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“Did I?”

“Yes.”

His certainty was mildly alarming. She opened the cover. “It is difficult to find books like this in Meryton. I meant to search while I was here.”

“I recall. I happened to have a copy in my library.”

Of course he did.

“You have brought me a book from your own library because I once said I wished to read it.”

“Twice.”

She looked up sharply, but he appeared perfectly composed.

Elizabeth opened the cover to the title page. There was no inscription suggesting it was a gift, no attempt to make the offering grander than it was. He had remembered she wanted something, discovered he possessed it, and then he had brought it to her.

The simplicity of the gesture affected her more than was reasonable. Not that Mr. Darcy would have brought her anything expensive in any case—they were courting, not engaged. But he seemed to understand that a loan of a book like this was the sort of small consideration that meant more to her than something showier might have done. He had listened to her, he had remembered—better than she had herself—and he had brought her the thing she had sought.

That example of care made her unexpectedly shy, which was something she could not allow to continue. She closed the book, ran her hand lightly over the cover, and looked up at him. “Thank you,” she said.

“You are welcome. Do you paint?”

“I am attempting to teach myself, though my results thus far are indifferent.”

“Nothing worthwhile is immediately mastered.”

He spoke with such gravity that she suspected he had given this advice more than once. She chuckled. “Of that I am quite aware. May I ask you a question on another subject?”

“Of course.”

Elizabeth set the book down in her lap. She had meant to ask yesterday but had not known whether Mr. Darcy would welcome the question. “I was a little surprised at your application yesterday. I had thought, at my uncle’s dinner, that you might be regretting telling me about your sister,” she said.

“I was not,” he replied. There was no hesitation, and Elizabeth wondered if she had mistaken his reserve that evening for reluctance.

“But you did not speak to me all evening.”

He sighed. “I had confessed to failing my sister. I thought perhaps you would judge me for it.”

She assessed him.

“Yes,” he said ruefully, “I am aware of the irony.”

She gestured to the chair opposite. “Very well, Mr. Darcy, let us set that aside. As you have so kindly recalled my desire to read this book, you must tell me whether the book is worth all the trouble I have taken to obtain it.”

He took the seat next to her instead. “I thought you would prefer to decide that for yourself.”

“I would,” she teased. “But I should like the opportunity to disagree with you first.”

He brightened at the challenge. “I would be pleased to comply,” he said, and sat next to her.

The conversation began with her burgeoning interest in watercolours, how she had heard of the book, and why she had wanted to read it. After about ten minutes, it became more difficult to discuss a book she had not yet read, and she reached for another subject.

“I suppose Pemberley is decorated very grandly at Christmas,” she said.

Mr. Darcy considered this. “I would not say grandly.”

“Pemberley is very grand,” Miss Bingley said from her chair near the fire.