Page 16 of The Earl’s Second Chance

Darcy saw.

He had begun calling at Grosvenor Square. During crowded mornings he stood near Elizabeth and said little, believing constancy of presence must communicate what humility prevented him from expressing. He requested dances. She accepted one when refusal would be conspicuous and spent the set answering his solemn remarks.

“London appears to agree with you,” he said.

“London has not asked my opinion of it.”

“You are much admired.”

“So I am told.”

“Some men admire too easily.”

Elizabeth looked directly at him. “Others find fault with equal ease.”

He flushed but did not understand that her patience had ended.

When he learned from Georgiana that Lady Elizabeth walked each morning in Hyde Park, he mistook information for invitation. He had convinced himself that the obstacles between them had been removed. Her family possessed rank. Her fortune was great. His admiration had survived months of absence.

He never asked whether her dislike had survived too.

CHAPTER TEN

The Proposal in the Mist

Darcy waited near the Serpentine on a morning veiled in silver fog.

Elizabeth saw him and considered turning back. Pride forbade retreat.

“Mr. Darcy.”

“Lady Elizabeth. May I walk with you?”

“For a little way.”

Her footman followed. Unseen beyond a bend, Richard approached slowly from the opposite direction, cane striking the earth in an uneven rhythm.

Darcy spoke of the weather, then of Pemberley, then stopped so abruptly Elizabeth nearly passed him.

“In vain I have struggled,” he began.

Her heart sank.

“My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”

Elizabeth stared.

He continued, driven by emotion and the disastrous belief that honesty excused insult.

“When we first met, your situation and connections made such an attachment impossible to contemplate. Your mother’s conduct, your younger sisters’ want of restraint, the inferiority of your relations in trade—all opposed my judgment. Yet your family has undergone an alteration no one could have foreseen. Your father’s elevation has removed the material objections. I can now offer you my hand without violating what is owed to Pemberley and my name.”

Richard had reached the trees behind them. At the sound of Darcy’s voice, he stopped.

Elizabeth’s face had gone white.

“You can now offer?”

Darcy mistook her tone for emotion. “My affection existed before the change. That must prove its strength.”