Page 2 of A Most Unwelcome Acquaintance

She turned away without waiting for a response and went back to the propped rail, testing its hold with both hands now, pushing on it to see if the temporary fix would stand. The dog stood watching her, alert and patient, its weight shifted to one forepaw in the particular posture of a working animal accustomed to waiting for instructions.

Darcy watched her test the rail. Her shoulders were straight, her attention on the task. Bingley’s words had reached her, and she had treated the offer as unnecessary, the courtesy of a man who assumed she could not manage without him. She pushed once more against the rail, seemed satisfied with its hold, and stepped back.

Bingley glanced at Darcy, a mild puzzlement crossing his features at the extended silence. Darcy returned his look. His gaze moved from her bare, muddy hands to the broken hedge, and his mouth tightened.

“The hedge wants proper repair,” he said, keeping his voice low enough for Bingley’s ear, not the girl still working thirty yards off. “This sort of thing wants attending to before it becomes a regular inconvenience.”

Rather than look at her as he said it, he looked at the boundary, noting the rotted posts, the collapsed hawthorn, and the general air of neglect that characterized the property's border. Careless management, an estate where boundaries went untended, sheep wandered, and temporary fixes replaced proper maintenance. The type that produced the sort of young woman now kneeling in the wet grass, her hands on a fallen rail, her dog waiting beside her with the discipline of an animal trained by someone who valued usefulness more than affection.

The girl gave no sign that she had heard him. She either had not caught the words at this distance or caught them and chose to treat them as she had treated Bingley’s offer: noise from the other side of a boundary that concerned her only as an obstacle to mend, not as a social line to acknowledge.

At her signal, the dog turned the flock toward the gap and worked the sheep through one by one. The girl followed last, adjusted the rail once more, and walked away along the hedgerow.

Darcy watched her go. The dog moved ahead, the sheep before it, and all disappeared into the Longbourn pasture. The morning air carried the smell of wet grass, sheep, and hawthorn, while behind them lay the broken boundary, mended by an unknown young woman.

The earlier judgment returned. She seemed suited to such a place.

Bingley was still watching the empty gap in the hedge, his expression thoughtful.

“Remarkable dog,” he said.

Darcy turned his horse. “The boundary wants seeing to,” he said. “Before the entire flock finds its way through.”

They rode back toward Netherfield together, Bingley talking about the chestnut’s paces, Darcy half-listening, the morning’s damp still heavy on the grass beneath their horses’ hooves.

Chapter 2

THE KITCHEN YARD GATE swung inward under Elizabeth’s hand, its hinges giving their familiar, reluctant groan. Sarah pressed against her leg, then stopped at the gatepost, ears forward, while the ewes pushed through with the determination of creatures that knew where the kitchen garden lay and intended to reach it.

Elizabeth closed the gate behind them and latched it. The iron catch dropped into place, and Sarah sank to her haunches, forepaws planted on the wet flagstone, her attention fixed on the sheep.

“Good girl.”

The ewes scattered toward the kitchen garden, their muddy hooves leaving prints across the stones. The nearest lowered its head to a tuft of parsley growing against the wall and began to eat as though the garden belonged to it.

Elizabeth clicked her tongue twice, sharp and clear.

Sarah left the gatepost, cutting across the yard with her belly low to the ground. At her approach, the ewe lifted its head and turned toward the corner pen without further persuasion. The other two followed, their hooves clicking on stone, with Sarah at their heels.

Against the stone wall where the kitchen yard met the stable lane stood the pen, its posts weathered gray and its gate hanging crooked on its hinges.

Elizabeth held the gate open while Sarah swept the ewes through, then closed it and tested the latch. The wood was damp under her palm. She had been kneeling in wet grass for more than an hour, and her skirt hem was heavy with moisture, the fabric dark and streaked with mud where she had brushed against the broken hedge. Her hands were cold, the skin at her knuckles rough.

She wiped her palms on her skirt and turned toward the house.

Mrs. Bennet stood in the back doorway in her morning cap, a shawl pulled tight across her shoulders. Her gaze went from the penned sheep to Elizabeth’s damp, grass-stained skirt.

“Lizzy,” she said. “Did you hear anything about Netherfield while you were out? Anything at all?”

Elizabeth picked up her basket from beside the gate. “I was mending the boundary hedge, Mama, not looking for the latest gossip.”

“The hedge! What can the hedge matter at such a time?” Mrs. Bennet stepped back to let Elizabeth pass. “Mrs. Long called this morning, and she says Mr. Bingley, the new tenant at Netherfield, is a young man of considerable fortune from the north of England.”

Elizabeth carried her basket into the kitchen, warm from the morning fire and thick with the smell of bread and tallow. Sarah followed, her nails clicking against the flagstone floor.

“He came down on Monday in a chaise and four,” Mrs. Bennet continued, following close behind. “To see the place, you know, and was so delighted with it that he signed the lease right there. He has taken possession, and the rest of his servants will arrive by week’s end.”

Elizabeth set her basket on the table. There was a pot of tea keeping warm by the fire, and she poured herself a cup, letting the heat seep into her fingers.