Page 3 of A Promise Made

Embarrass him? Lizzy felt as if that last comment was meant for her, and if so, she was insulted. After all, Papa had taught her by example to tease rather than fully and truthfully answer intrusive queries. He had taught her to respond to bragging with wit, to turn back haughtiness with irony, and to answer polite insults with even-more polite even-greater insults.

She kept quiet, sensing that her father would be vocal with a set down if she dared to answer with her usual impertinent spirit.

The spirit that Papa had himself carefully cultivated in her!

She would have to reconsider which of her attitudes and behaviours had elicited chuckles and praise from her father, before, and if they were the direction she should continue. Was the ground shifting below her because she was approaching marriageable age? Her mother considered her “out” already—at age fifteen!—but even were she to ignore her mother’s haste in wishing to marry them all off, she was only a few years away from being, in truth, the age at which many young ladies married.

Although she did not necessarily wish to pretend to be demure and coy in order to find a man willing to marry her, she certainly wished to think through how she interacted with strangers and new acquaintances.

As she continued to observe the way her father smiled at and spoke to Mr Darcy, she realised something important: she had been replaced. Her beloved papa had a new favourite.

But what she did not yet know, and she could not understand, was why Mr Darcy was here at Longbourn. Rich young gentlemen did not just wander onto estates not their own and decide to “help” run them. Rich young gentlemen had their own estates to learn about or run, and the good intentions her father alluded to seemed to Lizzy to be quite mysterious.

Chapter Three

Darcy rode out early the next morning, eager to move his muscles after sitting so much the day before. Hours in the carriage, hours in the study, an hour in the parlour, and then more hours in the study…. He did not know how people could stand hours and hours of inactivity.

As he rode, Darcy reviewed in his mind some of the goals for the day. Before coming to Longbourn, he had met with solicitors, his Uncle Matlock, who somehow managed to keep up with agricultural advances while also being an incredibly persuasive member of the House of Lords, and his cousin Richard Fitzwilliam, who was gifted at understanding people. With such varied help, he had created a timeline of actions that would drastically increase Longbourn’s annual yields and rental values.

The first step, Richard had pointed out—several times, actually, although it was quite a simple concept—was to introduce himself to the tenants as a family friend who wished to help the estate and the Bennets.

The second step was to look critically at the estate with an eye to what needed repair or replacement, and also which traditional agricultural concerns could be improved by advanced technology without seeming at all radical to the tenant farmers. A modern drainage system would look almost exactly the same as an older system—but under the surface, it would work far better and far longer, making immediate gains.

Richard pointed out that a newcomer who was as young as Darcy would be instantly viewed with suspicion if he sought to change everything too much, too quickly. And Darcy’s experiences at Pemberley agreed with Richard’s more generalised knowledge of human foibles.

So far in their ride, Darcy had allowed Aonbarr his head, and they had crossed several meadows at speed. Now Darcy took control. He slowed his chestnut gelding and then guided him to a stream. The moment Aonbarr lowered his head to drink, Darcy noticed one of the Bennet daughters.

He sorted through his memories of the girls. This was Miss Elizabeth, the second oldest. Age sixteen? Or fifteen? He knew that the girls ranged in age from ten to seventeen; given that, fifteen or sixteen was a fairly good guess—but a guess nevertheless.

“Mr Darcy,” she said. Her smile reminded him of her father’s, the day before, before they got to the grimmer portions of their talk and Mr Bennet had lost his smile for the rest of the day.

Nodding his head, Darcy said, “Miss Elizabeth. I trust you are well?”

“Very well indeed, thank you. I am walking, and I find that I think much better when I can freely move.”

“I feel exactly the same way,” he replied, “which is why I am fond of walking and riding. I sat far too much yesterday.”

Miss Elizabeth’s expression changed. She still smiled, but this smile looked nothing like Mr Bennet’s. It was a puzzled and, he thought, slightly rueful smile.

Aonbarr had stopped drinking, and Darcy led him two steps up from the stream bed. There was still some green grass, and his horse started nibbling, but he would have a full meal at the Netherfield stables. Darcy was about to politely farewell the young lady and leave…but her intense, narrow-eyed stare unnerved him, and he hesitated a few moments.

She asked, “Mr Darcy, may I ask you a question?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Thank you. I have been wondering, why are you really here?”

Darcy promptly answered, “It really, truly is the situation your father explained yesterday: I am here to help with the estate.”

Her studied gaze became sceptical, and Darcy realised that he should not have acceded to Mr Bennet’s request to not tell anyone why he was helping. They should have, at least, devised a false reason that he wished Darcy to give if someone asked.

Darcy hated dissembling. Since it was Mr Bennet who insisted on secrecy, he would turn any question back on the man.

Needing to establish better, closer eye contact with Miss Elizabeth so that she might read the truth in his eyes, Darcy dismounted and stepped closer to her. “I have an excellent reason to help your family and to improve the estate. You can turn to your father if you wish for more details.”

He gazed into Miss Elizabeth’s eyes—her extraordinary eyes, it turned out—as he spoke, willing her to see that he was being honest and open.

But he got a bit lost staring into those eyes. They seemed to be hazel and green and grey—with dark rims and a sort of colour-shifting starburst quality as the sunlight filtering through leaves moved across her face.