GREEN

Elizabeth laughed a bit at the jest, finding it somewhat easier to do so, at least occasionally. The idea of an old tutor trying to turn her six-foot husband over his knee had a certain amount of amusement, and she enjoyed it while she could. Then she decided to return to another painful subject and get it over with.

"Before supper, Mr. Darcy, when I told you about my escape attempts, you said, 'that changes everything'. What did you mean?"

Feeling like he was walking into a trap, the gentleman spoke carefully. "It means all of my actions from the moment of the compromise were predicated on an incorrect assumption, which then caused me to misinterpret everything. I –"

He paused a moment. "Excuse me, but we were interrupted with supper and laudanum before I could respond. I must offer my most humble and sincere apologies. I was completely in the wrong and treated you terribly. I will own it without disguise."

"I accept your apology, Mr. Darcy, within –"

At that point, she had no idea what she was going to qualify the apology with, so she just said, "Pray continue."

Darcy realized that she was making a big effort to not say what was on her mind, which was her right. It was probably the correct thing to do at that moment, and he had to admit, at least privately, that he could use the reprieve.

"When I said that changes everything, I meant that I now must do the same thing you have done – or, forgive my presumption, but perhaps we both need to –"

He paused, so Elizabeth prompted him. "Need to – what, Mr. Darcy?"

"Perhaps we both need to let go of our – I cannot think of the right word. It is something like 'prejudice' but that is not quite it. I mean our underlying way of looking at the situation. Perhaps we need to set aside our pride or vanity to see clearly. I suppose we both need to reexamine our entire history in light of that revelation."

Elizabeth growled. "I can see where you are going, sir. Since you now understand me better, you will be better able to understand my motives, or complete lack thereof; and that should in some way help us? Perhaps your behavior will be excused as the natural reaction to someone attacked by an adventuress, and you can conveniently disregard the first six weeks of our acquaintance as some sort of mistake that goes away once you are corrected and make suitable apologies?"

Darcy, feeling his anger rising to match hers, started to say something, but then stopped abruptly before anything came out. He sank back into the chair, afraid if he spoke intemperately that he might regret it and thought long and hard about it.

After some thought, he said quietly. "I can see that, after your mother, I have the lion's share of the blame in this debacle. The only mild criticism is that once the die was cast, it seems like you only tried to escape the entanglement, but you made no effort to improve it – not that you would be expected to."

Elizabeth's ire rose to the level of a growl, but before she lashed out, she breathed deeply for nearly a minute, before saying, "Suggest one thing that I could have done differently, Mr. Darcy."

He leaned forward, closing the gap between them by a foot or two. "I am afraid to, because it will sound like deflecting blame from myself to you, which is not my intent."

"I will not hold you responsible. I just want to know what I could possibly have done."

"It was obvious that I thought you partially responsible for the compromise. You could have had your father write to me after things calmed down to explain your position. In fact, after the betrothal, you could have written to me yourself. I would have read the letter in anger, but I would have at least understood your position. You could have found a third party to communicate without walking to London with a bag of onions and apples, but all of your efforts were directed at escape, rather than improving the situation."

Growling, Elizabeth said, "So once again, it is my fault that I did not correct you! This is unbelievable!"

Darcy, trying his best not to match temper for temper said, "No! You are interpreting what I said in the worst possible way. I am not blaming you for not doing those things. I am simply asserting that there are things you could have done. It is not a way to shift blame, but a way to get us both thinking about possibilities. We need a way out of this morass and continuing the thinking that placed us here will not do the job."

Elizabeth stared at him for quite some time in befuddlement. "If I give you more laudanum will you start making sense?"

"We are in a difficult situation. We are both sitting on a big pile of only partially correct beliefs, spending half of our time trying to make our situation better, and half the time trying to absolve ourselves of some small share of the blame. It is only natural. I believe I have the bulk of the blame in this situation, so perhaps I am trying harder to absolve myself of it than I deserve; but we are both doing the same, in our own ways. We are both nursing our resentments more than looking for a solution."

Elizabeth opened her mouth to snap back that she had no share in the blame, which was somewhat correct, but she stopped herself before speaking. She thought about it for a very long time, and finally asked, "Is that how you see it, Mr. Darcy?"

He sighed. "I will not attempt to define your thoughts or motives. For myself, so long as we focus on the past, I would like to think I am very belatedly trying to act like a man, finding out where I went wrong so I can correct it, but I know that I am at least partly trying to assuage my conscience. It is human nature, and to pretend otherwise will not make anything better. As a gentleman, I feel a need to correct my errors, but to do that, I need to understand them."

"What do you think would make it better, Mr. Darcy – if anything?"

He sat for a moment. "Honesty."

"Explain your meaning."

Darcy stared at her. "Coerced or not, intended or not, irrevocable or not – we both stood in church this morning and made vows before God. We only have three choices at this point."

"Go on," Elizabeth asked, happy to finally be seeing that there was some active intelligence in her new husband, or at least, it was possible for him to say something that did not set her teeth on edge.

"Number one – We can find a way to dissolve the marriage. We could get an annulment. They are difficult and expensive, but it can be done, particularly given that you did not really consent. Or, you can run away, as you have threatened to do several times, give yourself a new name, and nobody will be the wiser. You could go to Scotland, Ireland or America and nobody would ask a single question. I cannot do the same, as my responsibilities are fixed. However, I can pass Pemberley to anyone I choose. I could give it to my sister's eldest son, or I could just have a child out of wedlock. I could also, as you say, find a way to declare you 'suitably dead' and marry again."

Elizabeth sighed. "It all sounds so selfish when you lay it out in such stark and logical terms."

Darcy sighed to match hers. "It all depends on how I act. If I continue to act the brute, it would be somewhat selfish, but mostly sensible and nobody could blame you for it. I would do the same in your shoes, I am sad to say. If I correct my behavior, it becomes less noble and more selfish. I obviously do not like that option, but it is one way forward."

"Let us hear the other two options."

"Number two – We could form a marriage of convenience, as is often done. I know any number of couples who could not, at any given time, tell me the location of their spouse within ten miles. You would live your life and I would live mine. We would obviously have to interact occasionally for procreation and the like, but otherwise, we need not be in each other's constant company. We may even find some common ground. We like the same books, we both like walking, we both like chess and whist. I would assume we can both be civil long enough for it to not be entirely miserable."

Elizabeth refrained from stating that the only time her husband had been civil had been in the past hour. There was nothing to gain by belaboring the point. The idea sounded horrible, but not entirely unworkable.

"And the third?"

Darcy stared at her intently, leaned as far forward in his chair as he could without falling over, and stared at her intently.

"Number three – We can learn to be happy with each other. I believe, with not a lot of evidence to support the thesis other than hope, that we could honor and respect each other, and dare I reach for the stars – I think we might eventually actually love one another. It is what we both want, so why not try to achieve it together? It is not as if either of us have any other candidates waiting in the wings."

Elizabeth very slowly shook her head while trying to understand the new concept, and finally said, "Sir. That is not a possibility I had considered."

"Are you entirely opposed to the idea?"

"No, of course not. It just seems –" and she trailed off in thought.

"Would it help if I tell you that I had a reason for dancing with you at that ball? You no doubt noticed it was not a common occurrence."

"I always assumed it was a wager or dare gone wrong."

Darcy chuckled, but then stopped when he saw that she was entirely serious, and asked, "Truly?"

"Truly! The only reason I accepted was that I could not think of an excuse fast enough, and I did not want to give up dancing the rest of the night. And of course, Charlotte would have slapped me silly for refusing a man of your consequence."

Darcy, not quite knowing which, if any part, of his new wife's words were in jest or entirely serious decided to just say what he meant. "I asked you because I wanted to!"

Elizabeth looked confused. "So, a personal challenge, then?"

"Not everything has to be confrontational. No, I wanted to dance with you because I liked you. If I am being honest, I will admit that you occupied a significant space in my dreams the last few weeks before the ball."

Elizabeth just sat staring at him in confusion, and finally said, "So, I was handsome enough to tempt you?"

"Yes, very much so."

Elizabeth thought furiously. "To be honest, that makes it worse in many ways. If my treatment was what you do for someone you like I would hate to see what you do to someone you hate."

"You have already seen how I treat someone I hate. It took every morsel of my gentlemanly discipline to not call George Wickham out, and he only continues to breathe instead of rotting in debtor's prison on my sufferance."

Darcy paused in deep thought, and Elizabeth thought it best to let him, since the whole concept of him liking her seemed so very odd.

He finally said, "Perhaps, I was so harsh after the compromise because I was disappointed. I have been mingling with the ladies of the ton for a good decade, and you were the first that I had any interest in whatsoever. You were the first to challenge me, although when I think back, I suspect you were toying with me."

Elizabeth looked down bashfully. "I was."

She was feeling a mixture of anger and confusion, but the anger was not quite as strong as it had been at first after his odd confession.

She finally said, "Perhaps, Mr. Darcy, I can repay your honesty. You hurt me that first night. I hid it by ridiculing you, but I can assure you that any woman with a mother like mine does not need a stranger to publicly comment on her handsomeness."

"Omit your mother from that sentence. No woman deserves that kind of ungentlemanly remark, from anyone, ever. I have no excuse but may I belatedly – very belatedly – offer an apology. I said that, and some even worse things those first few weeks that I wish I had not."

"Wish you had not said, or wish you had not thought?"

"Both!"

Elizabeth shyly asked, "So you say you liked me. I am assuming it was a moment of infatuation. Would you have acted on it, beyond asking for the dance?"

Darcy stared at the floor. "Probably not. I almost certainly would have come to regret it later, but I was planning to leave the next day."

"The dance was just to get the troublesome infatuation out of your system?"

Darcy took a deep breath. "I cannot say. I had determined not to dance with you, and the next thing I knew, I was asking for your hand. It was most unusual."

"Yes, I daresay it was. Now that I think on it, you had asked me before. Were those serious?"

"I cannot say. In Lucas Lodge, Sir William forced my hand, so I asked out of politeness, but I must confess that I hoped you would say 'yes'."

Elizabeth chuckled. "Who would have thought. Well, Mr. Darcy, I can honestly say that during that entire time I never thought a single positive thought about you, but – well, you do improve with understanding – I think."

"I shall take 'you are not nearly as terrible as I thought' as the highest compliment."

Elizabeth laughed. "Perhaps I should instruct Miss Bingley that she is going about it all wrong."

Darcy chuckled, not feeling any need to add any comment to that.

Elizabeth thought for a moment. "If we are to make a new beginning Mr. Darcy, it would behoove us to forgive past slights and start anew, I would think. I believe we should attempt the third option. I will however demand that if we are to try it, we TRY. We must give it all best our efforts if we have any chance of succeeding. If we fail, let it be an honest failure, and not one born out of fear or indolence."

Much to her surprise, Mr. Darcy left his chair, covered the distance to her own, and kissed her lightly on the forehead. It was not the worst experience in the world. He then got up, and much to her surprise, left the room. She sat there in confusion for a moment, until he returned, looking just as he had when he left.

He walked over to her. "I hope you do not object to a self‑introduction, since we have no common acquaintances. Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, at your service, madam," followed by a bow fit for a queen.

Laughing slightly, Elizabeth gave her own matching curtsy. "I do not object, Good Sir. Propriety is satisfied. Elizabeth …"

And she paused in confusion a moment, then finally gave a big smile as if meeting a handsome man for the first time, (which, come to think of, she was).

"Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy. I am very pleased to meet you."


A/N: I was just writing this chapter, which was tough to get right, and the word count was exactly 77,777 at the end of the last paragraph. It's just too fun. Wade