Page 53 of Elizabeth Bennet Says Yes to Mr. Darcy

“Forgive me. For once, I didn’t ask.”

“I didn’t tell you to stop.”

His lips lingered a second longer against my fingers.

After his departure, my mother rushed toward me.

“Lizzy, what have you done? Everyone will think you’re engaged!”

I looked at the door through which he had just disappeared.

I had not yet given him the final answer he awaited. Yet the prospect of the neighborhood believing us engaged no longer frightened me.

“Perhaps,” I said, “they won’t be wrong for long.”

Chapter 17

Elizabeth

Georgiana received me the day after the assembly in a small drawing room at Netherfield, the curtains still half-drawn.

She rose as soon as I entered, then seemed uncertain whether to offer me her hand, curtsy, or apologize for existing. I resolved the difficulty by embracing her.

Her body stiffened for a moment before relaxing against me.

“I'm sorry,” she murmured.

“You've done nothing wrong.”

“My brother had to leave the ball because of me.”

“Your brother would have crossed England in the middle of the night if you needed him. That doesn't make you guilty of causing it.”

She lowered her eyes.

“I thought I was stronger.”

“Strength isn't about feeling nothing when you face the person who hurt you.”

I led her to the sofa. Mrs. Annesley had left us alone after casting me a grateful look.

“He looked exactly the same,” Georgiana continued. “For a moment, I was fifteen again. I remembered everything he had promised me, and the shame when Fitzwilliam found us.”

She spoke her brother's name with quiet tenderness. I took her hand.

“The shame isn't yours to carry.”

“I know that when my brother tells me. I forget it sometimes when I'm alone.”

“Then more people will have to keep telling you.”

She looked at me with tears in her eyes.

“Will you stay?”

The question wasn't only about this morning.

I couldn't answer her without thinking of Darcy, of Pemberley, of the place I might occupy beside them. A week earlier, this prospect would have seemed a magnificent and terrifying obligation. Now, I wanted it.