Page 26 of He Insulted My Entire Family Before Proposing

"I am here, Mamma."

Darcy bowed. His face held gravity, but not the old armor. He looked like a man who had seen his aunt in full cry and understood his inheritance more vividly than before.

"Miss Elizabeth," he said, "may I speak with you?"

Mrs. Bennet inhaled.

"In the garden," Elizabeth said quickly, before her mother could call for lace, settlements, or smelling salts.

They walked to the far path, the same path where so many interrogations had lately taken place that Elizabeth wondered whether the shrubbery should be renamed the Court of Domestic Appeals.

Darcy did not begin at once.

"Lady Catherine has been here," she said.

"Yes."

"I thought she might mention it."

"She did more than mention it."

"That also sounds like her."

He looked at her, and despite everything, humor touched his eyes. "She was displeased."

"You astonish me."

"She believed her visit would secure my obedience."

"Did it?"

"No."

The single word changed the air between them.

Elizabeth looked away first. The garden was offensively pretty. It was difficult to conduct major emotional business while surrounded by well-behaved flowers.

"She repeated," Darcy said, "many of the judgments I once allowed to guide me."

"Allowed?"

"Encouraged. Shared. Obeyed." He paused. "Believed."

Elizabeth turned back.

"When you refused me at Hunsford," he said, "I thought you unjust. I knew myself wounded, and therefore assumed myself wronged. It has taken me some time to understand that pain is not proof of innocence."

She almost smiled. "That is a useful discovery. I recommend it widely."

"I deserved that."

"A great many people do. You happen to be present."

He accepted the blow with better grace than formerly. "I came today not to ask what Lady Catherine demanded of you. I know enough of your answer from her distress."

"Then you know I promised nothing."

"I hoped it."