He snorted. “Your father should never have to purchase anything for a wife of mine.”
Oh! He truly was an irritating man. “Five hundred pounds, Mr. Darcy, is not a pittance. We live on something close to two thousand here, and between us there are seven women to feed and clothe! Were we to live nearby we could afford a house with enough ground for a garden which Jane and Mary would help me establish and maintain, while Papa would surely allow us to purchase wood from him at a reasonable cost.” If they could persuade her father to allow them to pay for it at all.
“Miss Elizabeth,” he replied, “I do not wish to take you from your father’s house and not offer you at least as much as he is able.”
She lifted her nose in the air. “Now we have arrived at the heart of the matter, sir. It is your pride that is touched.”
Mr. Darcy pressed his lips together. “Perhaps.” He was quiet, and then burst out, “Can you not understand my predicament? Would you truly accept a man with only five hundred pounds a year?”
“Notanyman, sir, but you?” Elizabeth nodded once. “Yes. Without reservation.”
Mr. Darcy’s gaze bore into hers for a long moment, his eyes suspiciously bright. He took a step forward to take her hand and pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist, just above her glove.
Oh, the feel of his lips against her skin.
“Would you, then?” he whispered. “Have this old soldier for a mere five hundred pounds a year?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said breathlessly, then recovered enough to add, “Now, was that so difficult?”
He chuckled, leaning in to brush his lips over her forehead. “You might have said I was not old.”
“But youare,sir,” she told him, her words dancing with happiness, “ever so much older than me.”
He smiled that inscrutable smile of his. “I begin to believe we shall always be at loggerheads, madam. It is a great shock to me to learn that I rather enjoy it.”
“Because it is with me,” Elizabeth told him impishly. “You would not find it agreeable to quarrel with another in this way.”
He placed two fingers under her chin and gently tipped it up. She had shivered at his kiss on her hand, melted at the kiss on her forehead, but when he hovered over her mouth for the briefest of moments, waiting for her response, then touched his lips to her own, there was fire—hot, sharp, and exceedingly pleasurable.
“You will not be in London long,” she whispered.
“I may,” he said. “I cannot tell. But perhaps your uncle and aunt might bring you to town when they return after Christmas?”
Elizabeth smiled. “Perhaps.” She stepped back, and Mr. Darcy did as well. There was still a ball to attend, and she thought she might never leave this room if she did not move away.
“Well,” she admitted somewhat bashfully, “as a girl I never dreamed that my proposal would be so . . . martial in nature.”
“It is entirely your own fault,” Mr. Darcy teased. “For if you had waited patiently, it would have been a good deal more sentimental. I have been practicing.”
She laughed softly. “I should very much like to hear it one day.”
“And so you shall,” he said gallantly.
Elizabeth gave him a sidelong glance. “In the spirit of complete honesty, you should know that I will come to the marriage with something near to five thousand pounds. That would add almost another two hundred and fifty pounds or so if it was placed in the five percents. There. Now we have nearly seven hundred and fifty a year. More than enough.”
“That is a great deal of money with five daughters to settle,” Mr. Darcy exclaimed. “How did your father manage it?”
“Mama left us about a thousand pounds each,” she said. “And Papa saved the entire income from Longbourn for years before he was forced to sell his commission and bring us to live here. All along, he was investing it with Uncle Gardiner, and though I do not know the particulars, they have done quite well. We shall not be the toast of London,” she told him, “but thanks to my father’s discipline, my sisters and I shall be quite respectable.”
“It must have been difficult for him never to touch the estate’s income,” Mr. Darcy mused.
“He might have wished for more books,” Elizabeth said wryly, “but Mama told him that any tomes he purchased he should have to carry on his person, for unless he let her a larger house, she had nowhere to put them.”
Mr. Darcy laughed, then beamed at her from his position some five feet away. “I am a very wealthy man,” he told her.
Elizabeth was unsure how to respond. Had they not just argued over this very thing?
“You would have me,” he said wonderingly. “Just me, as I am.”