Elizabeth knew she was a bit too quick-witted and always too fast with a sarcastic retort. It had certainly caught Fitzwilliam Darcy’s notice last fall and then colored, tainted, and twisted their relationship for months. And now, she’d laid claim to him as her boyfriend just to show up some Brit twit? Was she being territorial? No, she was being honest and finally did what the man next to her had done so many times in the past: put herself on the line for him. She knew her cheeks were red, and she felt his eyes on her. Elizabeth slipped her hand out of his and sipped her wine.
“Elizabeth?”
She picked up her fork and speared a piece of cauliflower velouté. “I hope that wasn’t too presumptuous of me. I didn’t say it just to protect you from an old girlfriend.” Her voice held a slight tremor. “I meant it. If that’s what you want.” She took a bite and kept her eyes averted. Elizabeth knew she was an idiot to feel unsure of herself, but thisthingbetween them was so new and fragile, and her bravado was failing her a little.
“Elizabeth?” He put his hand on her arm. “You can’t imagine how much I want that.” He fumbled for words, unsure how to convey what her gesture, her protective territorial instincts, meant to him. Color burnished his cheekbones. “It’s an honor worth the earning.”
Elizabeth sat back and met his eyes. The dark gray orbs were meltingly soft, and she knew he loved her. She knew then that his feelings truly hadn’t changed, but their recent past had affected his ability to tell her how he felt. She was still so busy sorting it out herself that she nearly laughed. “Well,” she said, a bit unsteadily, “I did make you work for it.”
“Worth every moment.” Darcy caressed her cheek with his thumb. He cleared his throat. “I need you to know that Penelope Stewart is most decidedlynotan old girlfriend. She was a short-lived mistake. If you hadn’t noticed from my ineptness these past months, um, I’m a bit of a disaster at the whole relationship thing.”Here goes. “There’s a long list of things we’ve never talked about and that we need to talk about, but right now, I need to possibly ruin our first date and tell you about…things. To let you know, on this at least, Wickham was right.”
Elizabeth set down her fork and turned to face him. “Fitzwilliam Darcy, look at me.” He turned his head and met her eyes. “Wickham was wrong about you on every level. And you cannot ruin this date, okay? You’re already batting a thousand, Yankee boy.” She leaned over and touched his lips with a gentle kiss.
He gave her a small smile. “After my father died, I lost my bearings for a little while. I barely socialized while in school, but once I graduated and assumed running the family businesses, I just…I let go.” He was staring fixedly at the candle on their table. “I’d been living here and returned to London to bury my father, close up the house, and pack up Coco and Mittens. When I got back to New York, I just hit bottom: went to clubs, hung out in bars, met the wrong people, stayed out too late, and made some bad choices.” He sighed and rubbed his hand through his hair.
“I’d gone to school with Penelope back in England. I knew what she was…one of the sympathetic girls who felt sorry for me after the…after everything…and offered various ways to make me feel better.”
Elizabeth blanched. “Vultures.”
Darcy nodded. “Back then, I was too angry, too sheltered, too stupid to notice or accept whatever it was they intended. Penelope came to the States soon after I did, and she found me at a bar the week after the funeral. We lasted a few weeks. I walked in on her at a party with someone else, and I shot back by absolutely degrading myself for a few months, doing what Charles likes to tout as my walk of shame.”
Elizabeth thought for a moment. “Wait a minute, this acting out, the sowing of your wild oats or whatever, was all within the space of a few months?”
Darcy nodded. “Four months or so. I wasn’t paying much attention. Just working twelve-hour days, six days a week, and having what I thought was fun for the rest of it.” He couldn’t look at her. “Penelope has been trying to regain my attention for years.”
Elizabeth sighed and squeezed his hand. “If a few months ofwaking up in the wrong bed is the worst thing you’ve done, the lowest you’ve gone, you have nothing to be ashamed of.”
No, it’s not the worst thing. He tucked away that thought and rubbed his face. “And Elizabeth, um, this is the last thing I ever imagined I’d be telling you right now, but I want you to know that I’ve been careful in every way since then. You have nothing to worry about with me. About that…” He shook his head in disgust.I make people quake at board meetings, and I can’t even speak coherently to her.
Elizabeth heard the self-recrimination in his voice and suddenly understood more clearly why he’d acted as he had at Netherfield, why his self-control was so important to him. Her eyes welled up, but she bit her lip to calm down and wove her fingers through his. “I’m glad. You shouldn’t worry about me either.”
She shook her head. “And you knowI’mnot perfect. You met my last boyfriend, Brian. He was a scientist, worked with metals. Remember him at that dinner last fall?” she asked, glancing at the man listening intently to her story. He nodded. “He was pretty forgettable, really. I dated him for three months and felt more of a connection withyou, sparring over orange socks, walking sticks, and climate change, than I ever did with him. I’m aterriblegirlfriend. You’re taking a huge chance on me. Not because I’ll hurt you or anything,” she quickly assured him, “but I don’t know how to be a good one.”
“Well,” he sighed. He put his arm around her and kissed her hair. “Then it’s a most excellent thing that, with this learning curve, we are both overeducated, highly intelligent people.”
“Off the charts,” she agreed. “After all, Iwasthe fifth-grade spelling bee champion.”
“And when I was fourteen, I medaled in geography competitions.”
“Oh, that’s impressive.” Elizabeth laughed. She picked up her wine glass for a toast to their glory. “Should we ever go to Queens, remind me to pull out my winning entry in the tenth-grade poetry slam. Jane says I missed my calling as an angry rap princess.”
He met her toast and drained his wine glass before leaning closer and kissing her as senseless as propriety allowed in a dark, intimate restaurant. “Would you like to try my grilled tomatoes, Elizabeth? They’re a lovely shade of red.”
She giggled and kissed him again.
As the evening wound down, Elizabeth teased him about his excitement for their attendance at the next day’s Yankees game. “I might turn into the most amazing girlfriend ever, but don’t think for a second that the plush seating and posh waiters in your private skybox will turn me into a Yankees fan.” She bumped him a bit as they walked arm in arm toward her building. Darcy, who’d seen her father wearing his Mets cap at Pemberley, insisted that New Yorkers could root for all city teams—especially when box seats meant extremely good nachos. “Always served on china with knives and forks,” he added.
Elizabeth leaned near and nipped his earlobe. “As long as the cheese is orange,” she whispered.
The teasing ended as they neared her door. He watched as she pulled out her key and reached for the doorknob. He knew that if he walked in there with her, he wouldn’t be able to resist her many temptations. She knew it too. Somehow, through the newness of it all, they managed to mutually agree to say their goodbyes here. Darcy was a patient man, and he could handle going slow, but he did need to ask her one small question.
“Elizabeth, I have to go to San Francisco first thing on Monday, and I’ll not be back until Thursday.” He looked at her, his face awash in cautious hope. “Would you join me at Pemberley next weekend?”
“Just us?”
He nodded. “Perhaps we could head out Friday morning? Make it a long weekend?”
She beamed at him. “Yes.”
