Chapter 12

Twelve

B ack within the artist's gaol, Darcy nodded in agreement to Elizabeth's suggestion that they begin to walk once again. Heaven knew he did not wish to, particularly as he now bore the distinct curse of all men who find themselves caressed by a lovely woman.

A good problem to have , he thought, with a slight glance at his breeches. Not one I imagined would ever afflict me again. He hoped Elizabeth would not notice but it was likely if she did that she was too innocent to understand it.

He offered her his arm once again. She eschewed it, instead reaching to take his hand and giving it a light squeeze before tucking her own neatly within his fist. It made him laugh, even as he relished the sensation of her small, delicate hand encompassed by his own. He noted it all—the texture and coolness of her skin, and the way her daintiness contrasted so boldly with the rough largeness of his own hand .

"A true horseman indeed," she remarked. "One can almost detect the precise spot where the reins must rest in your hands."

"These calluses have been justly earned," he said. He would have said more then, save for the fact that their circumscribed path had led them to a place of true amazement.

"Look there!" Darcy had halted in his steps, staring out their window into the room before them. It was the conservatory, a place where music and singing and laughter had once reigned. When last he had viewed it, it had been a dusty place, the instrument missing keys and the harp in the corner having no strings.

Now it was resplendent. The pianoforte sat proudly, an elegant instrument looking as though it needed but the merest touch to bring forth the song of angels. The gilt harp gleamed from its corner, and a violin shone beside it. The settees and chairs that surrounded it appear to wait in breathless anticipation of a concerto, their upholstery clean and unmarred, looking as though the occupants had only just risen from them to engage in a quadrille.

"I-I cannot comprehend this," Elizabeth stammered. "Is this not the same room I beheld earlier? It was a horrid place then, very dirty, and I remember thinking someone needed to cover the furnishings, at the very least."

"It is just as it once was," Darcy said, his voice made breathless by the tightening within his chest. "Just as it was when my sister would play, and my father and I would listen. My mother used to play that harp there and the violin, too, sometimes. It is…it is perfect."

"Do you think other rooms have been so affected?"

A burst of excitement charged him. "Let us go see."

They ran through the painting, laughing and exclaiming. The rooms they saw were in various stages of fixing themselves. Some were perfect, as the music room had been, and others were nearly so, only awaiting fresh coats of paint or the rearranging of furniture.

"How did this happen?" Darcy said, over and over again. "Is it you? Are you a sorceress or a conjurer?"

He meant it in jest, and she took it so. "I am indeed," she grinned. "Now permit me, if you will, to display my magic in the fields."

She whirled, taking them to the view of a sitting room that overlooked what had once been his mother's garden. He was permitted to roam freely throughout the house—wherever he went in the painting, so could he view in truth—but rarely did he occasion upon himself the pain of viewing this particular room, unable to bear the dead plants and the ruined furnishings.

Darcy gasped when he saw it. The room wanted nothing to be properly called splendorous. The sitting room itself had been restored to the fullness of its elegance, the fine furnishings gilt and overstuffed as once they were, upholstered in the finest materials in spring-like greens and watery blues.

It was not this which made him gasp, however, but the burgeoning life he saw within his mother's gardens. Tender pale green blades of grass had begun to make their way along the paths of roses which had budded. The garden was waiting to burst forth, with plants he had assumed were long dead now showing new leaves, green stems, and flowers just beginning to bloom. Delight thrummed within his chest.

"I long for you to see it as it truly is," he enthused. "In its fullness, it was beyond compare. I am sure you can see from the sheer number of buds, how it must have been."

"I can tell it was marvellous. It is marvellous," Elizabeth said, turning to him with a beaming smile that rivalled the sun that shown on the flowers outside.

He pulled her back against his chest, closing his eyes and resting his chin on her hair. She herself smelled of flowers, and he breathed deeply, feeling her warmth and the movement of her back as she breathed in and out.

"You are a conjurer, for you have conjured in me such feelings as I have never known before."

That made Elizabeth laugh, leaning back away from him, until something else caught her attention. "Look!" She pointed towards a nearby window.

There he beheld a rosebush, small but well-formed, heavily laden with pink roses. Its buds had been tightly closed moments before, but now they had burst forth into a blushing riot of floral perfection. How well it matched the feeling of his heart!

"I think I understand this curse." Heart beating wildly, he said, "Pemberley and I have been under a curse for so long, but you have come upon me with a far different spell. As I fall under your spell, the other is vanquished."

"And what is my spell?" she asked shyly .

"The ultimate spell." He took a deep breath. "Love. I have fallen in love with you, dearest loveliest Elizabeth."

She turned, the pink of her cheeks matching those of the rosebush outside, and he hastened to tell her, "I do not expect that you should love me in return. I wonder myself if it is madness, to fall in love within the space of a day."

"Is it a day?" she asked. "It may well have been a week or a month or an hour. But one thing I know to be true and that is that I-I have fallen in love with you. At first, I was deeply offended that you would presume to scold me. Such an officious, high-handed man! Or so I thought…and it was then that my sensations left me. Then I came to know you better and grew to like you, but still, my feeling did not return."

He clutched both of her hands greedily, holding them to his chest. "And now? You cannot deny that now you are in full possession of the sensations within your body."

"I do not deny that," she whispered. "The feelings of my body have been awakened…just as the feeling in my heart has done."

"I believe I might know just the thing to test this notion." Darcy said. Nervous flutters erupted within his stomach. "Something which might test this new understanding we have."

"What is it?"

"Would you permit me to—" He felt like a schoolboy and a very green one at that.

"Would I permit you what?" Her smile was sweet and innocent .

"May I kiss you?"

Her lips parted, and her eyes sparkled. She did not speak but nodded once before lowering her eyes.

He placed one finger under her chin, tilting her head towards his face. Her eyes were no longer flat and lifeless as they had been. Instead, he saw everything she was feeling—eagerness, a touch of anxiety, but most of all, affection.

He bent slightly, touching his lips to hers. She tasted of honey, sweet and delicate, her lips soft and smooth. He could not stop with just one kiss, instead placing kiss after kiss on her lips until he felt her arms go around him. She pressed her body against his, and he wrapped his arm around her tightly, pulling her still closer as he deepened the kiss, tasting her.

When he released her, he rested his forehead against hers for a moment, unwilling to break their contact. "I love you," he whispered. "I love you."

"I love you, too," she whispered back, and he thought his heart might burst or that he would shout with his joy.

When they stepped apart, they again looked at the garden. It was a riotous profusion of colour, pinks and reds, purples, and blues, all against the emerald green of foliage and grass. The sky was cerulean blue. It was more beautiful than was imaginable, their own Garden of Eden, even though they could not yet reach it.

"It is ours," Darcy told her. "Ours to share."

She tilted her head back to receive his kiss once more, and then snuggled against him, both lost in the beauty that surrounded them .

"Well, is this not charming?" A bitter, mean voice interrupted their happy interlude. A woman moved into view.

"Jessabelle." Darcy's cheer immediately vanished.

"Darcy." She tilted her head. "I see you have found yourself some company."