Page 28 of I Have Faults Enough

"I might have," he admitted, "and did not."

"No, sir, you did not. You looked at me, instead, as though I had committed some offense merely by speaking."

"I was trying not to look at you as though I wished very much to hear you go on."

He seemed to hear the admission only after he had made it, and did not retract it. "You made me conscious of myself in a manner I found deeply uncomfortable. I would leave a room out of temper with you, and discover, some hours after, that I could recall nearly everything you had said in it. I told myself you had provoked me. It was easier than considering the alternative."

Her eyes lowered. "And what was the alternative?"

"That I thought of you far oftener, and far more warmly, than was at all sensible."

Elizabeth felt the old certainty loosening. Her mind went immediately to the assembly, when she first saw Mr. Darcy in all his reserve. He had refused to dance with her that evening, and the look he had given her, she had taken for contempt. Then, she remembered Netherfield, and all his silences whenever she entered a room; his brooding and serious manner, which had felt cold and distant.

Had she mistaken him in all of it?

"I can scarcely credit it, sir. Your actions have told so different a story from the one you tell me now, that I hardly know how to reconcile the two."

"I thought I might master it. I thought distance would answer. Instead, the more I tried to suppress it, the more I found myself noticing you; your humor, your temper, the look you wore when you suspected someone of being a fool. The patience you showed your sisters, even when they exhausted it. The ease with which you could be wounded by Miss Bingley, and still find something in the evening to laugh at."

She did not know what to think. And what was worse, she could not dismiss the possibility that she had been equally blind to herself.

She had disliked him. She was certain of that. Or, at least, she had been. She had delighted in finding fault with him, in proving him wrong, in imagining that his pride deserved every sharp observation she could offer. Yet the memory of that certainty no longer possessed quite the same strength. She had seen another man these past three days, one she had not expected to find beneath the Mr. Darcy she had so confidently condemned.

She did not know whether this man frightened her more or less.

Darcy watched her for a moment before his expression softened. He seemed to understand that there was nothing more to be gained by pressing her further tonight. His breath caught almost imperceptibly, and then he said quietly, “That is enough for me tonight.”

Elizabeth closed her eyes, though sleep was the last thing on her mind. She needed the darkness, if only because she could no longer bear the uncertainty of his watching her while she tried to make sense of what she was feeling.

She turned over quickly, putting her back toward him, and drew the coat more securely around herself. “Good,” she murmured. Then, after the smallest pause, she added, “Because I am very tired.”

It was not entirely true. She was tired, certainly, but not enough to sleep. Her mind was far too occupied for that. She simply did not know what else to say, and pretending to be ready for sleep was easier than admitting that his words had unsettled every conclusion she had once held about him, and, perhaps, about herself.

Behind her, Darcy said nothing for the remainder of the night, and for that, she was grateful.

CHAPTER 17

When morning came, grey and cold as every morning that week had been, Elizabeth woke again in his arms. For a few moments she did not move. The warmth of him at her back, the steady rise and fall of his breathing, and the strange familiarity of waking beside him.

She still did not know what she felt, and she could not make herself pretend otherwise. Elizabeth was not prepared to call it admiration, nor could she say with certainty that what she felt was anything more than the deep affection born of hardship shared.

Yet neither could she return to the certainty she had possessed before. I have been wrong about him, she decided; and, perhaps she might even have been wrong about herself as well.

Whatever waited for them beyond these trees, rescue or further danger, her family's relief or their horror, she found that she did not wish to face it without him. And, this realization made her question her feelings even more.

“We must find our way home today,” Darcy said quietly into the hair at her temple, when the light had grown strong enough that neither of them could pretend any longer that the day did not require it of them.

Elizabeth smiled faintly. “I suppose you are right, Mr. Darcy.” She did not move immediately, and neither did he.

For another moment they remained as they were, saying nothing, as though both understood that whatever had changed between, it was not one that needed addressing immediately. At last Elizabeth shifted, and Darcy released her without hesitation.

Within half an hour they had left the charcoal-burner's hut, both still weary and hungry, but with something lighter between them than there had been the evening before. The uncertainty remained, but it no longer felt like something either was obliged to resolve before they could continue. They had spoken honestly. For the moment, and that was enough for them both.

Elizabeth's ankle was no better for a second hard day's use, and both of them were hollow with hunger. No hedgerow's remaining sloes seemed quite equal to answering either need that morning, and Darcy's expression grew increasingly grim each time Elizabeth's step faltered.

“We must find a road properly,” he said, as they struck out from the trees into open country once more, “or better still, some soul who can tell us plainly what parish we have wandered into. I confess my confidence in yesterday's direction has not improved.”

“You navigated us successfully to both a shepherd's hut and a charcoal-burner's,” she said. “I call that a tolerable record.”