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"I shall be the best-doctored man in England." I swing my legs over the side of the bed, slowly. The room stays where it is. That is new, and I am absurdly proud of it. "Lowe. My boots."

Lowe is already holding them.

***

She is waiting on the terrace.

She has come up to my chamber every morning since Monday, at eleven, while my aunt is in her bath, by an arrangement of my cousin Anne's that I do not understand and have been advised not to inquire into. On Monday she brought Mrs. Collins and the green worsted, and held it out to me, and made me show her how I had stood. I obliged. She laughed until she had to sit down.

Today she wears a pelisse the color of new beech leaves, and a straw bonnet tied under her chin with a green ribbon, and when she sees me come out through the long window on Fitzwilliam's arm, her face does something that makes me forget the stone steps entirely.

I misjudge the last one. Fitzwilliam catches my elbow.

"Steady," he says. "You were looking at the view."

"I was."

"The view is on the other side."

"Not from where I am standing."

Fitzwilliam groans. Miss Bennet goes pink. Mrs. Collins, at her side, examines the balustrade.

Behind them, at a little distance, stands Anne, wrapped in only one shawl today, and Mrs. Jenkinson, wrapped in three on her behalf. Anne catches my eye and gives a very small nod, like a commander reviewing troops. I have no idea when my cousin became a commander. I suspect she was always one, and nobody noticed.

Fitzwilliam transfers my arm to Miss Bennet's with a little bow.

"Ten minutes out, ten minutes back," he says. "Pettigrew's orders. If he faints, Miss Bennet, sit on him until I come."

"I shall not faint."

"You said that on Saturday, and you swooned into your soup."

"I did not swoon. I leaned."

"Into your soup."

"Go away, Fitzwilliam."

He goes away, laughing. Miss Bennet's arm is tucked through mine. Her glove rests on my sleeve, very light. I can feel the warmth of her through two layers of cloth, which is ridiculous, and I can think about almost nothing else, which is more ridiculous still.

We start down the gravel walk.

***

On the first morning of our walks, which is this one, I talk about Pemberley.

I do not intend to. I intend to ask about her. But she asks first, in that direct way she has, as though asking a question were the easiest thing in the world. "What is it like? Pemberley. Everyone in Meryton talked of it as though it were a cathedral."

"It is not a cathedral."

"Then what is it?"

I think about it. No one has ever asked me. They have told me what it is. Grand. Noble. A great deal of money. Ten thousand a year.

"It is the stone," I say slowly. "That is what I think of first. It is built of a warm stone, not gray. A sort of gold, when the sun is on it. There is a stream that runs down from the hills and is dammed into a lake before the house, and in the evening the whole front stands in the water upside down. When I was a boy I used to lie on the bank and try to decide which house was real."

"And which did you decide?"