Page 25 of The Earl’s Second Chance

“Elizabeth Bennet, will you marry me, argue with me, walk with me, and make Oakmere our home?”

“Yes.”

He rose with her assistance and kissed her before the two earls, a countess, Lady Susan, Jane, Hartley, Mary, and Kitty poured through the adjoining door.

“You were all listening!” Elizabeth cried.

“No,” her father said. “The wall conveyed an unusually detailed silence.”

Richard resigned his commission that week. The letter cost him more than he expected. He had become a man in the army; he had left friends buried in Spain; and relinquishing command felt like abandoning them.

Elizabeth found him alone in the Matlock stables after he sent it.

“Do you regret it?”

“No. I grieve it.”

She understood the distinction. She put her arms around him and held him until grief loosened enough to permit desire.

The stable was quiet, warm with hay and horses. Richard kissed her beneath the loft ladder, first gently and then with months of restraint. His palms framed her waist. Her back met the wooden wall.

“Someone may come,” she whispered.

“Tell me to stop.”

She drew him closer.

His mouth moved along her cheek to the sensitive place below her ear. Elizabeth trembled. His hand spread over the curve of her hip through silk and petticoats, bold enough to promise, careful enough to ask.

“When we are married,” he murmured, “I shall require a house with many locks.”

“Oakmere has eighty-seven doors.”

“You counted?”

“I studied the plans.”

He laughed against her throat, and the sensation nearly undid her.

They sprang apart at the sound of a groom’s whistle outside. Elizabeth’s bonnet was crooked; Richard’s cravat had surrendered entirely.

“Eighty-seven,” he repeated.

“Perhaps eighty-eight.”

The engagements were announced together. London called them romantic; Lady Catherine called them catastrophic.

Mr. Collins arrived at Grosvenor Square carrying a letter of twelve pages in which Lady Catherine explained that the Bennet family’s elevation did not compensate for defects of breeding visible before the elevation.

“Her ladyship,” Mr. Collins declared, “cannot countenance Colonel Fitzwilliam’s union with one whose younger sister resides in a corrective academy.”

Lady Herfershire rang for tea. “How fortunate Richard is marrying Elizabeth rather than Lady Catherine.”

Mr. Collins blinked.

Lord Herfershire entered with a folder. “Collins, I have considered Longbourn.”

Hope revived. “My lord?”