Page 24 of A Prudent Engagement

Despite his confusion, he smiled widely at Elizabeth. “There is little that would give me more pleasure than to answer any question you might have.”

And that lovely blush returned to her face.

The way that Elizabeth looked at him and behaved had changed since he had declared to her that he would ask her to marry him once the appropriate time had come. The air was strained between them. A sense of waiting, of potential, of connection and of a desire to kiss that he thought was shared.

That could not happen until the engagement was properly established.

After breakfast they all walked through the back of the house to the mews, where the Gardiners’ carriage and horses were kept.

The group was divided up, with Mrs. Collins, Miss Bennet, and Elizabeth in Darcy’s carriage, while Mr. Gardiner was only required to fit his own family in his less spacious coach.

The substitution of the slender Miss Bennet for Colonel Fitzwilliam made the inside more spacious and comfortable.

Mrs. Collins arranged herself close to the window and looked out, studying the passing scenery, while Miss Bennet sat next to Elizabeth and frowned.

That was the difference.

Miss Bennet always smiled—too much. He had never seen her in this mood. But of course she would be unhappy; her father had just died.

Darcy sensed, however, that there was something more to the matter. She looked at him with such a scowl that he thought she disapproved of him. With a stab of guilt, Darcy wondered if, impossibly, Miss Bennet was aware that he had known about her presence in London and had not conveyed that information to Bingley.

And, worst of all, Darcy found it impossible to begin the conversation with Elizabeth.

She was too lovely; it made him shy, stupid, stammering, and halfway into the coward that Colonel Fitzwilliam had accused him of being.

He could not look directly at her, yet his awareness was filled with how sweet and soft she appeared. Her slender neck, the black of her dress sharply setting off her white skin, the lovely oval of her face. The way that her knee occasionally touched his. The curve of her bosom. A scent of rose water hung about her, and it made Darcy’s stomach feel hollow.

He wished that Miss Bennet would stop looking at him with that disapproving grimace. It made him feel far more self-conscious and unable to simply talk to Elizabeth in the way that had been so easy the previous day.

Elizabeth looked around the carriage, at the Darcy crest painted against the back of it, the velvet cushions, the glossy silk curtains, and the fine polished wooden finishings, all elegantly maintained.

Before the silence became oppressive, she said in a small and oddly unhappy voice, “It is an exceedingly fine carriage, is it not?”

Darcy did not know how to reply. That unsettled him.

He had been so unsure of his intentions towards her for so long, and now that he was confident in himself and his desire to marry her, suddenly it seemed impossible to be confident in her sentiments in the way he always had been.

Colonel Fitzwilliam had suggested that Elizabeth had no notion that he admired her.

He had suggested that Elizabeth had even not liked him very well.

That was impossible.

“But do you like the carriage?” Darcy asked with a slight croak.

“Oh!” Pink spots appeared on Elizabeth’s cheeks. “I hardly know how to answer. It serves its purpose as a carriage well enough—am I right? It does?”

There was an odd and unexpected snort of laughter from Mrs. Collins.

Elizabeth looked at her friend with an expression a little like betrayal.

Miss Bennet continued to simply frown.

But Mrs. Collins grinned at Elizabeth with a cherubic expression that made that woman look much closer to pretty than usual. “It is a lovely carriage, Mr. Darcy. That is what Elizabeth means to say.”

In reply to her answer being provided in that manner by her friend, Elizabeth giggled.

She glanced sideways at her sister before shrugging and saying in a cheerful manner, “Quite right. That is what I meant to say. It not only allows one to travel easily, but it is also exceedingly comfortable, delightfully fine, and packaged with something that smells quite delicious.”