He directed his gaze across the orchard rather than toward her. The wind lifted his sandy hair from his forehead, and for the first time Elizabeth saw less of an overeager suitor and more of a man who had labored hard to become someone of consequence and had not yet decided whether the cost had been justified.
“My mills are profitable,” he continued. “My house is comfortable. I dine now with men who would never have invited my father to stand in their hall. And still, when I sit among them, I know precisely which fork they expect me to use, and every one of them remembers that I learned it later than they did.”
Elizabeth found herself without an immediate answer.
He smiled, though with little humor. “I believe you understand something of that feeling.”
“Yes.”
The agreement came quietly.
He turned toward her. “That is why I wished to know you better.”
There it was.
Proper.
Sincere.
Not quite a declaration, though close enough that Elizabeth’s steps slowed.
“I am honored by your regard,” she said.
The phrase sounded evasive even to her own ears.
Mr. Wilson heard it as well. His expression did not fall, but some of its brightness faded.
“I have made you uncomfortable.”
“A little.”
“Because I have spoken too soon?”
“Because I am uncertain what to do with so much attention.”
He released a quiet noise of laughter. “That is quite fair.”
They walked on.
Elizabeth wished she could offer him what he desired.
Or at least wish to offer it.
He was respectable, capable, and earnest in his own fashion. A life with him would hold nothing to alarm her. He would never require her to disown her father’s connection to trade. He would value the practical elements of her character and admire the rest—perhaps too openly, but always with sincerity.
Even so, whenever he spoke, she found herself wondering what Darcy might have said.
That was the true difficulty.
Mr. Wilson praised effort; Darcy examined it. Mr. Wilson admired her father’s business because it connected them; Darcy respected it because he considered work honorable. Mr. Wilson wanted her to recognize shared origins. Darcy made her feel those origins required no defense.
Unfair comparisons.
She knew it and made them anyway.
At the far end of the orchard, Mr. Wilson paused beside the low stone wall.
“I shall speak to Mrs. Bennet again,” he said.
