Page 26 of The Earl’s Second Chance

“The entail cannot be broken without your cooperation once you are of age and legally capable, but I can ensure the estate is maintained until my death. I propose to fund improvements that will increase its income, provided you sign an agreement that my wife may reside there for life should she prefer it, though she has no need.”

Mr. Collins’s face shone. “A most generous arrangement, and one befitting the future proprietor.”

“There is a second condition. You will cease speaking of my death as your opportunity.”

“I have never—”

Every Bennet looked at him.

“I shall endeavour,” he finished.

“And you will convey to Lady Catherine that neither she nor her clergyman governs my daughters.”

Mr. Collins swallowed.

“Must I use those words?”

“You may improve the grammar.”

He signed.

When he returned to Hunsford, Lady Catherine spoke to him for forty-five minutes without permitting him to sit.

It was, Elizabeth thought, a suitable reform school of his own.

Darcy’s apology came not in a letter but in person.

He requested five minutes in Lord Herfershire’s presence. Elizabeth agreed.

He looked thinner. Pride still held his shoulders straight, but no longer shielded his eyes.

“Lady Elizabeth, I believed rank a measure of worth because it preserved my certainty about the world. When your position changed, I thought the obstacle had changed. It was I who required alteration.”

She listened without rescuing him.

“I insulted you at Meryton and again in London. I interfered with Bingley without evidence sufficient to justify it. My proposal treated your family’s elevation as permission to love you. I am ashamed.”

“Thank you.”

He bowed. “I do not ask forgiveness.”

“You may have it without receiving what you once wanted.”

Pain crossed his face, but he accepted the truth.

“Richard is a better man than I have been.”

“He is a good man. You may become one too.”

Darcy looked at her then, and the gratitude in his expression was the first truly humble thing she had seen in him.

He left for Pemberley. Over the following months he repaired his friendship with Bingley, listened more closely to Georgiana, and wrote to Richard without demanding an answer. Richard replied at last.

The cousins would never again be careless with one another.

Perhaps that was another form of improvement.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN