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He offered his arm, and she took it, recalling the many walks he had interrupted during her time at Rosings; in the moment, she had believed them all accidental, and that he had been as irritated as she was to be disturbed. I was completely stupid, was I not? He had been deciding whether or not to marry her, and she had not recognised anything of it. The question was, after everything, did he still want to? What else could all this mean? A grand apology, of sorts?

But she was not formed for dithering; it mattered little whether he wanted her, if she could not want him in return. Could I?

In the past, she had always known that her future was a bleak one if she, or her sisters, did not marry well. That worry was gone; she had a future in Sheffield. While it was not, perhaps, as comfortable a place to dwell as Longbourn, most of the people surrounding her were good, caring ones. Jane would soon be wed to Mr Bingley, and she knew that she was welcome in any home of Jane’s. She was safe. If she could not easily love Mr Darcy, there was no pressing reason to try.

And yet, absent their bitter beginning and muddled middle, her heart now ached with possibilities for a happier ending. Might he, too, wish for such an outcome?

He was a handsome man, and while she knew herself to be strong enough in character to avoid good looks as a good reason to fall in love, neither could she deny a deep attraction.

“Your gardens are beautiful, Mr Darcy,” she said. “I feel I could gaze upon them for hours.”

“My mother designed them,” he replied promptly, as if he had been searching for a topic upon which to speak. “Before she came to Pemberley, she said the roses had been lined up in military formation, and shrubberies trimmed within an inch of their lives. She preferred a wilder design. The closer they grow to the house, the…tidier they are, I suppose one would call them. As we move in the direction of the woods, they grow less tame, with fewer cultivated blooms and more primroses, bluebells, wood anemones, violets, and cowslips.”

“Her eye for plantings was expert. I wish I could have met her.”

“I wish so as well. It was difficult for us—my father, Georgiana, and me—to become accustomed to her absence. She was always so vivid, so full of creativeness. Her temperament was not always easy—she was impulsive and acerbic, and often impatient with what she called ‘the Darcy doctrinaire’—our tendency to do things the way they had always been done, to what, to her, was a plodding degree.”

“Ah. She was not always easy, then. In that sense, my father is the same. He mocks what he cannot change about the people he loves. But he is loyal and generous too. Just as a sonata is never composed of a single note, neither may we be solely defined by our defects.” She could not prevent this defence of her father, but wondered if Mr Darcy would be displeased by it.

“‘Who made the heart, ’tis He alone, decidedly can try us; He knows each chord, its various tone, each spring, its various bias’,” Mr Darcy quoted.

“Burns?” she asked softly.

He nodded. “Once upon a time, it annoyed me, when my mother pestered my father to reverse sensible decisions, or travel when he would much rather remain at home. I am very much like him in disposition, so it was always easier for me to see his point of view. Yet, after she was gone, I saw the truth: if he could be likened to a meticulous, perfectly regulated clock, she was his winding key. Without her, I saw him slow, losing much interest in the everyday, in many ways only going through the motions of living.”

A pang went through Elizabeth, as she took in the expression he wore—one of profound regret. He had not understood his mother, not until she was gone. “I can see how simple it would be to miss the great good hidden within the restlessness of her nature. My mother, as you know, is a slave to her fears and worries. It is difficult for me to restrain my vexation. Yet, she has always spent untold hours each week planning her meals, determined that they will never be monotonous or unvaried, searching for new receipts and means of elevating plain dishes into better ones. It is how, I think, she expresses her care for us, in how she devises her menus. On our birthdays, she serves all our favourite dishes at once, no matter if the table is laden with nothing except sweetmeats and pastries. She takes such joy in pleasing us in this way. Until I moved to Sheffield and became responsible for the menus, I did not realise how elaborate Longbourn’s table has always been, and I began to truly appreciate her efforts.”

They entered what Elizabeth thought of as a glade, a ring of trees surrounding benches obviously placed, not for views, but for peace and quiet. He seated her on one, and sat nearby upon another. “It was wrong of me, very wrong, to fail to notice anything except flaws in your family. Even worse, that I spoke of them aloud to you, all whilst ignoring or discounting my own family’s many imperfections. Indeed, I disregarded my own, even as I demonstrated them for you with shameful precision.”

Leaning towards him, she placed a hand upon his arm. “I believe we had firmly decided we would take a less, hm, detailed view of our shared past.”

“I would love to cease recalling it,” he replied, still unsmiling. “The difficulty with any notion of forgetting is that my feelings for you are unchanged—no, that is not accurate. My feelings for you have only grown stronger, as I have watched you, with optimism and strength, uproot your entire life in favour of a better future. I am in love, for the first time in my life, and cannot think of a way to put right all of my wrongs.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

ACHIEVING UNDERSTANDING

Darcy gazed back at her with a sense of near disbelief almost as acute as Elizabeth’s, if her expression was any indication. He had promised himself he would take the time to show her, in action and word, that he was a better man than she had reason to believe, and yet he had assaulted her with his feelings during their first private conversation. How awkward!

“I am sorry,” he blurted. “I ought not to have hounded you with sentiments you doubtless do not wish to hear.”

“Please do not apologise again. Truthfully, I am flattered,” she said after a pause of several moments in which he wished a hole would open up in the earth before him so he could disappear. “Surely a man such as you must have your pick of society’s finest. It is difficult for me to understand your sentiments towards me.”

“You are the best woman I know, in or out of society.”

Her cheeks turned slightly pink. “You are kind.”

“You have reason to know that kindness is not my finest virtue.”

“I really think that I am only just beginning to know you,” she observed, her tone thoughtful. “We were thrown together in a handful of situations. For that entire time, I was under the impression that you disliked me. To hear that your feelings had grown the opposite was as much a shock as hearing your opinions of my family.”

He slapped his palm to his forehead, shaking his head in an obvious self-disgust. “I shall never live down that misbegotten proposal,” Darcy said glumly.

“No, no, I did not mean to bring up the past again,” she said quickly. “I only wonder—how is it that you could feel you know me well enough to sacrifice your expectations? No matter how one chooses to look at the situation, you must have anticipated much more from your wife. My younger sisters are, at times, flibbertigibbets, and your comparison of my mother’s nerves to those of an anxious spaniel was, in retrospect, somewhat…apt.”

A smile peeked out from the corner of her mouth, and hopefulness filled him. “If your mother is a spaniel, then I am a wild boar.”

She giggled, and he felt a wave of relief. “Loving you is so very easy,” he said, determined to answer her question honestly, even if he was humiliating himself. “When you appeared at Netherfield to nurse your ailing sister, I wondered just how many young ladies I know would travel miles on foot in inclement weather to reach someone they cared about, with only a desire to help. There was no one else I could think of who would even consider it.”