“That book is nonsense. Antiquarian indulgence. Your father asked about it, too, and I offered it only as a courtesy. He never answered, and I had quite forgot about it.”
“Of course,” Richard said easily. “I thought as much. Still, Aunt Catherine has never been one to distinguish between myth and mandate. She speaks of it as though it were evidence of something.”
Darcy resumed walking at once. “Then she is welcome to her fancies. I have no intention of conducting my life by half-remembered verse.”
“Just so,” Richard chuckled. “Now—are we likely to find any decent game, or have your tenants scared it all off with their cheerful greetings and visible affection?”
Darcy gave a low huff that might have passed for agreement. He glanced toward the tree line ahead, where the path narrowed, and the sun flickered low between the branches.
“We shall try the south ridge,” he said. “There is a clearing near the stone fence—last year it was full of partridge.”
“Excellent,” Richard replied. “I have every intention of shooting something today, if only to justify the state of my boots.”
They walked on, boots breaking through dry grass and the occasional brittle patch of heather. The dogs ranged ahead, vanishing and reappearing like thoughts that would not settle.
Richard’s gaze swept the landscape with the ease of long habit. “It is a good stretch of country. You have done well with it.”
“I have tried to do right by it.”
“You have. Most of the old families are hanging on by their teeth or courting heiresses in town.” He nudged a stone with his toe. “You do not court anything, and yet the place still breathes.”
Darcy did not answer at once. His gaze tracked a kestrel overhead, then dropped again to the fields beyond.
“Pemberley is not meant to be impressive,” he said finally. “Only enduring.”
“Well,” Richard said, adjusting his coat, “it certainly endures your company with greater grace than I do.”
That earned him a faint smirk, and they fell into a comfortable silence that had nothing to prove.
When they reached the ridge, Richard paused to scan the horizon, shading his eyes more from habit than hope. “Do you suppose there is news from the front today?”
Darcy followed his gaze. The fields lay open and untroubled, the sky pale and unremarkable. “If there is, it will reach us a week too late.”
“A week too late is better than not at all.” Richard shifted the gun on his shoulder and exhaled. “In any case, I do not expect much to concern me just now. I have been warned—unofficially, of course—that I am to be kept in London after Christmas. Reports. Committees. Endless questions from men who have never heard a cannon fired in anger.”
Darcy turned his head slightly. “And how do you receive the news?”
Richard considered it. “With gratitude,” he said at last. “And a certain amount of dread. I have grown used to mud and marching. Ink may prove the greater trial. Still, it will be agreeable to sleep in the same bed two nights running. And to know, more or less, where I am meant to be.”
“That seems a reasonable ambition,” Darcy said.
“So I thought. One does one’s part, and then one is set aside for a time. The machine turns. Others take the strain.” Richard glanced at him. “It is how things are meant to work, is it not?”
Darcy did not answer at once. He shaded his eyes again, though the light had not changed. “In general,” he said finally, “yes.”
Richard nodded, satisfied, and swung the gun back into a more comfortable position. “Come on, then. Let us go startle something innocent.”
Elizabeth stepped lightly alongthe lane, her boots striking the dew-softened earth with a muffled clop. Jane walked beside her, her bonnet ribbons dancing in the mild breeze, one hand tucked in her sister’s arm.
The countryside held that peculiar stillness which often preceded autumn storms—not ominous, but alert. Overhead, a handful of swallows circled in a frantic spiral. Too soon for their migration, Elizabeth thought absently. And no direction at all, as if they had forgot the way.
“Mrs Long says they have had no tea from London in three weeks,” Jane remarked. “She fears the ships are delayed again.”
“Or swallowed whole by the Channel,” Elizabeth replied. “Perhaps it is not French cannon but sea serpents that have put the merchantmen off their course.”
“Even so, Mama will grieve for her breakfast pot.”
“She might discover the merits of barley water instead. Surely an adventure for her palate.”
