Page 87 of His Pride and His Prejudice

“Review it how?” Bingley asked.

They paused for a moment upon the ridge, taking a good look at the view it afforded them. The entire Pemberley estate was visible, and Darcy appreciated it in ways that he had not before. He just wished…

He shook his head and gestured for Charles to begin to make his way down the hill. As he did so Darcy considered what he should say but, in the end, knew there was no other approach than one that got straight to the heart of the matter, and he soon said as much.

“It is perhaps best if I simply explain my concerns,” he said.

“Whatever is the matter, Darcy?” Charles asked. “You sound quite serious all of a sudden!”

“Indeed, I am,” Darcy confirmed. “I wish to speak with you. It is the reason I suggested today’s walk in fact.”

“What subject can be so important?” Charles asked and Darcy said the words even knowing they would hurt to say.

“I wish to speak of the Bennets.”

Charles stumbled slightly. Darcy would have liked to attribute it to the uneven ground and the roots of the trees which seemed determined to trip them up, but they were both far too experienced in the activity of a country walk for that to be the case.

“I do not believe that would be sensible,” he said after a moment.

“Charles—”

“I am…quite recovered from the events of the last year and see no reason to discuss them again.”’

Darcy had watched his friend most closely since he had arrived at Pemberley and though Charles was as easy and amiable as ever there was an underlying sadness in his friend’s manner. His smiles did not reach his eyes, his words seemed to be more considered than they had been previously, and he did not laugh half as hard as he had been wont to do.

“You are not recovered.”

Charles turned and gave Darcy a grin over his shoulder. “I am if I tell myself I am.”

“That was always your way.”

“And it has worked, has it not?” he asked. “Always in the past it has worked.” He hurried his pace, as if the words themselves were chasing him. “Jack Bennet is not the only love affair that has ended badly for me!”

“Do you believe that was what he was, a love affair?”

“What else could he be?” Charles asked.

“You know what, Charles.”

They came to a turn in the path now. One way would lead down to the stream which meandered through the Pemberley estate. Mindful of what Elliot had said about the river in Kent, Darcy had tried to trace his stream through to the river it eventually met on the southern edge of Pemberley, hoping that eventually it might meet the one that passed through Longbourn. Alas, he was not able, and that connection, like so many others, was lost.

The other path led them back to Pemberley and that was the one Charles chose. “It is best we make our way home,” he said. “I have in mind a new game from London to share with Fitzwilliam and Georgiana. It is devilishly complicated and may amuse us for some days.”

“I advised you poorly,” Darcy said quickly, the words falling between them. Charles came to a stop. Darcy halted with him. “What I said about the Bennet family, it was?—”

“Correct,” Charles said.

“Well, yes,” Darcy said. “But the lack of propriety of the family would not have been enough to dissuade you were that the only concern.”

Charles sighed. “No.”

“It was what I said about Jack Bennet.”

“Yes,” Charles said, and he kicked at a clump of grass. “His indifference.”

“Precisely.”

Darcy took a deep breath. Rarely if ever was he in a situation such as this, where he, alpha of all he surveyed, had to admit to his own failings. Yet, admit he would, because Darcy was not, and would never be, the sort of man who would shirk his responsibility. “Charles, I was mistaken.”

Source: www.allfreenovel.com