He let out a disbelieving laugh. “Are you truly that dense that you haven’t realized it yourself? That would rather be like you, wouldn’t it?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, you can’t marry her either, of course,” he said. “Perhaps there’s no reason for you to realize it, in the end. I would save you the agony, if I could.”
“Agony.” I sighed.
“Why aren’t you wearing a cravat?”
“Just tell me what you’re going on about,” I said, annoyed.
“If I could marry her, I would. Regardless of your following her around and walking with her every morning.”
“You’re talking about Miss Bennet,” I said, because obviously that was who he was talking about. “You wish to marry her?”
“I can’t marry her, so I haven’t really thought it through,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t know what sort of wife she’d be, anyway. Can you imagine, really? The way she was with our aunt, imagine that, but in a ballroom in London, and the way everyone would gasp.” He grinned at me. “‘We never had a governess,’” he said in a high-pitched voice.
I smiled, ducking down my head. “She’d be an intolerable sort of wife, yes.”
“Yes, but exciting, nonetheless,” he said. “And those lips of hers, they’re rather kissable—”
I shoved him. “Stop that.”
He chuckled. “Yes, she’s going to be right up there.” He pointed. “Just ahead. We should cease talking about her now.”
I let out a long, slow breath.
“Just so we’re clear, though, we’re not competing over her.” He waggled his eyebrows at me. “Neither of us can marry her.”
“I have no intention of marrying her,” I protested.
“Or kissing her,” he said, smirking.
“Obviously not,” I said, reaching up to tighten my cravat and finding it missing. I grimaced, for it was true that all of my propriety had bled away in the sea of neverending Thursdays.
I had kissed Anne, after all, several times, during some of those marriage proposals that I had issued to her. But none ofthem had been serious, of course, and none of the kisses had been real because she wasn’t going to remember them.
And anyway, I really didn’t like kissing Anne. I only did it more than once to make sure that it really was that dreadful of an experience. Dry, bland sort of kisses, and she always pulled away as if she was worried I might try something else.
Which, of course, I wouldn’t.
I swallowed, stopping my movement, even as Colonel Fitzwilliam walked off without me. Well, it was more than propriety that kept me from taking liberties with women. I was simply not that sort of man. I nodded to myself, as if that would silence any arguments to the contrary, and then I caught up with Richard.
In moments, there she was.
When I had thought that she wasn’t handsome… why had I thought that?
Here, in the morning light, standing out on the new spring grass, her skirts flowing behind her, her countenance uplifted to the rays of warmth against her cheeks, I thought she was exceedingly fetching, actually.
Exceedingly.
I stood there, trying to swallow some sort of lump that had risen to my throat, and she greeted the colonel and he greeted her, and I simply stood there.
After some time, I went after them, trailing behind as they walked.
“Do you certainly leave Kent on Saturday?” she said to Richard, a hint of bitterness in her tone, for, of course, we were never to see Saturday.
“Oh, yes, if Darcy has his way,” said the colonel, glancing back at me. “He is used to having his way, though.”
