Page 24 of Courting Elizabeth

Outside the church, the spring light blinded us. The bells rang. Mrs Bennet wept loudly. Lydia waved her handkerchief with such enthusiasm that she struck Mr Collins's hat. Elizabeth laughed at last.

I breathed again.

She had merely been nervous.

At the wedding breakfast, I stayed as close to her as I could. The guests kept pulling us apart. Everyone wanted to congratulate me, remark on Pemberley, or recall some encounter I had no memory of. Elizabeth seemed more animated with others than she had been at the church. She responded with wit, embraced her sisters, and bore her mother's effusions.

But she did not seek me out.

I noticed the absence of her glances because I had spent months sensing every one.

When I approached, she smiled. When I moved away, her face settled.

The doubt, once admitted, became impossible to silence.

I saw her leave the room with Jane. They climbed the stairs, no doubt to arrange her hair before our departure. I had no reason to follow them. I ought to speak to Bingley, thank Mr Bennet, confirm the luggage had gone.

Yet I found myself in the upper hallway.

The door to the Bennet sisters' former chamber stood ajar. I was about to announce my presence when Jane's voice reached me.

“He looks at you with such love that it almost pains me on his behalf.”

I stopped.

Elizabeth's silence lasted too long.

“Don't say that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I know.”

“And today? Has your heart changed?”

My body froze.

Her answer came so softly that I moved closer despite myself.

“It is changing. I esteem him. I desire him—perhaps more than I should admit. But I cannot pretend to have given him what he believes he possesses.”

The corridor seemed to narrow.

“You must tell him,” Jane murmured.

“I told him my opinion was not fixed.”

“You spoke to him of his faults, Lizzy. He may have thought you doubted his conduct, not that you did not love him.”

The silence that followed told me Jane had struck the truth.

“I thought he would understand,” Elizabeth breathed. “Then he wrote to Bingley, protected Georgiana, listened to my requests… Each day, it grew harder to tell him his love had begun alone.”

“More difficult, or more dangerous?”

“Both.”

I should not have stayed.