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Darcy stopped attending to the cold.

“I should like that.”

“Papa would be pleased to lend you his chair, provided you returned it before he wanted it himself.”

“I shall endeavour to discover his hours.”

“They alter when somebody else wishes to sit there.”

He smiled, then looked at her hand resting upon his arm. They had spoken of visits as though a future together were already theirs to arrange. He had hoped for precisely that ease and now found he wanted the words which would make it certain.

“Elizabeth.”

She became still at her name.

“I love you.”

He had intended to say more before saying it: something of the weeks in which he had learned to seek her company, of the days improved by finding her in an ordinary room. None of those preparations seemed necessary once the truth had been spoken.

Her eyes shone. She looked at him without attempting to turn the moment into a joke.

“I love you, too.”

For a little while he could do nothing except look at her. He had imagined hearing the answer, but his imagination had failed to provide the quiet conviction in her voice.

He covered her hand with his own. The healed palm pulled slightly with the movement. Elizabeth noticed and eased her fingers beneath it rather than drawing away.

“I mean to ask you—” he began.

“I know.”

She said it so gently that he stopped at once.

“I want the life we have been talking of,” she continued. “With Anna, and visits home, and the books we shall never arrange to one another’s satisfaction. I want you. But may we wait to speak formally until Jane has been delivered and has begun to recover?”

Darcy looked toward the window of Jane’s apartments.

“Certainly.”

“You must not think I am uncertain.”

“I do not.”

“I could not bear Mama beginning to consider wedding clothes while Jane waits for her own child. She would be happy, and she would mean very well, but it would fill every room.”

“And I should like,” Elizabeth said, “to give you a whole happy day when you ask. Without listening for someone to come and fetch me.”

He lifted her hand and kissed it.

“We shall wait.”

The relief in her face made him glad he had supplied no further question.

“Then we may continue our arrangements,” she said, recovering a little of her amusement.

“What arrangements?”

“My books, for a beginning.”