Page 91 of Dear Friend

Her laughter died softly.

There was nothing playful in his expression, and for a moment Elizabeth saw the possibility with startling ease. Years rather than weeks. Pemberley rather than Longbourn. Arguments over books beside another fire, Darcy still looking at her with that quiet amusement while she informed him that he was wrong.

The picture delighted her more than she would have expected. For several moments Elizabeth allowed herself to dwell upon it.

Their conversation eventually wandered into lighter matters, though Elizabeth carried the thought with her. They exchanged some amusement over Jane and Bingley’s behaviour, disagreed over Darcy’s inexplicable dislike of cured fish despite his fondness for oysters, and had nearly reached Longbourn before Elizabeth realised how quickly the afternoon had passed.

By then they had rejoined Jane and Bingley, and Jane’s heightened colour suggested that her conversation had been no less agreeable. They returned to Longbourn in excellent spirits, Elizabeth’s cheeks cold from the wind and her mind still pleasantly occupied by much of what Darcy had said.

The gentlemen remained for a short while over tea. When Bingley had finally completed a rather prolonged goodbye to Jane, Darcy crossed to Elizabeth while the others were occupied with their own farewells.

“I shall see you tomorrow.”

It was not quite a question.

“I suppose that depends upon whether you can discover another excuse to call,” Elizabeth teased.

“I abandoned excuses several days ago.”

“So you did.”

“Tomorrow, then.”

Elizabeth smiled. “Tomorrow.”

She watched him go with the peculiar satisfaction of knowing that he meant it.

That evening, Mr. Collins returned unusually late from Lucas Lodge and in considerably better spirits than those in which he had departed. He spoke at dinner of Miss Lucas's excellent understanding, her remarkable civility and the gratifying attention with which she had listened to his account of Hunsford. Elizabeth caught Mary's eye across the table and very nearly laughed.

Whatever comfort Charlotte had offered him, it had apparently been effective. Elizabeth thought little more of it. Her own thoughts were elsewhere.

Six days had passed since she had agreed to Darcy’s courtship, and she had seen him upon every one of them. Somewhere in those days, Elizabeth had ceased wondering what precisely she felt for him. Perhaps the feeling itself had begun earlier, so gradually that she could not have said when admiration and affection had become something more, but after that afternoon she could no longer pretend ignorance of it.

She loved him.

The certainty had come upon her most clearly while they spoke of marriage. She had listened to him describe the sort of life he wished to share with a wife, had imagined herself living it with him, and not once had she wished the conversation elsewhere.

She loved his steadiness, his intelligence, the unexpected humour he revealed more readily with her, and the quiet manner in which he remembered what troubled her and attempted to ease it without being asked. More dangerously still, she had begun to love the simple expectation of him, the knowledge that tomorrow would bring another knock at the door and Mr. Darcy with it.

For a man she had never intended to fall in love with, he had made remarkably quick work of her.

And now he had taken it upon himself to help find Julia, simply because he knew how much her silence troubled Elizabeth.

There was so much she wanted to tell her friend.

Later that evening, Elizabeth brought out her writing things and sat down to write another letter to Julia.

Chapter Thirty-One

22nd November 1811

Netherfield

Darcy

The news of Wickham’s arrest for fraud delighted Darcy more than he expected it to.

Colonel Forster’s note arrived that morning with the particulars. Wickham had apparently been attempting to keep out of sight since encountering Darcy in Meryton, though the trouble which finally caught him had begun long before his arrival in Hertfordshire. Some months earlier, he had defrauded a moneylender in London under a false name, and the man’s inquiries had at last traced him to the militia. Forster, already suspicious after Darcy’s warning, had needed little encouragement to investigate further, and Wickham had been taken into custody with sufficient evidence against him to make his immediate return to respectable society unlikely.