The slanted sun spread a pretty pattern of shadows on the narrow garden stone path as Elizabeth strolled on Darcy's arm. His quiet strength, a source of comfort to her during the course of the house party, felt slightly wound up today - as if he was bracing himself for something he might or might not like. She hoped she would be able to prove to him that she had always wished to be forthright with him.

"What do you wish to know?" she asked when they reached the end of the path. He looked at her briefly, his eyes looking both cautious and hopeful at the same time.

"Shall we?" He gestured to the stone bench.

Elizabeth slid onto the surface and arranged her skirts before she sighed. He settled onto the space beside her, his presence large and warm. They sat wordlessly together for another half minute.

"Miss Bennet - "

"Just let me answer, please." She turned her body to face him, her poise forgotten as readily as she had spoken. "I know you have questions, and contrary to recent events, I have always been the sort to speak whatever is in my mind. I do need your formality. I do not need your wariness. I long, I have longed, since the first day I began to consider you a friend, to be able to respond to you as myself - without subterfuge, without pretense. I have tried, as much as I could, to be honest with you - but Richard said I could not compromise - "

"I understand." His hand unexpectedly landed on hers. Elizabeth blinked before she met his eyes. Then before he could think otherwise and decide to be misguidedly chivalrous, she quickly turned her hand to entwine their fingers against each other. She wondered if he felt the current of energy coursing between them the same way she did, but she held on. "Though I do not pretend I prefer it."

"Neither did I," she admitted. She gathered her courage and squeezed his hand. "Darcy, I am Elizabeth - the same woman who's shared your company all this time - the same woman who has benefited from your confidence and care. And I hope that you will let me prove to you that while I am not an heiress and most definitely not Scottish, that I have otherwise been nothing except my true self to you."

"You have a sister, I know that much."

"I have four, and a widowed mother. It is for their sake that I am serving the Crown as I am."

"How did you ever come to be a spy?"

"I don't know if I could ever call myself that. But my uncle, my mother's brother, who has taken my family in, referred my sister and me to the Home Office when we sought his help in seeking employment."

"As a governess?"

"If it is what is necessary to provide for our family."

He nodded slowly, as if the truth of her penniless state was only now dawning upon him. Elizabeth smiled grimly. Miss Elizabeth Merivale might be the noblewoman and heiress that a man like Fitzwilliam Darcy deserved, but Elizabeth Bennet was nothing more than an impoverished young lady with several mouths to feed. Why had she ever even hoped that the passing attraction between them could ever mean enough for him to consider a possible future?

"It is noble of you to do so," he said quietly.

"Thank you, though being admired was hardly my purpose in participating in this assignment."

"And yet you were admired plenty, but single and married men alike."

"Oh, do not remind me of the mortification." She huffed. "It was quite horrifying to have to pretend to enjoy the men's attentions."

"Ah," he said before she sensed him withdrawing.

"But not yours - never yours," she blurted before she could stop herself. Darcy met her eye tentatively. Elizabeth sighed. "I know what it must look like to you, Mr. Darcy, and I admit that I have no right whatsoever to believe myself worthy of your trust after all this - but I hope, if you would let me, to prove myself at least worthy of your respect and friendship."

He seemed to think long and hard about her statement. Then he asked, "Are you to return to London after tomorrow?"

Elizabeth furrowed her brow, confused. "I am."

"To report to your superiors, I would assume."

"Yes, and to ask if there would be another assignment for us."

"Ah," he said simply. He gave another significant pause before adding, "Do you wish for another assignment then?"

"Me? Oh, never." Elizabeth scoffed before she laughed. "I would rather not - but then, how could I do otherwise? My family needs me."

Darcy sat quietly. He seemed to like sitting quietly.

"Do they know the source of your income?" he asked.

"My uncle, and Jane and I, believe it best that they not be made aware."

"Right." He paused. "Then they would not be too surprised if you were to return engaged - with a husband willing to succor their needs."

Emotion clogged her throat, and she found herself speechless for the first time all morning. Surely, he was too much of a gentleman to toy with her this way.

"I do not know what the future holds," said Darcy, his eyes and voice tender, "and yet I know that I cannot quite fathom one that does not have you in it. I admit that I care for you deeply - and yet I need time, even if just a little time, to sort through my feelings and to understand what to be true and what to be false. If you are staying in London for a few weeks, and if I may call - "

She squeezed his hand. "I would like nothing more."

The smile he gave her was all she needed to know that she just might not be hoping in vain.


"Would you look at him, a colonel and a knight," Aunt Matlock admired her second son from afar as Darcy stood beside her. The celebration ball for Richard's knighting was in full swing, with music and revelry filling every corner of Matlock House's spacious ballroom. The jubilant atmosphere was infectious, and even Darcy was tempted to smile once or twice since the start of the evening, though he still kept to the sidelines more often than he danced. "A mother could hardly ask for more."

Darcy chuckled, even as his eyes followed Elizabeth's form through her dance with Dunvarr. Other men's attentions might stir his jealousy, but Darcy had learned enough about Elizabeth in the past month - and had enough assurance of Dunvarr's allegiance to Lady Harriett - not to let one dance set bother him.

"If my cousins are to be believed, Aunt Matlock, you ask plenty of them - one for grandchildren, and the other of marriage."

"Oh, silly boys they are. There is nothing strange about a mother asking once a day, or twice." The countess whipped her fan open expertly, hiding her telling smile. "And I hardly think I need to do much to hurry Richard to the altar."

"Has Uncle given his blessing?"

"I cannot think him too amused by the idea of Richard marrying a woman eager to follow the drum with him rather than to compel him to stay closer to home - but I suppose the addition of an heir or two in the years to come would assuage any of his concerns."

Darcy barely had time to cover his laugh before Dunvarr arrived with Elizabeth on his arm.

"Are you recruiting Darcy to your cause now, Mother?" The baron glared, though not particularly fiercely, at the matron of the hour. "Harriett and I have yet to leave for our wedding trip."

Mother and son sighed at each other, and Darcy took the chance to catch Elizabeth's sparkling, bemused gaze. Richard had managed to pull enough strings with his superiors to ensure that the Bennet sisters experience a respite between their assignments - and Darcy had enjoyed the opportunity to properly pay his court enough to fully reconcile with his cousin again.

The fact that Richard and his betrothed were eagerly supporting a match between him and Elizabeth had only solidified the partnership.

"Would you care for a promenade, Miss Elizabeth?" Darcy asked formally, if only for his aunt's sake, as Elizabeth turned to face him. Her attire tonight was genteel and stylish, even if her gown seemed to easily disappear amidst the ocean of glittering jewels and elaborate coiffures. But there was something about Elizabeth, about her person, that glowed more richly than anyone else in the room ever could. Even in the middle of a ballroom packed with London's elite, Elizabeth was beyond compare.

"I would be happy to," she replied with a smile. Her hand found his so easily that Darcy felt a surge of unexpected emotion. "Although I would rather we stay closer to the windows."

Darcy smiled. "Not a great lover of overheated ballrooms, are we?"

Elizabeth grimaced briefly. "Not when there is a garden to be enjoyed."

"Hm." He led her away after they'd bid their farewells to the bickering Countess of Matlock and Baron Dunvarr. "A moonlit garden walk, away from all the nosy chaperones." He dropped his voice to a whisper. "I do not know to consider it ingenious or utterly scandalous."

"Think what you must." Elizabeth huffed. "I would much rather not share more air than I must with a thousand candles."

He sighed, feigned reluctance. "As you wish, milady."

She chuckled at his dramatic tone, and Darcy led them halfway through the ballroom before slipping out to a well-aired terrace overlooking the aforementioned scandalous gardens. Elizabeth let go of his arm to march to the end of the open space, and Darcy took a moment to admire the way the moonlight graced her frame. There was something spirited and sturdy about her, though her curves still whispered femininity.

"I hope I am not keeping you from a much-desired dance," she teased, glancing backwards at him as she did. "It would be a pity to tear you away from the dance floor which you so love."

Darcy laughed. "And I hope I am not barring you from your veritable throng of admirers."

"Oh, yes, particularly the sort willing to commit treason to secure my hand." She shuddered at her own joke. "I cannot express, Darcy, how happy I was when you and Richard dashed into the room that day."

Darcy's smiled softened as he recalled the dangers she had put herself through for her mission's sake. If he had his way, she would never have to experience another assignment again. He walked towards her and reached for her hands. She smiled as she eased her palms against his, her silken gloves delicate under his bare fingers. Darcy felt his lips broaden at the sight of her smile up close.

The woman had thoroughly and hopelessly bewitched him, and he would have it no other way.

"It was Richard who held us back that evening," he admitted, his eyes tracing the way her ringlets framed her face. "If I had my way, you would never have been able to enter that library."

"My knight in shining armor." Elizabeth grinned at him.

Darcy chuckled. "I am not a knight, my dear. That would be Richard. I hope you would not mind overmuch that your sister might outrank you."

"Oh, Jane has always outranked me. And why shouldn't she? She is an angel with a heart of steel. We wouldn't have solved the case half as fast without the information she'd gathered downstairs. I would be very glad indeed to call her Lady Fitzwilliam."

"You would." Darcy paused the slightest of moments to summon his courage. "And would you be as glad - or at least as willing - to call yourself Mrs. Darcy?"

"Mrs. Darcy? Why would I - " Her smile fell at the very same time her eyes widened, and Darcy hoped he had not made the wrong choice. Surely, she must have felt everything he did between them? The past month had been as excruciating as it had been eye-opening, as he'd learned to discern what parts of Elizabeth were the parts he loved and which parts of her had been merely an act. It had heartened him keenly every time he discovered that almost everything he'd esteemed about Miss Merivale were true about Miss Bennet as well.

Her sharp breath drew Darcy back to the present. Her voice, when she spoke, sounded airier than it usually did. "What are you saying?"

Darcy swallowed. He closed his hands more tightly around hers. "I have had the privilege of coming to know you better this past month, Elizabeth, and every moment we shared that deepened our friendship has managed to ensure even more that my heart is wholly, irrevocably yours."

She sniffed, her eyes glistening. He hoped he had not upset her.

He stepped closer and drew their joint hands against his chest. "You know I have long admired you, long found you more entrancing than any women of my acquaintance. But what the past month has allowed me to discover is how wholeheartedly I have fallen in love with you.

"Marry me, Elizabeth - if you have any patience left for me, or any compassion for my smitten condition - please agree to be my wife."

She surprised him by throwing herself against him, her forearms locked around his neck in an impassioned embrace. His hands closed around her waist without a second thought.

"Yes," she whispered, the smile evident in her voice. "Yes, Darcy, Fitzwilliam - whatever you want me to call you - "

She pulled back, although his hold only allowed her to lower herself close to his chin. Now that he had her in his arms, he was not about to ever let go.

"Yes." She smiled, though a few tears slid down her cheeks. "Yes, I will marry you."

"And willingly be called Mrs. Darcy?"

"Gladly." She smiled.

And he kissed her before she could spare a breath to say anything else more.


A/N: I hope you liked the fluff! As for the suggestions that there should be more spy stories or more danger, I wholeheartedly agree with you. I just wish I had it in me to write them! I love reading Darcy and Elizabeth in adventurous situations, but I am horrid at writing anything with action and danger. If anyone can write a Darcy-and-Elizabeth-as-spies series, please show me and I will read it immediately!