Page 61 of The Sole Love

In the hall, they found a splendid Venetian mirror where Elizabeth could finally see her gift and her future husband beside her.

“What about Georgiana?” Elizabeth asked, still caressing the exquisite jewels. “Are you sure this was intended for me?”

His laughter broke the stillness around them, but then he took her into his arms.

“My God, you are obviously a girl with four sisters,” he whispered into her hair with affection. Then he looked at her and spoke as though she were a child. “You will be my wife, so you will have to share with me all you have.”

“I have nothing,” she said sadly.

“Now you are being silly, Elizabeth Bennet. You have everything I need or desire. And every feeling or smile you possess, you will give to me.”

As he bent to kiss her, he added, his eyes fixed upon hers, “Including the body I crave like a madman.”

They kissed, and his touch was no longer the timid one in the chaise but an ecstatic prelude to their anticipated joining.

“But not tonight,” Elizabeth finally said.

When he did not understand, she blushed but murmured with conviction, “My body…it will be yours on our wedding night.”

“Yes, three weeks from today.”

“What are you saying, Fitzwilliam? The banns must be read at Longbourn church.”

“Everything is arranged, my dear. They will be read there and here beginning this Sunday.”

Elizabeth stared at him.

“No! You have not done that.”

She seemed almost furious as she looked at him.

“I took care of matters here, but your father helped at Longbourn,” he said, laughing again at her reaction. “I wrote and asked for your hand, and before we left Hertfordshire, he spoke to your minister. Everything was prepared in case you accepted me.”

“You arranged the banns before proposing to me?”

“I did propose…in Kent.”

“Yes, but I refused you!” she cried.

“True, but I merely made the arrangements. Nothing could begin until you accepted me.”

Elizabeth looked at him, torn between indignation and amusement. “You were very sure of yourself, Mr Darcy.”

“Not at all. I was terrified. I merely preferred to be a terrified man with everything prepared.”

She tried not to smile and failed.

“And if I had refused you again?”

“Then nothing would have happened. Except that my mother’s necklace would have remained mine,” he teased, gazing into her eyes.

“No!” she cried, her hand immediately covering the exquisite treasure. “I have never had anything so beautiful.”

“Then you must marry me.”

Elizabeth looked at him and smiled. “I hate you…and Papa, but I love the necklace, so I shall make the sacrifice and marry you.”

Then she dashed down the great hall away from him.