“I knowofthem,” Elizabeth corrected.
“You do not ride?”
“No.” The admission cost her more than she expected. “I do not ride.”
“Why not?” The question was direct, genuinely curious rather than merely polite.
Elizabeth hesitated. She could offer the excuse about money, the one her father had given her for years. However, Mr. Darcy’s steady regard made her speak the truth instead.
“When I was small, there was an accident. My young cousin was killed by my father’s hunter.” The words came out flat. “My father sold every riding horse he owned. What remained are the farm horses. Jane and I were forbidden to enter the stables or attempt to ride.”
Mr. Darcy was silent for a moment. “And you have wanted to ride ever since.”
“The only time I have ever been on a horse was when I was five.”
“Once.” His voice held an emotion she could not identify. “You have not ridden in?—”
“Fifteen years.” She forced herself to look away from the mare, back toward the house. “I should return to Jane. She will wake soon.”
“Miss Elizabeth.” Mr. Darcy stopped her. When she turned to see his expression, it was still reserved, though it contained a measure of warmth. “The mare isLady of PemberleybyKing’s Ransomout ofMorning Star. My father intended to call her Lady. Instead, my sister named her Gracie when she was a foal. Her coat matched the hair on Georgiana’s favorite doll of the same name.”
Elizabeth startled at his unexpected confidence. “Your sister must have been quite young.”
“She was five. I was fifteen and thought it a ridiculous name for such a fine animal.” He continued to watch the mare. “Georgiana was insistent, and even then, my father and I could not deny her.”
His tone held a gentleness that Elizabeth had not heard before. It did not fit with the cold, proud man who had slighted her at the assembly. Who had rarely spoken to her since her arrival at Netherfield, save for a few stiff courtesies.
“As the lead mare, the other horses defer to her. She knows her place and expects everyone else to know theirs as well.”
“A female confident of her rank,” Elizabeth teased. “How unusual.”
His head turned sharply toward her, and she thought she had gone too far. But then his expression shifted, a hint of a smile crossing his features. “Indeed. Though I suspect Gracie’s understanding of her place and society’s understanding of it are not quite the same thing.”
The mare finally deigned to allow the groom to approach, though she made it clear through every muscle that she permitted it rather than submitted.
Elizabeth watched the horse’s every move. “You have your Gracie. We had Jackson, a black giant with an easy temper. When we were children, Jane and I climbed onto his back. That one ride was…” She was unsure how to explain what that single ride had meant to her.
“It was everything,” Mr. Darcy said softly.
Elizabeth turned at something in his tone. He no longer watched the animal. The understanding in his eyes—the recognition of what that single ride had meant,what fifteen years of denial had cost her—made her gasp softly. She could not look away. Nor did she want to.
“Yes,” she said. “Everything.”
Gracie stamped impatiently, reminding them of her presence. The groom slipped the halter on and led the mare toward the stable, though her attention remained on the man standing next to Elizabeth.
“I should return to Jane,” Elizabeth said, though reluctant to leave. The conversation had been unanticipated. Mr. Darcy spoke to her without the cold superiority she had come to expect from him.
“Of course,” Mr. Darcy said. He inclined his head slightly. “Miss Bennet is fortunate to have so devoted a sister.”
Elizabeth curtsied and turned toward the house, her mind whirling. She had abhorred him from the moment they met and had steeled herself against any further interaction with him. Despite this, standing by the paddock, he had been different. Perhaps she had simply seen a part he kept hidden behind that unapproachable exterior.
She shook her head as she climbed the steps to the side entrance. It did not matter. Mr. Darcy’s good opinion meant nothing to her. The mare, lovely as she was, was not hers to admire.
Still, as Elizabeth ascended to Jane’s room, she could not quite banish the memory of his voice when he spoke of Gracie. Or the bewildering gentleness in his eyes when he said, “It was everything.”
She paused outside Jane’s door, one hand on the latch. Mr. Darcy had understood what that single ride asa young child had meant. How had he known? And why did it matter so much that he had?
She slipped into Jane’s room as quietly as she had left before she could examine those questions too closely.
