She scoffed from within.
“Miss Bingley is jealous of you,” I said.
She scoffed again.
Why was I telling her this?
I took a deep breath. “All right, here it is. I am going to jump, and if I am hurt, what I wish you to do—”
She opened the door. “You shall not jump.”
I licked my lips. “I must dosomething.”
“Why would she be jealous?”
I looked up at her through the space between the wall and the door where she had opened it. I was sitting on the edge still, trying to find the courage to jump down. I found that I couldn’t look at her. I looked down instead. “I have given her an impression of me, on accident, I suppose.”
“Yes, well, that’s obvious,” she said.
I looked up at her. “Is it?”
She smirked. “‘I mend pens remarkably well.’”
I smirked, too. “Yes, all right.”
“‘How can you write so evenly?’” she gushed, giving her head a little toss.
I chuckled. “We should not. She deserves it, in all truth, but I have sworn not to be unkind in this way. Of course, you caught me earlier saying that thing about…” I cleared my throat. “It was cruel, but it wasn’t meant to be cruel to you, only to her. I have never given her any real reason to suspect I had any intentions toward her. She does not like it that I find you fetching, but she has no claim on me.”
Elizabeth slammed the door again.
What?
I let out a heavy sigh and glared up at the door. “All right, we shan’t talk. I am sorry. I’ve said it before, but I shall say it again and again, I imagine. I shall not tire of saying it. I promise.”
Nothing from her.
“If I am hurt, however, after I jump, we should have another plan held back in reserve, and let us plan that now.”
She opened the door. “You must promise not to leap down, sir.”
“What should I do, then? Sit here and do nothing? Simply make sure to stay on this side of the door and not to violate you?”
“I know you’re not going to violate me,” she said, sitting down inside the open door. “Leave off saying that, if you don’t mind.”
I nodded. “Of course.”
“Now, let us also leave off discussing the leaping,” she said. “That’s mad, and you will injure yourself. Tell me you agree.”
“No, I don’t agree, though,” I said. “I think I must jump. You know, Caroline doesn’t even know this, but I am sort of betrothed, anyway.”
“How is one ‘sort of’ betrothed?”
“Well, everyone talks about it as if it’s just decided, but there’s no real agreement or binding papers or anything like that. So, I suppose I don’t have to do it.”
I said this sometimes, that I did not have to marry my cousin, but I was the sort of person who never bucked expectations. At least, I never had. Of course, here I was in the country with the Bingleys, which certainly wasn’t what was expected of me.
“To whom is this agreement that is not binding with?” said Elizabeth.
