Page 4 of He Insulted My Entire Family Before Proposing

Mr. Collins blinked. "Sense is naturally implied."

"Naturally," Charlotte murmured.

Elizabeth had intended to spend the morning walking. Movement, she hoped, might settle her thoughts into some form less likely to burst from her mouth at dinner. But she had gone no farther than the lane beyond the parsonage when she saw Colonel Fitzwilliam approaching from Rosings.

For a moment she considered turning into the shrubbery and becoming a cautionary tale. But he had already seen her, and he quickened his step with the air of a man determined to behave better than he had the day before.

"Miss Elizabeth."

"Colonel."

"I hoped to find you. I owe you an apology."

"Then you are generous. Most people prefer to owe apologies indefinitely."

He smiled, but uneasily. "Yesterday I spoke of matters that were not mine to disclose."

"I will not ask you to betray your cousin further."

"That is a relief."

"But I may ask whether your cousin betrayed anyone first."

The colonel's smile vanished.

They walked on, because standing still would have made the conversation too intimate and turning back would have made it too cowardly. A light wind moved through the hedgerow. Elizabeth watched a small bird vanish between new leaves and wished, briefly, for any life governed by instinct rather than propriety.

"I do not know the whole of it," Colonel Fitzwilliam said at last.

"No. But you know the shape."

"Darcy believed his friend was in danger of forming an attachment where the lady's feelings were uncertain and the family connection imprudent."

"How tidy."

"He is tidy."

"He is wrong."

The colonel looked at her. "You are very sure."

"I have the advantage of knowing the lady."

There. It was said, though not named.

Understanding moved across his face, followed by discomfort so sincere that Elizabeth almost pitied him. Almost. Pity was a luxury best spent on people who had not just confirmed one's sister had been managed out of happiness.

"Miss Elizabeth," he said quietly, "I am sorry."

"For what? You did not separate them."

"No, but I spoke lightly of it."

"Men often do. It must be restful to discuss a woman's life as if it were a seating arrangement."

He absorbed this with creditable humility. "You think Darcy cruel."

Elizabeth considered. "I think he is accustomed to being obeyed by events. When events resist, he calls them foolish."