“Just go, Miss Bennet,” said Mr. Darcy with a sigh.
Charlotte tugged on my arm.
I sighed, too. But I allowed her to lead me.
fitzwilliam
Mrs. Collins was as good as her word. I did have a servant from the parsonage to contend with. I was in a bit of a state, so I decided not to put up a fight. I allowed myself to be taken back to Rosings.
I did not go back to my room, though. Instead, I sat out on the steps on the front of the place and gazed out into the distance, and I felt despair again.
I’d been cycling in and out of it since all this started.
Obviously, I didn’t wish to believe that I was stuck living this dratted day over and over again. It went against all sense, and I must have lost my mind.
Except, it didn’t matter why it was happening, in the end. It was happening. I could not deny it.
So, all that really mattered was to make it stop happening.
But I’d had no luck with that.
So, then, I’d sort of given up. I didn’t know if I’d decided to give up, not exactly, but when I’d started to ask for various women’s hand in marriage, it had been an attempt to cope. I had given up. I would just have some fun, I had thought. Nothing mattered.
But then.
Her.
And now, well, it was one thing if I were the only person trapped in this hellish repetition, but it was quite another if there was someone else here with me. I could give up, I supposed, but leaving her to deal with this, leaving poor Miss Elizabeth Bennet to suffer, it seemed wrong.
Ididlike her, after all.
Of course, she also seemed like the sort who could take care of herself.
Still, I had sort of abandoned her this morning, and I should probably—
I looked up to see Colonel Fitzwilliam descending the steps. “Ho, there, Will.”
“Ho, there, Richard,” I said.
“Why are you sitting out on the steps?”
“Lovely morning?” I said.
He chuckled. “I’m off for a walk.”
Right. I got up. “Which way are you going?”
He glanced at me. “Coming along?”
“I am going towards the parsonage, I think, so if we are walking the same way, we could go together.”
“The parsonage.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “Will, I happen to know that you’ve memorized her walking schedule and you usually accidentally-on-purpose run into her. We can run into her together this morning, I suppose.”
“Her,” I said, blinking at him in confusion.
He snorted and walked off without me.
I hurried to catch up to him. “Who are we talking about?”
