Page 220 of What Change Entails

They began walking without agreement, following the ridge of Oakham Mount where the grass lay short beneath their feet. Darcy kept her hand upon his arm now, proper enough if one ignored how closely they walked and how neither of them wished for distance. Elizabeth felt the pressure of his sleeve beneath her fingers and the tremor still moving through her from the sight of him climbing the hill.

“I thought you might write first,” she admitted.

He smiled. “I considered it for perhaps four seconds.”

“Just four?”

This time he laughed. “I was already ordering the horse.”

“That is very gratifying.” How gallant of him to ride off into the sunset to see her!

“It was not a dignified departure,” he admitted.

“I wish I had seen it.” Elizabeth regarded him.

Darcy’s expression remained solemn for perhaps one second too long.

Then she burst into laughter.

Darcy’s mouth tilted. “I am pleased my peril amuses you.”

“You were in peril?”

“A goose obstructed the lane.”

Elizabeth laid a hand on his arm. “My poor Mr. Darcy.”

“I endured.”

“Bravely, I am sure.” She could imagine an angry goose chasing his horse.

“With moderate dignity.”

Oh, how she adored him! “Did the goose survive?”

“Yes.” He said it somewhat grudgingly and grinned when she laughed again.

“How merciful of you.”

They resumed walking.

The humor faded gradually, not because sorrow took its place, but because something else pressed in. The hill, the afternoon light, the distance from Longbourn’s noise. Elizabeth had dreamed of seeing him again, feared it, trusted it, doubted her trust, then scolded herself for the doubt. Now he walked beside her, dusty from travel and real enough to touch.

“I do not want us to spend our lives apologizing for Hunsford,” she said.

Darcy basked in the feel of her hand on his arm.

“No.”

“But I do not want to pretend it never happened either.”

“Nor do I.”

“It changed us.”

“Yes.”

She waited.