Page 122 of A Question of Character

“I defend my right to judge for myself.”

A gust of wind moved across the hill, tugging at her bonnet ribbons and lifting loose strands of hair from her temple. Darcy looked away, then reached out with sudden care and took her hand.

Elizabeth did not pull back.

His fingers closed around hers, firm through the leather of her glove. The anger had not vanished from his face, but something else had come forward with it, more vulnerable and far less certain.

“I still wish to court you,” he said.

The words were plain and inelegant. They struck her harder for it.

“I know.”

“I have been looking forward to Hertfordshire since the day your carriage left Darcy House. Even when everything else became... difficult, the thought of seeing you again remained one of the few prospects I could bear to contemplate.”

Elizabeth’s throat closed. “Mr. Darcy.”

“I am glad to be here with you.” He glanced toward the fields, then back to her. “Even now. Even in this wretched quarrel.”

That drew a laugh from her, small and unsteady. “You make a strange courtship of it.”

“I have little practice.”

“I begin to suspect that.”

His thumb moved once over the back of her gloved hand, and then stilled as if he had caught himself in an impropriety. “Do not let Wickham divide us before I have even had the chance to be accepted by your family.”

“You fled my mother’s drawing room yesterday.”

“I said accepted, not tested beyond endurance.”

She looked up then, and despite confusion, disappointment, anger, and concern, the sight of him nearly undid her. He was proud, stubborn, wounded, and withholding too much. He was also the man who had been kind to her aunt and uncle, tender with his sister, awkwardly sincere in Hyde Park, and unable to conceal that her opinion mattered.

“I do not wish to be divided from you,” she said.

The relief in his face was painful to behold.

“But I will not condemn Mr. Wickham because you command it.”

His hand tightened before he released her. “I have never wished to command you.”

“No?”

“No. Though I suspect I shall often wish you easier to persuade.”

“That is much safer. You may wish it as much as you like.”

A faint humor touched his eyes, brief but welcome. “You will think on what I have said?”

“I will.”

“And you will be cautious?”

“With Mr. Wickham?”

“With your sister. With your family. With yourself.”

Elizabeth nodded, because that much she could promise. “Yes.”