Page 11 of Mr Darcy’s Inconvenient Wife

She rode on.

He touched his hat. “Miss Elizabeth. I confess I did not expect you. I understood you had nothing more to say to me.”

“You understood rightly, sir. I had nothing, and I have nothing still.”

His glance went past her to the hedge, where Mr Collins had halted.

“Then I can only conclude you were escaping a conversation even less welcome than any you expect from me. I am honoured to be preferred to Mr Collins.”

“You mistake the matter entirely. I took you for Mr Robert Lucas. Had I known my error, I should not have ridden up in such haste.”

“In such haste? Or at all?”

“That is too fine a distinction to draw before noon.”

“And your message for Mr Lucas?”

“It must wait until Mr Lucas is here to receive it.”

“Is the likeness between us so very great?”

“At two fields' distance, and to someone in a hurry, I grant there is a likeness. It does not survive a closer look.”

He made no reply. Still, she was almost certain she had amused him. They rode on together with the width of a cart between them. The wet grass brushed the horses' fetlocks.

“May I ask whether Mr Collins ever agreed to break the entail?”

He asked it so plainly that she answered before she thought to wonder if she should. “He did not.”

“I supposed not, since he has since made you an offer.”

Elizabeth turned in her saddle, startled. “I cannot imagine, sir, where you heard that.”

He did not answer at once. His colour had risen, and he closed his lips on whatever else he had meant to say. He had plainly said more than he intended. She could see it in the stiffness of his shoulders, and in the sudden care he gave to his horse's ears.

“Such things are talked of.”

“Not by me, sir. Nor by Mr Collins, who expects congratulations on the matter, not gossip.”

He let it drop. When he spoke again, his voice was as even as before. “Should you accept him, we must meet a great deal. I am very often at Rosings.”

“Then you have given me one more argument against the match. I did not think I needed another.”

He made no answer. For some distance there was nothing between them but the creak of saddle leather and the cawing of rooks in the elms.

“I had hoped,” he said at last, “that we might at least be on cordial terms.”

“Cordial.” She let the word hang a moment, as if testing what it was worth. All her old anger came rushing back. “You did everything in your power to part my sister from the man she loved, Mr Darcy. You admitted as much to my face at Hunsford, without the least sign of regret. Jane is too generous to hold it against you. I am not so generous.”

“Miss Elizabeth, I —”

Ahead, the rest of the party had drawn up at the far side of the field. She could make out Jane's grey habit beside Mr Bingley's bay. This was where the parties would split. The men would ride on to shoot, and the women would go on to Lucas Lodge.

“My sister is expecting me. Good morning, sir.”

She put the mare to a canter and did not look back. She would not let herself wonder whether he followed, or how close, until she reached Jane's side. When at last she did wonder, the question was harder to dismiss than she would have liked.

Chapter Six