Page 71 of The Crown’s Gift

Elizabeth laughed. Darcy looked pleased with himself.

She selected a volume and discovered it was a treatise on estate drainage.

"Papa has corrupted Pemberley already."

"That arrived before I knew him."

"Then you were destined to agree."

Silence settled, comfortable at first. Rain traced the panes.

Darcy came around the desk. "May I ask you something?"

"Yes."

"Did my presence make your visit difficult?"

Elizabeth considered evasion and refused it. "At first. I believed you absent. When you entered the gallery, I wished to disappear and remain simultaneously."

His breath changed.

"And now?"

"Now I am glad you returned early."

Hope appeared so openly that Elizabeth had to look down at the book.

Darcy did not advance. "I meant what I said at Netherfield. I will not renew an address that caused you pain."

"You have not caused me pain at Pemberley."

"That is not permission."

She looked up. "No. It is truth."

The distance between them seemed filled with everything unspoken.

Darcy rested one hand on the back of a chair. "At Hunsford I believed love justified asking you to enter a life whose terms I had already written. I spoke of family expectations as though you should be grateful I would endure them. I cannot undo it."

"No."

"But I would have you know that I no longer think of marriage as an addition to Pemberley. It would change Pemberley. It should change me."

Elizabeth's throat tightened. "And if the change is difficult?"

"Then difficulty is not evidence of error."

The answer reached the place where his first proposal had wounded her.

"I was not fair in everything I said," she replied. "I was right about Jane and wrong to use Wickham's story after Papa's evidence had already made me doubt it. I accused you because anger wanted every charge available."

"You were under no obligation to make refusal gentle."

"No. But I wish I had been just."

Darcy's fingers tightened on the chair. "If I asked whether your feelings remain what they were in April, would that be a renewed address?"

Elizabeth's heart beat painfully.