Page 86 of Knowing Mr. Darcy
Then they all sat together in the sitting room and Elizabeth watched Jane smilingly in between the colonel and Mr. Bingley. Her sister kept laughing as if she was thoroughly enjoying herself.
Mr. Darcy sat down next to her. “Which do you think your sister is going to choose?”
“I don’t know,” said Elizabeth. “Do you think they’d want her so much if the other one of them didn’t want her?”
He laughed. “Ah, there you are, passing judgment upon my sex, I see.”
She laughed. “Can you deny that men are more drawn to someone that other men want? They see it as value. Something fought over is all the sweeter when won.”
“Perhaps,” he said.
“Is it not why you wanted me?” she said.
“What? You think that? You think I wanted you because Bingley pursued you first?”
She shrugged.
“We have established that I do not know why I wanted you,” said Mr. Darcy.
“Wanted?” She turned on him, raising her eyebrows. “I suppose you don’t want anymore. I suppose you got what you wanted.” She was teasing him. She knew this wasn’t the case, and she felt secure in him, so secure, maybe because ofhow safe she’d felt in his arms.
He was shocked, and he actually blushed. He turned away from her, gazing at Jane with the other two men. “Ah, yes, that’s it exactly,” he said in a very low voice. “All my desires have been slaked, and I haven’t been thinking about you every single moment since we parted, haven’t been feeling like a thirsty man in the desert, like just tolookat you was the only thing that could give me a bit of relief.”
“So, you misspoke when you put it in the past tense?”
“No, I didn’t. You misunderstood me. I think you misunderstand me on purpose.”
She laughed. Well, she was enjoying this. Had they always had this sort of banter between them? She studied his profile. He was still looking away from her. Perhaps they had. Perhaps that was it. “I would not misunderstand you if you were clearer in your speech.”
He chuckled. “I meant, that I don’t know why I wanted you before, but I know why I want you now. So, what does the past matter?”
She remembered when Mr. Darcy had spoken about how dancing was part of all civilizations or when they’d spoken more about civilization and the way that things were changing, what with the influx of trade and money. She remembered that he had been the one person to give her a decent book to read when she’d been ill.
Why had she forgotten these things about him? Had it been simply because she’d been suddenly and intensely drawn to him?
Well, she wondered,hadit been sudden?
“Why do you want me now?”
“Because you’re everything I’ve been waiting for. You’re more than I could have hoped for and more than I would have even thought I’d be allowed to have. You’re the woman I couldn’t dare to want, for fear she wouldn’t exist.”
“Mr. Darcy, I do think you have an inflated idea of my charms.”
“Oh, no,” he said, turning to her. “Depend upon it, I do not. I have always thought this, in fact, that you and yoursister both had no idea how alluring you both were. Are, I mean. You underestimate yourself badly, Elizabeth.”
She only laughed. He was biased.
“However,” he said, his voice dropping in pitch, “I think you’re beginning to see the truth of your attractiveness, and the more you see it, and the more confident you become, the more devastating you are. I am a very fortunate man, indeed.”
She could not help but smile. “Youarefortunate, yes,” she said. “Quite fortunate to have me.”
He met her gaze, his eyes moving over her like a caress.
“When do we get married?” she breathed.
“As soon as possible,” he said urgently.
“JANE, COME IN,” said Elizabeth, opening the door to her bedchamber wide. “I wished to speak to you last night, but it was so very late. We have to discusseverything.”
