“This shall then be our secret.” He slyly placed one finger over his lips.
Elizabeth felt her stomach bubbling. She grinned at him, turning up her face, and spoke in a light, rapid tone, “And you! Engaged in the gentlemanly exercise of a morning ride. Have you raced yourself and did you win?”
“I always win when I enter a conflict with myself,” Darcy said firmly. But he then grinned at her with that boyish smile of his. “Or so I wish everyone to believe. But I in fact havelostmy race, since I amlost. I was informed there is a local eminence Oak Mount, which is worth seeing the view from the summit of. But the details of the route—” He lifted one hand to the side, and waved it vaguely, while gripping a horn on the front of his saddle and the reins with his other. “It has been my sad experience that the most detailed of instructions will often fail to point a stranger to where he wishes to go, once he is off the main route.”
Elizabeth realized that the horn Darcy gripped allowed him to keep his place in the saddle without any strength in his legs.
“I myself was going toOakhamMount, and if that will serve as a substitute for ‘Oak’ Mount, I would be happy to lead you there so you do not lose your way.”
Darcy grinned at her. “My memory of the directions was so deficient that I could not even specify thenameof the location correctly — I must submit myself to your direction, else I will be lost forever, at least until I reach halfway to London.”
Elizabeth laughed at his oddly self-deprecating manner. It was a different picture of this man — to see him quite willingagainto admit a deficiency.
He voiced a command, and the horse immediately began walking along the road by Elizabeth’s side. He had both of his crutches strapped to the back of his horse. How Darcy got down from the horse though, without the help of a strong footman, was quite a mystery to her.
It was an impossibility for Elizabeth to not glance again and again at the horse with some nervousness. She pressed one hand against her hip.
The greatly oversized animals had always rather frightened her. It had not been a matter of seeing some accident when she was a girl, or being part of one, but simply that, despite her general readiness to rise to any attempt to intimidate her, the friendliness of horses trying to be friendlydidintimidate her.
They walked forward in silence, and Elizabeth kept glancing at Darcy, and his big horse. And Darcy’s eyes flicked towards her repeatedly. His expression was similar to how he had looked at her when he found her running. However, he did not say anything.
Difficult, teasing, confusing man.
And then Elizabeth stumbled over a rock — the second time today — fell and caught herself on her hand with an unladylike curse.
“Miss Elizabeth, Miss Elizabeth, are you well?” His voice was tight and tense.
Elizabeth rose from the ignominious dust, studying the red marks on her scraped hand and down at the damage to the knee of her dress.
She looked up at Darcy and shrugged. “I believe so.”
Something in his expression told her that he felt deeply guilty that he could not leap from the back of his horse and grant her his gentlemanly aid.
“You poor man!” She shook her head. “I imagine it must be difficult.”
“What?”
“To be unable to play the dashing hero and save distressed maidens.”
Darcy studied her, like she was a problem, his face unreadable. “You really are well.”
“Never been better, except for my dress. The scrape did not draw blood. I foresee survival.”
“That pleases me.”
She stretched out, turning from side to side, and shaking out the arm that she’d stopped herself with. She bounced up and down a few times on her toes, and then stepping closer to Darcy’s horse, Elizabeth brightly said, “I confess I find it more than a little odd, somewhat disconcerting to hold a conversation with a gentleman toweringquiteso far above me.”
“Ah.” Darcy seemed still pensive, but his eyes were also fixed on her.
Elizabeth blushed to realize that by stretching in such a way she had displayed her figure to great advantage. She reddened even further to realize that she had meant to do so.
Darcy shrugged and smiled at her. “There is a simple solution tothatproblem.”
“Oh?”
“The next time we meet in such a way, you must join me upon your own horse — and then we shall be quite at the same altitude.”
“No.” Elizabeth shivered. “I am no horsewoman.”
