Page 101 of Her Whole Heart
“A poor choice of words.”
“Perhaps.” She leaned against the back of the settee. “I trusted you, Mr. Darcy. Trusted you more than I had anyone. And to find that it was a joke to Lord Carlisle, that our friendship began as a punishment to you—it was humiliating. It wounded me.”
Mr. Darcy leaned toward her but kept his hands clasped. “Miss Elizabeth, it wasnevera joke. It began as a well-deserved chastisement, an order that I repair the damage my stupid insult had caused. I was angry to be treated as a child, but it was the best thing that could have happened to me. I was forced to correct my behaviour and I came to know you better.”
“I could not understand why you were always about,” Elizabeth said. “Not at first.”
“Our meeting at Hatchard’s was coincidental, but I came to the lecture because I had been ordered to.”
“I wondered why you had come when you said you had heard the lecture before.”
“But at the park, in the carriage, when you and Miss Bennet teased me about being hoodwinked by Colonel Fitzwilliam, I felt . . . not friendship, precisely, but the possibility of one.”
“I, too.”
Mr. Darcy’s anguish rang through his words. “I cannot begin to express how deeply sorry I am for the pain my silence has caused you. My love foryou is deep and abiding, and it has nothing to do with the conversation that occurred between Lord Carlisle and myself in January. Within three weeks I was thinking differently of you, and within a month, we were truly friends.”
“Yes?”
“And a month after that, I found myself already in love with you.”
“It was a little longer for me.”
Mr. Darcy barked out a laugh. “It was not.”
She smiled to herself. “Almost a full day longer. Once I knew you loved me, I could allow myself to feel it.” The love was still there, and his warm presence next to her made her feel steadier. Easier. Stronger.
“Then . . . have I ruined it all?”
Elizabeth took a very deep breath and released it slowly. She wished the earl had simply required Mr. Darcy to apologise. But then, would she have seen him often enough for their enmity to transform into friendship and the friendship to develop into love?
She did not think so.
“In the end, Mr. Darcy, your breach of trust was not so very awful, given that you did not pretend to feelings that you did not truly have. But somehow, it has released the memories of every other insult, every broken promise . . .”
His hand hovered over hers. “May I?” he asked.
Elizabeth blinked up at him. “Yes,” she said at last.
“You told me, not so very long ago, that nothing remains hidden forever. That such feelings were better exposed to the sunlight.”
“Did I? How inconvenient that you should recall.”
“That must be what is happening to you. Only it is everything, all at once, and I am sorry.” He hesitated. “I am sorry that my failure to consideryou was a cause, and sorrier still that there are so many feelings you have kept inside that facing them all has made you ill.”
Mr. Darcy curled his fingers around her hand, his own hand warm, gentle, comforting. The sigh that escaped him upon their touch reminded her that he was suffering too. Jane had been right. She did feel better with Mr. Darcy beside her. Brighter. Clearer.
Safer.
“Now,” he said, his voice very low indeed. “Please tell me what distresses you. I would help you.”
“It is the fire—but even more, it is everything that came before and after.”
“Tell me, if you are able,” he said gently.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Slowly, in fits and starts, Elizabeth unfolded everything to him. The day her father had called Jane and her to his study to tell them that they were to be the saviours of their family, and would that not be exciting? How thrilled she had been to attend Mrs. Buxton’s Academy to become a truly educated lady. The heartbreak when she realised that none of the girls other than Jane wanted anything to do with her. How hot the air had been in her lungs as she ran back for Lady Henrietta and how difficult the months it had taken her injuries to heal had been. Her guilt, months after the fire, when Amelia had written her such a cheerful letter and Elizabeth realised that shelikedthe young girl who had been a part of the group she resented so bitterly. Her gratitude that she had not listened to her animosity and had instead done what she knew to be right by running across the house to wake them all. How her father and mother had excoriated her for it.
