Page 16 of Caroline Bingley’s Last Chance At Love

"I shall take that as a compliment," he said, once he had managed to summon enough breath for speech.

"You may take it however you please," Caroline replied with great dignity. "I am hardly responsible for your interpretations."

He rose from the chair with the unhurried grace that seemed woven into every movement he made, and offered her his arm. His coat was a remarkably fine dark wool, and in the morning light his eyes were far warmer than she remembered.

"Shall we?" he asked, and the simple question carried the unmistakable air of a man who had been looking forward to this for quite some time and saw no reason to pretend otherwise.

Caroline rose and regarded the offered arm for the amount of time necessary to make it clear that she accepted by choice rather than enthusiasm. Only then did she place her hand in the crook of his elbow. His arm was solid and warm beneath the fabric, and she found herself aware of it in a way that felt far more intimate than she considered appropriate. She gave him a single, perfectly composed nod. The sort of nod that conveyed readiness to proceed while scrupulously avoiding the suggestion of anything more.

He appeared to find even this sincerely amusing, a reaction she would have found insufferable in nearly any other man. In him, however, it was perilously close to charming. This, she thought, could only be attributed to the particular focus of his attention and was undoubtedly a troubling development. She would have to consider it later, in the privacy of her room, where thoughts of this nature could be properly confined and prevented from running riot through an otherwise sensible morning.

Men were, as a general category, an enduring mystery to Caroline Bingley.

This one, she suspected, was destined to be more mysterious than most.

Chapter 8

August 9th

It was a very beautiful Sunday morning. The air possessed that bright, uncertain quality particular to days that had not yet determined whether they wished to be glorious or merely tolerable. Caroline thought this rather appropriate, since she herself occupied precisely the same state of indecision.

She had placed her hand in the crook of Edward Reinhart's elbow with what she considered to be impeccable composure, and together they stepped out of Netherfield's front door into the late summer sunshine. This, she informed herself quite firmly, was nothing at all deserving of speculation.

"So tell me, Mr. Reinhart," she began, pleased to hear not a single waver in her tone, "what exactly have you planned for this morning? I must warn you that I have very particular opinions about the proper–"

He laughed before she reached the end of the sentence, and she felt the sound hum through the arm she held. It was entirely more intimate than she would have preferred. "There is something that is going to trouble me a very great deal if I do not address it immediately," he said, with the unhurried calm of a man who had likely never been troubled by anything in his life. "You will have to call me Edward."

Caroline looked up at him. "I beg your pardon?"

"Edward," he repeated, all bright good humor. "That is my name. I am quite attached to it. If I hear nothing but Mr. Reinhart for the rest of the week I shall forget it entirely, and then think of the inconvenience. I should have to ask someone, which would be mortifying for us all." He tipped his head to the side and regarded her with that expression she was, with a faint flutter of alarm, already beginning to recognize. Half amusement, half something far more intentional.

"We barbarians from the Americas are not nearly so formal as you English. I am almost certain I have mentioned this before."

"You had," Caroline said. "I considered it a personal confession at the time, not a formal request."

"Then consider this the formal request."

"It would be wildly improper," she said somewhat flustered. It was true she had been calling him Edward to herself already, but she had not been prepared for the conversation to take such a turn. "I mean—people would talk."

"In the company of others," he agreed at once, as though she had proposed nothing more controversial than the weather, "you may call me whatever best suits your sense of propriety. Edward, Mr. Reinhart, that horrible American. I am quite at your mercy in such matters. But when it is only the two of us." He turned to her then and wore an expression that could only be described as thoroughly and quite absurdly pleading. He turned his eyes huge and imploring. It was a ridiculous look on a man of his height and bearing, and yet it proved disconcertingly effective all the same.

"Pray do not refuse me the small pleasure of hearing my name spoken in so exceptionally well-bred a voice as yours."

The words were outrageous. The expression was worse. Caroline opened her mouth fully intending to inform him of both these truths in the clearest possible terms. Instead, to her own profound astonishment, she laughed. It escaped before she could summon any defense against it, bright and unguarded and entirely unlike her usual composure. She closed her lips at once, but it was far too late to pretend it had not happened.

"Very well," she said, adopting a tone of firm primness that she trusted might repair some portion of the damage to her dignity. "Edward. If it will truly distress you to such an alarming degree, I can hardly be expected to persist in cruelty without cause."

He smiled then, and Caroline had the distinct impression that she had just yielded something of greater consequence than the simple use of a name.

She declined to consider that possibility any further.

She discovered, over the course of the next hour, that Edward Reinhart approached the planning of an outing with a thoroughness that he somehow still managed to make appear entirely casual. Only closer inspection revealed the considerable thought that must have gone into it. The route he selected led them through the more scenic parts of the town, past shop fronts arranged with such charm that even Caroline found herself momentarily diverted. He had, she realized, identified in advance the handful of establishments most likely to interest her, and he guided her among them with the easy confidence of a man who had done his research and felt no need to mention it.

It was the textile shop that proved the most eventful stop of the morning.

At first glance the establishment was perfectly pleasant. The shelves were neat, the morning light generous, and Caroline was in the middle of evaluating several bolts of fabric with the careful attention they deserved when the disturbance began. It was not dramatic by the usual standards of public disorder. It was the far more irritating sort, the variety produced by someone who had elevated their personal inconvenience to the level of a moral tragedy and saw no reason to lower their voice to match the surroundings.

The woman responsible stood near the far end of the counter, delivering a loud and passionate critique of the shop assistant's professional competence, or rather, her lack of it. She did so with all the relish of a person thoroughly convinced that volume conferred authority. The assistant, a young woman of perhaps seventeen with the weary expression of one who had already suffered more than enough difficulty that morning, stood with her hands folded and her gaze lowered. She said nothing, and Caroline could see at once that nothing she might have said would have made the slightest difference.