Page 35 of A Question of Character

“I have met several.”

“Pemberley is large enough to be accused of arrogance, I suppose, but it was built to belong to its place. My father used to say the best compliment ever paid the house was that no one could determine whether the grounds had been arranged for it or it for the grounds.”

Elizabeth held her plate but forgot the cake upon it. “That is a very fine compliment.”

“I think so. The stream winds before the house, then broadens where the banks have been opened. There are woods to the east where the paths are better kept near the house and less obedient the farther one goes.”

“Less obedient paths are always preferable.”

“I had begun to suspect you would think so.” Darcy rested one arm upon the back of the sofa, careful to leave a perfectly suitable distance. “There is one walk my mother favored. It climbs behind the house through beech and oak. At the crest, if one has patience enough for the ascent, the valley opens below. The house is partly hidden by trees, and the water catches the light in broken pieces. In autumn, the whole hillside changes color before the lower fields have quite surrendered summer.”

Elizabeth did not answer.

Darcy had spoken too much. That must be it. He had allowed sentiment to enter where description would have served. Miss Bennet, who could enliven any subject from maps to melancholy poetry, sat with uncharacteristic stillness, her eyes fixed upon him rather than the pianoforte, the room, or even the almond cake she had praised with such sincerity minutes before.

He touched his cheek.

“Have I crumbs?”

Her attention snapped back to the present. “What?”

“On my face. You are staring with such intensity that I must conclude I have disgraced myself with cake.”

Color rose in her cheeks so swiftly that Darcy regretted the question and treasured the answer before it came.

“No,” she said, recovering enough to set the plate upon the low table. “No crumbs.”

“Then I have spoken too long of Pemberley.”

“Not at all.”

She adjusted one glove finger that did not require adjustment. Then, with a small burst of candor that sounded as though it had escaped before prudence could restrain it, she added, “I was thinking that I noticed your honor first.”

Darcy could make nothing of that.

“My honor?”

“Yes.” She glanced toward Georgiana, who had begun the same phrase three times and was now laughing with Mrs. Gardiner over her own mistakes. “At the museum, even before my aunt introduced you, I thought you spoke honestly. Afterward, I saw how you treated my aunt and uncle, then your sister, then servants, children, people who could be of no use to you. I suppose I formed an opinion of your character before I attended properly to anything else.”

He ought to have thanked her. A gentleman should know how to receive praise without staring like a schoolboy.

Instead, Darcy said, “And now?”

Elizabeth looked at him then, directly enough to undo every sensible arrangement in his head.

“Now I find I have been very foolish.”

“That is difficult to credit.”

“It is true. I have spent so much time admiring your character that I neglected to observe what half the ladies in London must have known long before me.”

Across the room, Georgiana reached the end of the piece and let the final chord fade beneath Mrs. Gardiner’s praise. Mr. Gardiner turned a page of the newspaper with unnecessary noise.

Darcy did not move.

“And what is that, Miss Bennet?”

The question came out lower than he intended.