Page 49 of Mr. Darcy’s Fiery Passion

"I have not been respectable for a week," said Mr. Darcy.

He stepped back. He went to the hearth and stood with his back to her until his color had gone down.

It was as well that he did. A moment later Jane came along the passage with Elizabeth's workbasket. She looked at Mr. Darcy by the fire, and at her sister, and at the waistcoat buttoned to his chin. She said nothing at all. But she smiled into the workbasket all the way to the fire.

Mr. Darcy bowed and went to find Mr. Bingley.

The day went slowly after that. Jane sewed. Elizabeth held her book and read the same page four times. She could still feel the warmth of his chest under her hand.

At three o'clock Thomas came to the door. Miss Lucas had called, and was asking for Miss Elizabeth. Jane kissed her sister and slipped out to give them the room.

Charlotte sat by the library fire in her bonnet and pelisse. She asked after the ankle, and admired the bandage. Elizabeth said it had been tied by a very clumsy person. Charlotte sat a moment with her hands folded in her lap.

"Eliza," she said. "I have something to tell you. I would rather you heard it from me."

Elizabeth looked at her and knew. Perhaps it was the hands, folded so carefully. "Mr. Collins," she said.

"Mr. Collins came to Lucas Lodge this morning." Charlotte's voice was quite steady. "He asked me to marry him, and I said yes."

"Engaged to Mr. Collins! My dear Charlotte, it is impossible." The words were out before she could stop them.

Charlotte's color rose a little. "Why should you be surprised? Do you think it incredible that Mr. Collins could get a woman's good opinion, only because he could not get yours?" She smiled, very slightly. "I am not romantic, Eliza. I never was. I am seven and twenty. I ask only a comfortable home."

Elizabeth was silent.

"He has a good house and a good living," Charlotte went on. "Lady Catherine will be kind to me, I think, in her way. My brothers will not have to keep me when my father dies." She looked at the fire. "That is a great deal, you know. That is more than most of us get."

My brothers will not have to keep me.

Elizabeth heard her mother's voice under it. I shall not be able to keep you.

She reached out and took Charlotte's hand. "I hope you will be very happy," she said. She tried to mean it, and found that she did. "Truly, Charlotte."

Charlotte pressed her hand and stood up to go. At the door she turned. "You refused him," she said. "Everyone in Meryton knows. Your mother told my mother, and my mother told everyone." She paused. "I hope you know what you are doing, Eliza. Not everyone can afford to wait."

Then she was gone.

Elizabeth sat alone by the fire for a long time.

Charlotte had made sure nobody would ever have to keep her. She had done it in a morning, with her eyes open. And Elizabeth had refused the same bargain from her chair. She had a ruined ankle, no fortune, and nowhere to go home to.

She could not have married Mr. Collins if he had come with Pemberley itself.

Pemberley.

She had not meant to think the word. Now it sat in her mind, and another thought came close behind it.

She let it come for one moment. She saw a breakfast table, and him across it, reading his own letters. She saw herself with nothing to cut and nothing to fetch. She was simply there, because he wanted her there.

Then she put it away, hard.

If he offered for her, she knew why he would do it. She had nursed him. She had been carried home in his arms in front of half the household. She had been in the library with him in the small hours, night after night. He was a man who paid what he owed. He would pay this, and he would be kind about it.

And she would spend her life as a debt he had honored.

She had meant every word she said in the lane. She meant it more now. She could bear to be poor. She could bear to be Charlotte's kind of sensible, or her mother's kind of worry. She could not bear to be the thing he owed.

So she did not let herself hope. It was easier not to.