Author's Update Note: Chapters 1-8 updates are mostly typos or an insignificant word change. I think Chapter 9 and 10 have an additional paragraph or slight change in emphasis to fit with the new chapters better. Also, I can't help tweaking, sorry. Thanks and sorry!

"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." Vol II, Chapter XI (Chapter 34)

CHAPTER 1
"…how ardently I admire and love you."

He had been speaking for some time, but her mind had been arrested at the incongruous collision of her understanding of reality, with the revelation of his remarkable sentiments.

He had said something about his struggles and the embarrassment of her connections (they had been embarrassing her for years so nothing new there) and of her fiduciary and social inferiority, while expressing tender and passionate inclinations which judgment, reason and duty could not overcome. She supposed she should be offended and angry about such statements and a part of her was, but at that moment she was preoccupied by the fact that he said he loved her. Ardently.

He had been conquered, somehow with no effort on her part. No effort is probably understating it for she had actively courted his disapprobation, had led her sharp mind and penchant for witticism against him whenever she was able. And he had spent months away from her company, being conquered by his memories of her.

Memories of impertinence, of open dissent and disagreement, of challenge and deflection, of attempts to demean and degrade his character, person and consequence at every opportunity. And yet, he had come to love her.

She could not possibly marry him. He was demonstrably out of his wits, and had she not always said she could not marry a man who was out of his wits?

His silence imposed itself upon her thoughts more than his surprising volubility. Who would have thought Mr Darcy capable of such garrulousness? Truly, this was the most she had ever heard him speak in the entirety of their acquaintance. How could her wit fail her now?

"Miss Bennet? Are you well?"

She blinked, the colour rising in her cheeks as she realised that she was unable to open her mouth to speak, as she had yet to close it from her astonishment. She studied the gloss finish of his leather boots as she collected her thoughts.

"In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to express a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed, however unequally they may be returned." She paused and lifted bemused eyes to his composed and expectant face. "But I do not know how I can…" She saw her own confusion and doubt reflected in his countenance, his confidence ebbing away. "I, I am sorry, but I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly bestowed it most unwillingly. I am sorry to have occasioned pain to any one. It has been most unconsciously done, however…"

"Unequally returned? You have never desired my good opinion? Do you mean that you have not been expecting my addresses? You have not been encouraging my attentions here in Kent?" It was his turn to be slack-jawed.

"Indeed, Mr Darcy, I had no notion you had been spending any time thinking of me in such a way. I have clearly completely misunderstood your character in every way possible if I am to believe the sincerity of your words today. Did you think I welcomed your silent attendance upon my every conversation, or during my rambles in the park? I expressly told you it was my favourite walk in the full expectation that you would avoid meeting me there in future! When we met repeatedly thereafter, I confess I had assumed you accompanied me to silently condemn or find fault with me, as I assumed you were doing every other time you glared at me when we were in company."

She paused to consider the words she had just spoken. "That does seem singular now that I say it out loud… but really, what else was I supposed to think as you had clearly withstood my personal charms early on. Well, I thought you had." She stood and shook off the perplexing quandary and went on, recalling now the reasons for her disapprobation of everything related to Mr Darcy.

"You have impressed me from the very first moments of our acquaintance as a most arrogant and unfeeling man, directing your affairs with scant regard for the feelings of others, including those who are your declared friends." As she spoke, she saw the moment the incongruity of his expectations collided with her unexpected revelations. A part of her that was still reeling from that collision softened in empathy, but her words marched on.

"This insufferable pride, exposed as it was at the Assembly, and further confirmed in every interaction I witnessed, every pronouncement of Miss Bingley, as well as the particulars of your history with Mr Wickham! Not to mention that you have crowed about deliberately ruining the hopes of a most beloved sister and reduced a childhood friend under your family's protection to a state of comparative poverty for reasons that I am incapable of comprehending!

You have spoken of an ardent love that has overcome all other objections, including my merely tolerable person that was not handsome enough to tempt you, but you have clearly failed to grasp how my understanding of your character is the greatest objection of all! Think you that your handsome face, inherited estate and ten thousand a year are enough to overcome these objections?"

She had begun pacing during this speech, gesturing her acrimony, her agitation making her eyes flash in exactly the way that had always discomposed him. He was helplessly tracking her movements across the carpet, completely in her power and only just beginning to understand how precariously his position, and his heart, were thus placed.

He sank to the nearest chair in a dignified approximation of shame and attempted to reorder his thoughts into some semblance of coherence. All this time she had not been flirting with him, had not perceived that his debates with her indicated the height of his respect for her lively mind, her inveterate wit, her independent spirit. Not to mention her fine eyes.

She had not spent the intervening months thinking of him longingly or even wistfully, but rather cursing him expansively for his part in her sister's apparent heart break and a blackguard's impoverished circumstances. Where should he begin?

"You overheard me?"

Well, that was as good a place as any, he supposed.