Chapter Five
‘You have bewitched and bewildered me, Miss Bennet. From the moment we met I’ve thought of nothing, of no one, but you. Only say you’ll put an end to my very great unhappiness and marry me.’
Elizabeth stood motionless on the terrace as rain fell on her face, and regarded Fitzwilliam Darcy with luminous eyes. ‘I scarcely know what to say in reply, Mr Darcy.’
‘Of course you must say “yes”,’ he said quietly, ‘only “yes”, Miss Bennet, which single word shall make me the happiest man in all of Derbyshire.’
She lifted her face to his and reached out to touch his cheek. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, laughing as she flung herself into his arms. ‘Yes, a thousand times, yes! Of course I shall marry you, Mr Darcy.’
‘And… CUT!’ the director called out. ‘Thank you, everyone. Ten minutes, please.’
‘Someone bring me a towel!’ Cara Winslow, the actress portraying Miss Bennet, bellowed. ‘I’m bloody freezing.’ As if to underscore the point, she shivered in her thin muslin gown – hand-stitched by the costume designer, and plastered now by the fake rain to her body – and crossed her arms against her chest.
As the rain machine was switched off and the actors drifted from the set to dry off, Lizzy caught the arm of the young man beside her and turned to him in excitement. ‘Thanks for letting me come and watch the filming, Harry. It’s brilliant, isn’t it?’ Her eyes swept over the rose-bordered terrace to
