Page 34 of Elizabeth and Caroline
She blinked. “Oh,” she said, thinking that through. A noble act? Had she ever gotten the impression that her husband was a noble man? He had said something about responsibility once, she supposed, which was a kind of nobility, but no, she had no notion of his being noble, just… concerned with rightness. But to be truly concerned with rightness, of course, one would have to be noble.
He walked over to her, tilting his head to the side. “How did you think you tricked me, then? What did you think you said or did that swayed me?”
She fidgeted, saying nothing.
“You seemed quite sure you had,” he said. “So, what was it that you thought?”
“I thought… competition,” she said. “I thought you were motivated because there was another man vying for me.”
“Competition?” He shrugged. “Did I do something to make you think I was a competitive sort of person?”
“Well, no, but I had heard a story about you from someone else, and it made you sound…” She let out a breath.
“Who?” he said. “What story?”
“Everybody saw the way you reacted to Mr. Wickham in Meryton, you see, and he told me—”
“Mr. Wickham?” His face went white again, just like it had when he’d seen the man in question. His voice was cold, colder than she’d ever heard it.
She flinched from him.
He noticed and shook himself. “No, no, that’s not for you, my darling.” He seized her hand and tugged it against his chest. He wrapped his other hand around it. “Never look atme like that again, please, promise me. You need noteverfear me. I would never harm you.”
“I-I didn’t think…” Her lower lip trembled. “But are you not angry with me? How can you not be angry for the way I manipulated you?”
“You did not manipulate me,” he said, shaking his head, flattening her hand out, holding it against his heart.
“But I did! I wanted to make you ask me to marry me—or I don’t know, I wasn’t thinking it through, but—”
“No, no, hush,” he said softly. He took a breath, gazing deeply into her eyes. “All right, there was one moment before, when I doubted, for just a second, because I thought perhaps it was all an act, but then I remembered last night, Lizzy.” His voice dipped lower. “There was no feigning what passed between us last night.”
“No,” she said. “No, not at all.”
“You and I are in love,” he said. “I am more sure of that than I am sure of the sun rising. And you feel it too. We both feel it.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh, yes, we both feel it.”
“So, none of it matters,” he said with a little shrug. He leaned in and kissed her forehead. “I would have married you anyway. Maybe if you hadn’t said what you said, it wouldn’t have been now. Maybe I would have convinced myself to run away and I would have tried to forget you, but I would never have been able to do so. Something happened when I saw you, and it was all justdone. This, my darling wife, is meant to be.”
She let out a sob, a sob of relief, a sob of shame, a sob that seemed to echo against the December sky.
He pulled her in against his chest, stroking her hair as he held her close. “No, no, don’t. I think you may be too harsh on yourself. I think you may assign yourself blame you don’t rightly deserve. If I have come into your life to protect you from that tendency within yourself, you may rest assured I shall consider it my solemn duty from now on.”
She protested against him, her muffled into his cravat. “Mr. Darcy—”
“Mrs. Darcy,” he interrupted, “I see you. I see you the way you can’t see yourself. You are a rare beauty. You are a good and kind woman. You are my perfect and flawless wife. You will never say anything to the contrary, do you hear me?”
She let out a moan of relief.
“Do you?”
“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, I hear you.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BUT THIS CONVERSATIONhad not resolved what was to be done about Caroline.
Mr. Darcy announced at dinner that he and Elizabeth would leave in the morning, making a joke of it, saying that no one would wish to watch them making eyes at each other, and Mr. Bingley laughed and Jane tittered, and they both said they wished them joy.
