Page 62 of The Longbourn Bloodline

The joyous voices grew fainter, guns receding in the distance. The frosty ground crunched beneath their feet, silvered in the moonlight, and their breath rose together in small white clouds.

“I must confess, Mr. Darcy.” Elizabeth’s voice had shifted—still warm, still teasing, but carrying resonance underneath, a tremor that matched the one in his own chest.

“I am at your disposal.”

“When you left Longbourn in December, you departed in rather a hurry.”

“My sister was ill. The express⁠—”

“Yes, I know. You left very quickly, and very nobly, and everyone was very understanding.” She paused. Her fingers tightened on his arm, a pressure so slight he might have imagined it. “But you left something behind.”

His heart, which had been managing a serviceable rhythm, missed a beat. Then another.

“A shaving kit, perhaps?” Elizabeth continued, her tone light, conversational, the tone of a woman discussing the weather or the quality of the roads. “Your valet must have been beside himself.”

“I am quite sure Vernon was thorough.” Darcy’s voice caught in his throat.

“I wonder.” She drew a finger across her chin. “You might find you are missing a cravat. One cannot simply leave cravats scattered about other people’s cottages, Mr. Darcy. It is most irregular.”

His heart faltered—perhaps only pausing, because she had been to the cottage—which meant…

“Or perhaps,” Elizabeth said, and her voice was no longer teasing—it was steady, as brave as anything he had ever heard, “you dropped something on the desk when you were there last. An inkblot. Rather a large one, in fact. One might almost think a gentleman had been writing in some haste, and his hand had not been entirely steady.”

She had discovered it—the words never intended for any eyes but his own, the fragment of his heart he had left hidden, wedged behind cracked plaster.

“You found something in the cottage.”

She tilted her head, her eyes never leaving his. “I found the cat, you know. Cleo. She had been waiting there since you left.”

“She always did have questionable judgment.”

“She hid underneath the desk, and I sat with her, on that cold stone floor, feeding her Christmas giblets.”

“Is she… is she well?”

“Very well, as I believe she led me to hidden treasure, and so I provide her with treats—so much so that Cook says she is no longer a good mouser.”

Darcy had to chuckle. “If she was a better mouser than a tree climber…”

“And you a better blotter than dripper of ink…” Her voice dropped, the teasing edge softening. “I found something behind the wall. Though I confess I do not know if you meant for anyone to find it.”

“Elizabeth.” Her Christian name, spoken aloud for the first time, carried the weight of everything he had suppressed since the day he knelt in her father’s parlor and signed away his inheritance because he loved her and could not bear the thought of her losing her home. “I⁠—”

She reached into the pocket of her cloak and drew out a folded paper—soft from handling, the ink smudged where her thumb had pressed against it. His letter. “I have been carrying this since Christmas Day, Mr. Darcy. Waiting for the chance to give you an answer.”

The world narrowed to the two of them, the frost-laced ground, and the distant echo of gunfire. Darcy found himself wordless, motionless, his paper crown askew and his heart entirely exposed, while Elizabeth Bennet held his confession between her hands.

“You wrote three questions,” Elizabeth said. Her chin was up, and now, her voice was not entirely steady. “And a postscript. You hid them in a wall because you are the most honorable, the most infuriating, the most impossible man I have ever met, and you would rather seal your heart in plaster than risk pressing a woman who had given you nothing.”

Darcy had no words. His throat constricted as he recalled her face in the small parlor. Confusion, but more than that. A reaching out without knowing how—hence the nod.

“Fitzwilliam, you asked me three questions. May I answer them now?”

He could only nod, his mouth suddenly dry.

“Will you think of me?” she quoted the words he had written, then looked up, her chin high and brave, lifting herself on her tippy toes.

“Yes,” she breathed as her lips touched his, the word going through him like lightning.