“My lady, if you allow me the pleasure of choice, I believe I have a path you would enjoy.”
“Why is there no phrase like my gentleman?”
Fitzwilliam laughed along with her. Elizabeth nodded, took his arm, and he was happy with the result.
They walked for an hour to reach their destination. They could not truly discuss commonplaces with so much to be said, but neither could start on the big conversation that both knew the rest of their lives would revolve around. Instead, they spent the time recounting their tales, which involved quite a lot of gasped exclamations.
“Jane saidwhat? Jane Bennet made you cry? A grown man and master of an estate crying like a baby. I bet that was uncomfortable.”
Much to her delight, Fitzwilliam laughed self-deprecatingly. “I am quite jealous. You women can cry at your leisure, and nobody thinks aught of it, but a man cries, and it seems shocking.”
“Notseemsshocking.Isshocking!”
Both laughed, and the recounting of the discussion in the carriage left both in tears.
“You do realise you are the first horsewoman?”
Nodding in embarrassment, she said, “Well, perhaps… Where is your high horse anyway? We may need him to get back to the house.”
He laughed in relief and asked with caution.
“Jane tells me you sometimes see visions of people giving you advice. She recommended we not discuss it in company as it makes us sound a trifle mad, but I should tell you that I experience the same. My tears owed as much to seeing my mother, who looked more like Jane’s sister than you do, standing between her and Miss Taylor looking disappointed. She tried to warn me, but I did not listen.”
She dragged him to a stop to face her. “Perhaps… well… perhaps your mother was notchastisingyou butpreparing youfor what fate had in store. It sounds crazy, but sometimes I think the gods of chance have been playing games specifically designed to put us together.”
“Do you object to their interference?”
Elizabeth reflected for some time. “I do not. I would not trade my experience for anything in the world. How many women like me have been allowed the privilege of proving their worth without first being bound in matrimony?”
“How many, indeed. If your worth was ever in doubt—which it wasnot—then today’s display would have dispelled it from the most hard-hearted observer. By the way, what did you do with those boys?”
“You saw it. I just extended my finger to the southwest.”
“Which means?”
“You might find me less pleasant than you thought if I tell you.”
“Unlikely!”
“As you know, the Leeson pig farm is that way. I warned those boys before that such behaviour would not be tolerated. They are on their way to work slopping, feeding, and butchering pigs for the next fortnight, from dawn to dark. Their fathers will ensure their compliance. Each day at sundown for a week, they will make a bed under a small overhang in the pigpen and sleep there for the night.”
He laughed uproariously, while she vacillated between embarrassment and laughter, though the latter proved the victor.
They discussed the arrangements for the dead at Pemberley, and the current state of the measles victims. Likely, Mrs Reynolds, the housekeeper, and Mr Nelson, the butler, would recover eventually. Elizabeth was unhappy that she had nottended them. She could have done so safely, she felt, but had been overruled by the senior staff who would take no chances.
Fitzwilliam recounted the last assembly in Meryton, which left Elizabeth laughing heartily.
“You realise Anne is probably taken now? She could look a hundred years and not find a better man than Jason.”
“So why have none of the Bennet girls snapped him up?”
“Good question… to tell the truth, he has always seen all of us in a fraternal light, and it is hard to dislodge such an idea. Then, of course, none of us have any fortune whatsoever, and heisa third son. He would double Rosings’ income though.”
“Such low ambitions. I am certain you are just being polite. He could do that by just reining in some of my aunt’s more ostentatious displays.”
Elizabeth laughed and agreed.
“You know your aunt will never accept him.”
