“And if he does not?” She dearly hoped he did, for she longed for love.
“Then the loss will be his, and not yours.”
She looked up again, laughter and tenderness mingling in her expression. “You are determined I shall have a grand destiny.”
“I am determined only that you should never undervalue yourself.”
The carriage seemed very peaceful for a few moments after that. Outside, the fields rolled on in softened greens and browns, broken by low stone walls and wind-bent trees. Somewhere in the distance a rook called. Elizabeth turned her face toward the window and watched the afternoon move past in fragments: a gatepost, a stand of ash, a flock of sheep pressed close together in one corner of a meadow.
At length she said, “If I am to inspire such violent admiration, perhaps we ought to have purchased another gown. The primrose muslin, for example.”
Mr. Bennet groaned. “Ah. There is the true object of this speech.”
She laughed outright. “No, indeed. I have surrendered it with grace.”
“You looked at it three separate times before we left.”
“I was saying farewell.” Ithadbeen a lovely gown.
“You were plotting.”
She put a hand to her chest and affected an air of innocence. “Can one not do both?”
“One can, but not honorably.”
“I had not understood shopping to be an exercise in morality.”
Mr. Bennet raised his eyebrows and laced his fingers together over his stomach. “It is, when undertaken with my purse.”
Elizabeth leaned her head back against the squab and smiled. “I do not know what Mama will say when she sees everything.”
“She will say that Jane ought to have had more ribbons.”
Mrs. Bennet always favored the eldest Bennet sister. “That is unfair. Mama may also say Lydia ought to have had more ribbons.”
“True. Kitty will want the same bonnet as yours, Mary will disapprove of feathers on principle, and Lydia will attempt to wear the new slippers before dinner.”
“And Jane?”
Mr. Bennet’s eyes softened. “Jane will kiss you, admire every stitch, and mean it.”
Elizabeth’s expression gentled in answer. “Yes. She will.”
The thought of home warmed her. Longbourn would be lively tonight. Lydia would demand a full account of every shop they had entered; Kitty would ask after London fashions with breathless seriousness; Mary would pretend indifferenceand then inquire whether any respectable bookseller had been visited; Jane would wish to hear all, even while balancing tasks and managing some matter or other.
And her mother—well, her mother would have opinions enough for everyone.
Elizabeth smiled to herself and returned her gaze to the window.
They had nearly reached the turn. She knew the stretch of road well: the slight dip ahead, the elder hedge to the left, the narrow lane that would curve toward Longbourn. She could almost feel home in the air already—the familiar fields, the distant smoke from cottages, the sense of nearing what was known and loved.
Then, so suddenly that there was no time to attach reason to it, the horses gave a violent start.
The carriage lurched.
Elizabeth caught at the strap beside the window. Mr. Bennet’s newspaper slid to the floor.
Outside came a sharp burst of barking—wild, frantic, too near—and then the unmistakable sound of snapping jaws and scrabbling claws against the road.
