“Shall I call for tea?”
She looked swiftly up to him, and a hesitant chuckle formed. “No, thank you, but it was kind of you to offer… both times.”
He smiled a little to himself as he took a seat nearby. “Perhaps you will permit me an apology of my own. I quite recognise that you have been forced into an uncomfortable position. Please know that if it were entirely within my power to grant your wishes, I would be honour-bound to do whatever I could for my cousin’s wife.”
She drew a long breath, her eyes cautiously fixed on the floor, though her chin was still tipped high. “It is noble of you to say so much. I appreciate the thought, sir.”
“But you are still discontented, and not without cause.”
She fell to silent thought for a few seconds, then addressed him with a firmness to her tone that surprised him. “Mr Darcy, I told you once before that I am not formed for ill humour. I should rather laugh through tears than to wallow in self-pity and depression. That does not mean I do not suffer my moments of melancholy and worry. I am afraid I have no present sources of distraction to take my mind from those fears I can do nothing about.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Richard wrote that you were an accomplished horsewoman. Perhaps I ought to have said as much before, but you may always take refuge in the stables. I find riding useful for clearing my head, and I cannot think you do not miss it. I will speak to the coachman.”
A fresh peace claimed her face at this, and a bit of colour returned to her cheeks that he had not even noticed had been absent. “Thank you, sir. Although, I doubt I shall be suffered to tear up the countryside quite as I did at home.”
“I would prefer if you did not cripple any of my horses.”
The corners of her mouth twitched, and she blinked rapidly, finally succumbing to a snort of laughter which she was obliged to hide behind her hand. “I am sorry! I do not mean to be impudent. It only reminds me of what my father used to say to me, and… something I said to someone else.”
Darcy watched the way her rapid humour gave way almost immediately to a pinched brow. The way she looked down at her hands. “You said that to Richard.”
The line of her forehead deepened. “Yes.”
Darcy sighed and fidgeted with a few items on his desk for a moment. “It seems, Mrs Fitzwilliam, that we have little understood each other.”
“Agreed, sir.”
“I should like to change that. As you are no doubt aware, Richard is dear to me. Were the situation different—were he here to introduce us—we would often be in company, and no doubt come to know one another well. I would have hoped for good relations between us.”
“Then, are we to make an attempt at friendship, sir?”
He watched her carefully—the forced lightness, the playful impulses simmering just under the surface of an abashed front. “Let us at least call a cease-fire.”
She straightened her shoulders and arched her back, resting folded hands upon her skirts and facing him as if prepared for a test. “Very well. How does one begin a civil conversation in polite company? It appears I am woefully ill-informed.”
“You are not alone. Many would accuse me of the same. I am not… practised at conversing easily with new acquaintances.”
“Then we are doomed to failure, for I am incurably impertinent, and you are mulishly reticent. I fear we are destined to constantly give one another offence!”
This time, he truly did laugh, and her own lighter tones joined his. “Perhaps we might try another activity as a diversion. Something besides bland conversation?”
Her mouth contracted thoughtfully; one brow quirked, and her eyes slid to a table on the far side of the room. “Chess?”
Chapter 7
“WasMrDarcyverymuch put out?” asked a nervous Jane when Elizabeth retired upstairs.
“He certainlywas, but he is no longer.” Elizabeth dropped her gloves on a table and wandered into the sitting room, having no particular object.
Jane followed her, coming around to cross into her path. “So, he accepted your apology?”
“In a manner of speaking. He maintained that my apology was unnecessary, but I could see that it was.” Elizabeth walked away from her sister and went to stand beside the tall windows overlooking the gardens.
“It must have been some apology to last over an hour and a half,” Jane said. “Or did you have to wait that long for him to come out?”
“I was only waiting for a few moments. The rest of the time, we were playing chess.”
Jane moved deliberately to catch her sister’s eye again, for Elizabeth had been gazing out the window. “Chess?Chess! With Mr Darcy?”
