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“You are a sensible solution to a logistical problem,” he said with an unrepentant grin, “though you are also the logistical problem itself, which is the sort of conundrum that makes my head ache. However, you are quite correct in reproving me for a shockingly poor proposal, and I retract it at once with many apologies, on the grounds that you deserve a much better one from a much wealthier man, one who has the sense to mention your fine eyes rather than his accounts.”

“I shall hold that to be the standard for all future proposals,” Elizabeth said, still smiling.

They reached the point where the path turned back toward the house, and as they did, Elizabeth saw Mr Darcy walking toward them, his stride rather quicker than its usual measured pace. There was something in his bearing she could not immediately identify — a sense of tension, or of purpose, perhaps, that seemed to drive him toward them.

“Fitzwilliam,” he said as he approached them, nodding at his cousin with a brevity that was not quite rude, but came close. “Miss Elizabeth, I wonder if I might have a private word.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam’s eyebrows rose very slightly, and he looked between them with an expression of curiosity that he made no effort to disguise. “I was on my way in regardless,” he said. “I need to write to my mother to tell her that even Pemberley’s roses have failed to inspire any particular love for growing things within me, and ask if she has other thoughts as to how I should proceed.” He inclined his head to Elizabeth. “Miss Elizabeth, thank you for a most charming walk.” Then, with a look at his cousin that seemed at once amused and meaningful, he departed, leaving Elizabeth alone with Mr Darcy on the garden path.

“You wished to speak with me?” she asked when they had stood in silence for a moment.

“Miss Elizabeth,” he said at last. “I do not act on impulse, as I think you know, and so I have given this a good deal of thought. A very great deal, in fact, so I can tell you that I would not have come to you now if I had not considered every aspect of the situation with all the seriousness that it deserves.”

“That sounds very thorough,” Elizabeth said with a faint smile. It was like Mr Darcy to be so careful with any matter of importance.

“Indeed,” said Mr Darcy, swallowing in a way that Elizabeth would have attributed to nervousness in anyone else. She had never seen Mr Darcy nervous before, however, and so dismissed the thought. “It is necessary to be thorough,” he continued, “given the difficulties involved, and there are great difficulties. I do not pretend otherwise.”

Elizabeth’s smile faded slightly, replaced by puzzlement. “Mr Darcy, is there some new problem? To what difficulties are you referring? And what situation?”

He drew himself up, holding himself tense, as though braced for a blow. “Miss Elizabeth, I am here to ask you to marry me.”

For one long, suspended moment, Elizabeth felt something leap up in her chest, something sudden and bright and utterly unguarded.

Then Mr Darcy continued speaking.

“Naturally, such a proposal comes attended by considerable obstacles,” he said seriously. “Your family’s situation is not what I would have chosen, were I able to choose such things. Your mother’s connections are unfortunate. Worst of all, blameless though you are, your sister’s conduct has placed your own reputation under a strain that, however unjustly, will follow you for some time regardless of how your eventual matrimonial status is resolved. I am conscious that some in my own family will object strenuously to such a union, and that society will consider it a very great condescension on my part. I will not pretend to you that such things have not occurred to me; I could hardly claim otherwise.”

Elizabeth, who could not begin to think of a response that would capture her disappointment, pain, and anger at a proposal couched entirely in insults, looked at him in silence.

“I tell you this not to wound you,” he said, apparently encouraged by her silence rather than warned by it, “but because I believe you would wish to know precisely what you would be agreeing to. The eyes of the world would look upon the marriage and consider it a degradation on my part. I do not say that to be cruel, but to demonstrate that I have considered the situation thoroughly, as I have said.”

“I see,” Elizabeth replied. Her voice came out steadier than she would have thought possible, given that the thing that had burst to life so suddenly in her chest had gone very cold, and shrunk until it was very small.

“Despite those factors, which must be considered before they can be dismissed, I believe that the match has real merit. You would be extricated from your engagement to Bingley with minimal scandal, your sister’s happiness with him would no longer be obstructed, and your own situation would be secured beyond any further question. I believe it is, on balance, the most sensible of all solutions available to us.”

There was a long silence, in which he looked at her, waiting for a response, and she looked back at him, unspeaking.

“The most sensible solution,” Elizabeth repeated finally.

“I believe so, yes,” he confirmed.

Elizabeth looked at him for a long moment, searching his face for some sign that he had heard himself in the way that she heard him, and finding none. He stood there with what she could only imagine to be the perfect composure of a man who believes he has made his case thoroughly and convincingly and cannot imagine that any further persuasion would be required.

“Mr Darcy,” she said, proud of herself that her voice remained so level. “I thank you for the honour that you do me. But I cannot wed a man who would view that marriage as a degradation to himself, however sensible a degradation it might be.”

Something shifted in his expression, a look of surprise flashing in his dark eyes. “Miss Elizabeth —”

“I do not think that we should discuss this further,” she said.

Mr Darcy must have thought otherwise. “I do not understand,” he said, and there was real bewilderment in his voice, threaded with something else that she was not in a state to be charitable enough to identify. “You would refuse a solution that would leave your sister free to marry the man she loves, and that would resolve your own situation beyond any further difficulty? All because I acknowledged the ways in which outsiders might view the connection? You would truly rather keep us all tangled indefinitely in this wretched business than accept my proposal because I did not ignore its disadvantages in its delivery?” He sounded incredulous, and his cheeks were darkening with colour.

Elizabeth felt the heat rising in her own cheeks, a heat very different from the warmth that had suffused her when he had first made his proposal, before he had ruined it by explaining how very unsuitably he was acting by even considering wedding her. “You believe I am being selfish.”

“I believe,” he said, the flush rising in his own face, “that you are allowing your pride to stand in the way of your sister’s happiness, when you have been assuring me for these months that you wished above all things to find a way to secure it.”

“My pride,” Elizabeth said, and her voice was not steady at all now; she was struggling with everything in her to keep it from breaking entirely. “Mr Darcy, you have just informed me in considerable detail that marrying me would be a degradation, that my family disgusts you, that I am rather more ruined than not, and that society would consider you condescending to a shocking degree to stoop so low as to align yourself with one such as me. You tell me all that, and then you accuse me of pride when I do not throw myself gratefully at the feet of a man who has taken the time and care to curate a thorough catalogue of every reason I am unworthy and unsuitable before asking me to be his wife?”

“I did no such…that is, I did not say that I believed —”