Page 14 of The Earl’s Second Chance

“Hartley has corrupted you. You once would have denied it.”

“Lord Hartley says affection that cannot survive truth is too fragile to trust.”

Elizabeth sat beside her. “He speaks to you of affection?”

Jane’s blush answered.

“Oh, Jane.”

“He has not declared himself. He asks what I want my life to contain. No one has ever asked me that—not a gentleman.”

“And what did you say?”

“Usefulness. Children, I hope. A husband who trusts my judgment. A home in which kindness is not mistaken for weakness.” She paused. “He said those hopes sounded like a life worth sharing.”

Elizabeth embraced her.

Across Grosvenor Square, the Earl of Matlock shut the library door upon his nephew.

“You are not a cruel man, Darcy,” he said. “But you have cultivated contempt so faithfully that it now speaks before conscience can stop it.”

Darcy stood rigid before the fire.

“I admire her.”

“Then God preserve the women you dislike.”

CHAPTER NINE

The Colonel in the Park

Elizabeth took to walking early in Hyde Park, before fashionable London filled its paths. A Herfershire footman followed at a discreet distance, as immovable as propriety and considerably less talkative.

On a misty morning in April, she saw a gentleman ahead leaning heavily upon a cane. He took six determined steps, stopped, and muttered something unfit for a lady’s hearing.

Elizabeth drew near. “If you intend to quarrel with the path, sir, I fear it has the advantage of size.”

He looked up. He was perhaps thirty, with brown hair, grey eyes, and a scar disappearing beneath his collar. Pain had thinned him but not diminished the vitality in his face.

“The path began it,” he said.

“Then you are right to defend yourself.”

He bowed as much as his leg permitted. “Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam.”

“Lady Elizabeth Bennet.”

Recognition brightened his eyes. “The lady who made my cousin ashamed of himself at Devonshire House without speaking a word.”

She stiffened. “Mr. Darcy is your cousin?”

“Unfortunately today; usefully at other times.”

Her reserve might have ended the conversation, but he winced as he shifted his weight.

“You are injured.”

“A Spanish ball objected to my continued presence in the Peninsula. The surgeon removed it and nearly everything else.”