would continue at length on this subject, but my time is growing short if I am to deliver this to you in the morning. I look forward to your arrival at Pemberley with the greatest of anticipation. Until then, be assured that you will be in my thoughts and my heart always, and that I am, as ever, yours in every way,
Elizabeth had tears in her eyes as she finished reading the letter. His words of love that were so difficult for her to hear when she was in his presence could touch her in a different way through his writing, and his eloquent description of the pain he experienced after her refusal of his first proposal told her more of the depth of his affection than his endearments ever could. She felt undeserving of so deep regard as his, and could not help but feel that her affections were not the equal of his own.
