Page 118 of A Question of Character

She abandoned the thought.

It required believing Mr. Darcy had anticipated encountering his old enemy in Longbourn.

His surprise had been too complete.

Likewise, Mr. Wickham had betrayed genuine confusion when Darcy questioned him.

That recollection troubled her even more.

If both men sincerely believed themselves wronged...

She laughed once under her breath.

“What an impossible pair of gentlemen.”

The breeze answered by stirring the branches overhead.

Elizabeth resumed walking.

There was one course open to her.

She would speak to Mr. Darcy.

If their acquaintance—and perhaps something dearer—were to continue, concealment could serve neither of them.

She hoped Mr. Darcy would prove more willing to explain himself when they met again than he had been in her father’s drawing room.

The thought accompanied her all the way home.

The next day gave Elizabeth her opportunity before she had decided whether she was prepared to take it.

She had set out after breakfast with no destination more precise than air, distance, and the hope that walking might arrange her thoughts into a form fit for examination. Longbourn was lively behind her. Mrs. Bennet had begun the morning by wondering whether Mr. Darcy’s abrupt departure the previous day signified insult, injury, or romance, and had managed to advance good arguments for all three. Lydia, less cheerful than usual after Mr. Wickham’s troubled call, had taken refuge with Kitty in a discussion of ribbons for the next assembly. Jane had offered Elizabeth one of those searching looks which, in another sister, might have become interrogation. In Jane, it became kindness and silence.

Elizabeth had fled before either could overcome her.

The path toward Oakham Mount was familiar beneath her feet, worn through grass and earth by years of Bennet girls, tenants, servants, and anyone else with business or leisure enough to cross the fields. The morning had begun cool, though the sun promised warmth later. A light wind moved over the hedges and carried with it the dry scent of late summer.

She had nearly reached the rise when she saw the horse.

A fine dark animal stood tethered to a tree a little below the path, cropping at the grass with the patience of one accustomed to being kept waiting. Elizabeth stopped. No rider appeared at first, but then she saw Mr. Darcy upon the hill above, one boot braced upon a rock, his hat in his hand, staring across the fields with such deep displeasure that even the sheep below might have felt judged had they possessed sufficient sensibility.

Despite herself, Elizabeth smiled.

“So, this is where gentlemen of large fortune come to frighten the countryside.”

Darcy pivoted sharply. The severity of his expression altered when he saw her, though not quickly enough to hide the mood that had preceded it.

“Miss Bennet.”

“I hope I do not interrupt an important quarrel with Hertfordshire.”

He looked down at the fields again. “Hertfordshire has offered sufficient provocation.”

“That is ungrateful. It has provided you with Netherfield, tolerable roads, and an assembly where you were not forced to dance with every lady who wished it.”

“I had forgotten I was meant to be grateful for partial escape.”

“You may begin now. It is never too late to reform one’s manners.”