Chapter 10
Changed Heart…Or Perhaps Not
The cherry trees were in full bloom when Elizabeth walked on her favourite path the next day. She sighed happily.
Pale white and blush pink petals were drifting down from the boughs above her. Their soft perfume wafted in the air. She extended a hand and caught a stray bloom in her palm.
“Miss Bennet.”
Elizabeth yelped and clutched at her front, flower petal crushed in a fist. Her heart hammered wildly.
“Mr. Darcy! You really must stop doing that!”
He looked embarrassed.
“I apologize for interrupting you.”
Elizabeth straightened her straw hat and sighed.
“It is no matter.”
They were silent for a moment, even as the wind blew her curls around her face and did not stir a single strand of his.
“Would you like to join me?” she asked at last. “I was enjoying the trees in this part of the avenue. I am quite partial to them.”
“Yes,” he said, a relieved smile on his face.
They fell into step.
Morning sunlight shone down on them through the lattice of branches and leaves.
“I was thinking about what I might write to your cousin,” Elizabeth said after a while.
Mr. Darcy did not say anything. So she continued.
“I do not know if I should mention… your current predicament. Would the Colonel take kindly to a letter from a practical stranger?”
“No, he would not,” Mr. Darcy said.
“Hmm.”
The path curved away from the imposing view of Rosings house.
“Perhaps I can…”
“I apologize for cutting in, Miss Bennet, but I am not certain if you should write to Richard at all,” Mr. Darcy said.
Elizabeth glanced at him curiously.
“You wished to yesterday. Did you change your mind?”
“Yes.”
Mr. Darcy pinked visibly. “I do not want him to have the wrong impression of you.”
Elizabeth kept her eyes fixed on the cherry trees ahead of them, though her face warmed. She fiddled with her gloves. It would be rather inconvenient if anyone were to believe she and Mr. Darcy had some scandalous relations between them. She bit her lip.
“Well, I do not know how else we might find out anything. Colonel Fitzwilliam has not been very forthcoming with Lady Catherine, to her eternal displeasure.”
They walked in silence for a while, with only the sound of her walking shoes crunching gravel underfoot.
Then Elizabeth suddenly looked up. “Oh, how could I forget?!”
It was Mr. Darcy’s turn to look curiously at her.
“Lady Catherine summoned us for dinner yesterday,” she said. “She wants to find out where you are convalescing, so she may marry Miss de Bourgh to you.”
Instant alarm shot across Mr. Darcy’s face.
“Absolutely not!”
Elizabeth smiled wryly at his reaction.
“I believe you are quite safe from such machinations. As I said earlier, Lady Catherine is not very happy with your cousin’s lack of forthcomingness.”
“Good,” Mr. Darcy said, looking relieved. But then he grew contemplative.
They continued to walk.
“Miss Bennet, I think a letter to Richard cannot be avoided.”
“Hmm?”
The breeze had slowed but birdsong was still heavy in the air. Elizabeth looked at the cherry blossoms drifting around them. “How do you propose we prevent any… er, wrong impressions?”
Mr. Darcy stopped walking. She did too.
“You must tell him about me.”
Their gazes locked on one another.
“Do you mean…?”
“Yes.”
"Hmm."
Elizabeth wondered how that would be regarded. It was not everyday that one received a letter about the ghost of one’s cousin!