Page 158 of What Change Entails

His fingers closed over hers with immediate care, almost desperate in restraint.

“My feelings are so different from what they were,” she said.

His grip stiffened.

“I have never been in love before,” Elizabeth continued, discovering as she spoke that honesty was both terrifying and oddly freeing. “So, I cannot speak with much authority about the state. But if thinking of you against my will, watching for you when I ought to be attending elsewhere, wishing to know your thoughts, fearing I have wounded you, and being very foolishly happy when you stand near me are symptoms of it, then I believe the condition may be applied.”

A sound escaped him, too breathless for laughter and too joyful for anything else.

“May be applied?”

She lifted her chin. “I would not wish to speak rashly.”

“Never,” he murmured.

Then he kissed her again. This time she knew enough to meet him without hesitation. It was less startling and more dangerous for that. His arm drew her close again, and she leaned into him with a trust that would have scandalized her yesterday, last week, last April. His mouth was warm, reverent, increasingly less restrained until he checked himself with a low sound and pulled back.

They sat in utter impropriety for several seconds, hand in hand, faces flushed, with the mare regarding a patch of grass as if humans frequently behaved foolishly behind her.

Elizabeth began to laugh.

Darcy stared at her, alarmed.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, pressing one hand to her mouth. “It is simply that if Lady Catherine could see us now, she would require a new vocabulary for displeasure.”

Darcy’s eyes lit with sudden amusement. “She would likely begin with ‘obstinate, headstrong girl’ and proceed from there.”

“Do you think she has ever kissed anyone in a gig?”

“I refuse to speculate upon my aunt’s romantic history.”

She smirked. “A prudent man.”

“I try to be.”

That made her laugh harder, which obliged him to smile in a way that ruined any hope of regaining proper solemnity.

The mare tossed her head.

Darcy fingered the slack reins and appeared to remember that they were, in fact, upon a public road, however private it currently appeared. He straightened, adjusted the leather, and guided the mare forward once more.

The silence was changed now. It held embarrassment, certainly, and the remnants of breathless delight, but no uncertainty of the sort that had plagued Elizabeth for days. She sat beside him with her gloved hand in his, hidden between them where the folds of her skirt concealed it from any distant passerby.

The road climbed gradually toward the ridge. Trees thinned, revealing open pasture and a broad sweep of hills beyond. This time Elizabeth did look. Not because Darcy had pointed it out, though he had done so with adorable determination. Because she wished to share his pleasure in it.

“It is beautiful,” she said.

“Yes.”

She found him looking at her instead of the hills.

“Mr. Darcy.”

“I am admiring the view.”

She raised a brow. “You are not looking at it.”

“I disagree.”