Mrs. Bennet watched them go with a look that held both affection and calculation. “They will not remember.”
“They will,” Elizabeth said. “If Miss Porter reminds them.”
Mrs. Bennet’s lips curved slightly. “Then Miss Porter must be vigilant.”
Jane rose as well. “Shall we go, Lizzy?”
Elizabeth followed her.
They left the table together, passing into the hall where the morning light fell more clearly through the windows. The air held a different quality than it had in previous days—heavier, more still.
The promise of rain.
Outside, clouds had begun to gather. They had not obscured the light entirely, but they softened it, lending the landscape a muted quality that suggested change without fully declaring it.
Elizabeth paused near the door.
The gardens stretched before her, still touched by the lingering warmth of the season. The unseasonable mildness had preserved more than might reasonably have been expected. Flowers that ought by rights to have faded remained in bloom, their colors gentler than before but still clearly present.
A few roses lingered, their petals beginning to turn though still clinging to the stem. Other late blossoms stood among them, less delicate perhaps, though equally persistent.
Elizabeth stepped outside.
The air carried a hint of moisture, though no rain had yet fallen. It was enough to alter the scent of the garden, to deepen it, to draw out what might otherwise have passed unnoticed.
She walked without a fixed direction.
The paths were familiar, the arrangement of beds and borders known to her without conscious thought. Her attention turned inward as she moved, her steps guided more by habit than by intention.
Mr. Darcy.
The name rested uneasily in her mind.
He had offended her.
That much was certain.
The manner of it, the effortless way in which he had dismissed her, could not be easily forgotten. Her pride had been wounded, and with good reason.
He had sought her out.
Again and again.
Throughout the evening.
Such persistence was hardly the conduct of a man indifferent to his own words.
Nor had it been careless.
There had been purpose in it.
Elizabeth paused beside a cluster of late-blooming flowers, their color accentuated by the light above.
What had he intended to say?
An apology, perhaps.
The thought presented itself with a degree of reluctance.
