He had not said anything of note. A passing mention—he could not even remember when it must have been. A private indulgence. And yet she had tucked it away, weaponized it, and flung it back with an arched brow and a twist of her lips. And had not stopped there—no, had bandied words with him like someone who… well, someone who knew him far better than she did.
She noticed things. Too many things. If she ever looked at Georgiana with that same sharpness—if she guessed even a piece of it—
He could not bear the thought.
Darcy folded Georgiana’s letter and laid it aside.
Elizabeth Bennet was ordinary.
Clever, yes. Self-assured and quite fond of saying things that did not belong in drawing rooms, but apart from that, completely and obviously ordinary.
And she smiled at people—freely, unguardedly.
She had smiled at that man—what was his name?—the balding cousin of Mrs. Lucas. Darcy could still see the expression. It had not been flirtatious. But it had not beenhis.
This was untenable.
She was absolutely ordinary. Except, she had seen too much already. And worse—she had understood it.
That was the part he could not forgive.
And he needed to stop thinking about the shape of her mouth when she said “grave, formal, a little imperious.”
Darcy pressed his heelslightly, and the mare picked up her pace.
The morning was too bright by half—one of those October days pretending it was still summer, with the heat caught in the grass and the sky wide and too blue to be trusted. He had intended only a short ride. A circuit of the western boundary, perhaps, far enough to feel removed from Netherfield and its conversations and its people.
Especially one person.
He had not slept well. The house was quiet, but his mind had been loud, and he thought perhaps the rhythm of hooves and the sharpness of open air would unseat whatever restless thing had taken root behind his ribs.
The mare’s gait steadied. The wind tugged at his coat. Somewhere in the near distance, a hawk called once and was gone.
Then the lane forked without warning.
It was not intentional. He had meant to turn toward the wooded edge of the estate, where the road rose and curved and left one decently alone. But the fields had opened, golden with the last stubborn grasses of summer, and the hedge had thinned, and the mare was already veering left.
And then, quite suddenly, he could see what he supposed must be Longbourn.
It sat snugly between clusters of trees and orchard rows, half-obscured by ivy and sun. The back garden sloped gently, the grass gone dry at the edges, and there—just beyond the shade of an ash tree—was an old rope swing.
And Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
She was not alone. Two of her sisters stood nearby, one pushing the swing, the other laughing into a bonnet. But it was Elizabeth who caught the light.
The tilt of her head made his pulse stagger and realign itself somewhere behind his knees. Her snarl of curls tumbled freely about her shoulders, her ribbon flying loose, her feet kicked out with a wild, unladylike abandon that made something deep inside him curdle.
And his brow beaded with sweat. His gloves suddenly itched, as though his hands resented being contained.
It was an utterly careless kind of joy. And it was infuriatingly attractive.
He reined in hard. Not because he wanted to—but because any forward movement might have betrayed something: a sound, a thought, a truth. She was loose in the world in a way he had never allowed himself to be—and it unnerved him. Her freedom had teeth.
She did not see him.
The sun struck her profile as she laughed at something—something simple, no doubt, something foolish and fleeting—and it landed in his chest with a heaviness he could not explain. She did not look contained. She looked…alive.
His horse shifted beneath him. Pawing, shifting, as though he had given spur but not rein. Still, his eyes remained fixed, his mouth slack.
