Page 26 of Fortuitous Encounters

He took a breath, and she wondered what he was working his way up to.

He eventually gathered his courage and began.

“In vain I have struggled; it will not do. I must tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”

Elizabeth's astonishment was beyond expression. She stared, coloured, doubted, and was silent. This he considered sufficient encouragement; and the avowal of all that he felt, and had long felt for her, immediately followed.

“This past month, I have tried and tried to devise a means to get you out of this trap without undue distress, and without losing your family. I have tried to give you time to get to know me and done my best to avoid pressing you—all without success.

“I am aware that we have not had the type of courtship you deserve, and that I have not always shown you the love and respect that is your due, but as you say, needs must. This is sooner than planned, but I hope very much that you will honour me with your hand in marriage, and that one day, you will love me just as deeply and be happy that you made the choice.”

Elizabeth’s astonishment reached hitherto unimaginable heights, and she babbled worse than Lydia.

"In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to express a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed, but I cannot—”

His terrified expression forced her to hurry ahead.

“I mean that I feel all the gratitude in the world for all you have done for me, but I will not answer your question based on gratitude.”

He calmed slightly, though he remained on a knife edge. Desperate, she took both his hands and spoke emphatically from the heart.

“I cannot imagine that you believe me capable of denying you, and you are correct. You know my situation very well and are aware that to deny a man like you would be madness.”

He looked at her intently and nervously, and she nearly panicked, for she was making a mockery of what she wished to say.

She squeezed his hand. “I am making a mess of this, so let me be clear. I will not marry you because you rescued me… though you did, and I am eternally grateful. I will not marry you because you will move my situation from pitiful to perfect… though you will. I will not marry you out of gratitude, or loyalty, or kindness, or desperation.”

She took one more deep breath.

“I will marry you because I admire and love you! Not at some far future date. Not after the wedding. Not after you take me away from this place. Now! I love you right now, and I will love you with my dying breath.”

Had Elizabeth been able to encounter his eye, she might have seen how well the expression of heartfelt delight, diffused over his face, became him; but, though she could not look, she could listen, and he told her of feelings, which, in proving of what importance she was to him, made his affection every moment more valuable.

They talked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects. She finally got a good look at him, sitting on the uncomfortable work chair in that tiny sorting room, and wondered how wilfully blind she had been to not realise weeks earlier that she was in love with the man. Being unaware of his feelings was one thing, but being unaware of her own was silly.

Eventually, as it must, they had to discuss practical matters.

“Elizabeth, you have had a lot of choices taken from you, so I would like to offer you two.”

“I am happy with anything that—” she started but never got to the rest before he covered her lips with his finger.

“Option one,” he counted off on his finger. “I can sneak you out of here in my coach, and we can marry in town or Pemberley at our leisure. I took the liberty of purchasing a common licence, so we can marry whenever we like, as long as we like to be married in the Church of England between eight and noon.”

Elizabeth was lost in wonder, and pondered how he managed to get consent, but asked the pragmatic question, “Will that not hurt my sisters when my father calls the banns, and I never show up?”

“It will, but I would call that being bitten by their own snake.”

She shuddered at the analogy but had to own that it was correct. “I hope option two is better?”

“It is for me!” he replied enigmatically.

“Do tell.”

“Option two,” he counted with his second finger and pulled out his pocket watch. “Within the next sixty-seven minutes, you would don your ballgown, which I have yet to see and Mrs Herbert happens to have ready, do your hair quickly, if at all, then we walk down to the church, and join Bingley and Jane for a double wedding today! Now!”

Elizabeth laughed uproariously and said, “Why did you not lead with that, silly man?”

Then she jumped up, pulled him up, kissed him within an inch of his life (briefly), then ran out the door shouting for Mrs Herbert.