Darcy looked at her. "She said that?"
"In rather more affectionate terms," Elizabeth admitted. "But that was the substance of it."
Something crossed his expression that was unmistakably fond. He turned his gaze back towards the valley.
"And you?" he asked after a moment. "What are your own interests, Miss Elizabeth? Beyond walking and being, as I have observed, exceptionally quick-witted."
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. "Is that what you have observed?"
"Among other things."
She considered the question. "Books," she said. "I read a great deal. Not with Georgiana's thoroughness, I think, but widely. My father instilled the habit early and has been largely unable to reverse it since. He also taught me chess, which I enjoy a great deal more than I am perhaps supposed to."
"Why more than you are supposed to?"
"Because my younger sisters consider it incomprehensible and my mother considers it unbecoming. I have also been scolded by her on more than one occasion that gentlemen do not care to be beaten at chess by a lady they are attempting to court." She smiled. "I have found this largely irrelevant, as I have yet to meet a gentleman I wished to lose to on purpose."
Darcy regarded her with an expression she could not entirely interpret. "Your father did mention that we should have a game," he said.
Elizabeth's brows drew together. "Did he?"
"He suggested, when we spoke at Longbourn, that I might care to test my strategy upon some future occasion."
Elizabeth stared at him for a moment. Then she laughed. "He did not."
"He was quite specific about it."
"That," Elizabeth said, "is entirely characteristic of him, and I apologise on his behalf."
"I found it refreshing," Darcy smiled. "I have rarely been challenged to a game of chess within the first quarter hour of an acquaintance."
"He likes you," Elizabeth said, then found herself faintly surprised to have spoken so directly.
Darcy appeared equally surprised to hear it.
"I am glad of it," he said after a moment. "He is not a man whose good opinion one would willingly forgo."
They sat quietly for a moment. A farm cart trundled along the lane below them, unhurried in the morning distance. Somewhere behind them, a bird made its opinion of the cold known with remarkable persistence.
"What else did Georgiana tell you?" Darcy asked. "About Pemberley."
"A great deal," Elizabeth did not turn to face him. "The grounds particularly. She described the river and the walks beside it, and the kitchen garden, and a particular rose bed which apparently blooms in June and is, in her estimation, the finest sight in Derbyshire."
"She is not wrong about the rose bed."
"She also mentioned Lambton," Elizabeth said. "She was describing how you and she would sometimes visit the town, andI told her then that my aunt Gardiner was raised there. Mrs. Gardiner speaks of Lambton so often that I sometimes think I know the place myself."
Darcy turned towards her. She met his eyes. "Your aunt is from Lambton?"
"She is. She left when she was perhaps seventeen and has not returned since, though she speaks of doing so whenever the opportunity presents itself." Elizabeth smiled. "Georgiana was delighted. She said your housekeeper, Mrs. Reynolds, would remember the family."
"It is entirely possible," Darcy agreed. "Mrs. Reynolds has been at Pemberley longer than I have been alive and remembers everyone."
"Then I shall tell my aunt. She will be very pleased." Elizabeth paused. "Georgiana also mentioned that you have only one aunt."
"Lady Catherine de Bourgh," Darcy said. "Yes. She is... particular."
Elizabeth frowned briefly, then smiled.
