Page 141 of The Difference of a Darcy
Elizabeth followed the path Darcy had taken through the garden and into the trees, her breath sharp in the cold afternoon air. The sun would be setting soon, and the shadows from the trees only served to increase the cold.
The woods were quiet save a few chattering squirrels and the faint rustle of bare branches above. Ahead, through the trees, she caught sight of him—his tall figure standing along the bank of the stream. Just as he had at Rosings, he was throwing pebbles into the creek with as much force as he could muster.
“Fitzwilliam!” she called, her voice ringing across the stillness.
He turned slightly, surprise flickering across his face before he looked away again. That small gesture—so resigned, so weary—only deepened her anger.
“How dare you!” she cried, striding toward him. “How dare you speak as if everything you have done means nothing! As if your life, your choices, are so meaningless that you can simply abandon them!”
He halted but did not turn. Elizabeth’s fury rose at his silence.
“You speak of having no purpose left. What of me? Have I no place in your world now? Do I not count for something? After allwehave endured—after all that we have done together—you would cast it aside with one despairing speech and a walk into the woods?”
Her voice trembled, but she pressed on. “You have risked your life for your sister, for me, forus! You have set right what was broken and protected those you love. And now you would tell me it was all for nothing? You foolish, foolish man!”
He turned then, his expression tight with pain. “Elizabeth—”
“No,” she said fiercely, cutting him off. “You do not get to speak until I am finished.”
He fell silent, his jaw clenched.
“I believed,” she continued, her breath unsteady, “that we had an understanding. That we were a team—equals. I thought we had begun to trust one another. And now you talk as though I am nothing to you, as though all of this was a mistake to be undone!”
He flinched, and the anguish in his eyes nearly broke her, but her anger burned too brightly to stop.
At last, he spoke—low, bitter, almost a whisper. “You are right about one thing. It was a mistake. I wish none of this had happened. I wish I had never spoken those foolish words that morning in Kent. I wish I could take it all back.”
Elizabeth went utterly still. The cold air bit at her cheeks, but she barely felt it.
“I do not,” she said.
His head snapped up. “What?”
“I do not regret it,” she repeated, her voice trembling but sure. “How could I? This strange, broken world has given me something no other could have done. It has given me you. It has shown me the real Fitzwilliam Darcy—proud, yes, and impossible, but good and brave and kind. I have seen your heart.”
She stepped closer, her voice softening but growing no less firm. “If there is one good thing to come from this—one blessing—it is that we finally see each other as we truly are. I would rather be in this world with you, without my family, than back in the other world without you.”
His breath caught. “Elizabeth… how can you say that? To give up your family, your friends—everyone that you love?”
She lifted her chin, her heart pounding so hard she could scarcely speak. “Because I loveyou.”
The words hung between them, shimmering in the cold air.
For a moment he only stared at her, astonishment written plainly across his face. Then, with a sound that was half breath, half prayer, he closed the distance between them in two strides.
His hands came up to frame her face, his touch fierce and trembling. “I love you too,” he whispered, the words so low she barely heard them before his mouth found hers.
The world seemed to fall away. The cold, the fear, the ache of months—all of it melted in that single, searing moment. His kiss was everything—relief and wonder, sorrow and joy, and the fierce recognition that they had found at last what neither had dared to hope for.
Elizabeth’s hands gripped the front of his coat, her knees weak, her heart soaring. She rose up onto her toes withoutthinking, meeting his passion with her own. She could feel his heartbeat against her own, steady and real, grounding her in the certainty that whatever world they now lived in, they belonged to each other.
He deepened the kiss, causing her to gasp against his mouth. But there was no hurry, no desperation—his lips moved against hers with a kind of reverence, as though he were learning the shape of her soul. The heat of him seeped through her shawl, dissolving the cold that had lingered in her chest since he declared his regret.
She could feel his hand slide from her cheek to the curve of her neck, his thumb brushing the hollow beneath her ear. The tenderness of it undid her utterly. Her heart swelled with so much feeling she thought it might burst. Love, gratitude, release—all of it tangled together until she no longer knew where one ended and the other began.
When he finally drew back, they remained close, their foreheads touching, their breaths mingling in the chill air. She opened her eyes and found his fixed on her, dark and bright all at once, full of wonder and promise and disbelief.
“Elizabeth,” he whispered, her name rough and reverent.
