Page 15 of He Taught Me to Hope (Darcy and the Young Knight’s Quest #1)

Darcy and she walked along the beautiful, windy coastline, arm-in-arm.

It had been far too long since he had last seen her.

He had missed her terribly. Their frequent letters had been a poor exchange for their time spent apart, prompting him to think to spend Christmas with his young sister at her temporary establishment in Ramsgate.

He also was influenced by his knowledge that his aunt Lady Catherine and his cousin Anne had made plans to spend Christmastime in town.

They were two of the last people he wished to see.

He had shared his travel plans with no one, other than his sister .

“Georgiana my dear, have you given any more thought to my offer to have you come live with me?”

“Dear brother, as much as I would enjoy that, we have had this conversation before, have we not?”

“You are far too sacrificing for your own good. It will be no hardship at all if Mrs. Annesley and you would come live with me. I would benefit greatly from your company.”

“And what might your betrothed say to that? You know Cousin Anne has never had much patience for me. Now that I am older, I find I have no great desire for her company either.”

“Please do not tell me you, too, subscribe to the notion that I will ever marry Anne.”

“Why would I not? I, along with the rest of the family, believe it is inevitable. What have you done to cause any of us to think otherwise?” Other than flee to Hertfordshire with your friend, Mr. Bingley, and tuck yourself away for these past weeks, she silently voiced.

“I confess to being at a complete loss as regards what to do next. Any mention of my true intent only threatens to return our cousin to her deathbed.” Darcy looked out over the water, its turbulence reflecting his inner turmoil.

“It is a very convenient malady our poor cousin suffers, if you ask me,” Georgiana alleged, half-jokingly.

Darcy returned his attention to his sister, as if the thought never had entered his mind. “Indeed—I do not wish to see her suffer a relapse.”

“Trust me, Brother; should you continue to stay away from Rosings Park much longer, I assure you, a relapse is imminent.”

Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam had just stopped by the Darcy town house to visit his cousin and find out his plans for Easter. It was their annual tradition to visit their aunt in Rosings Park, and yet Darcy had shown no indication he planned to go that year .

“Why fight it any longer? Everyone in the family knows it is only a matter of time until you and Anne marry.”

“The question I might ask of everyone in the family, is why is there all of this concern over my intentions towards Anne.”

“That is what our family is for. Have you not read the Fitzwilliam Family Creed? ” Richard asked Darcy, in a poor attempt to lighten his foul mood.

It made no difference. Richard continued, “Look here, the sooner you endeavour to relieve Anne and Lady Catherine of their misapprehension that you have any intention of ever marrying Anne—that you were only speaking hypothetically—the better it will go with you.”

“It is not as though I have not attempted to do just that. I have argued with Lady Catherine until I was blue in the face on this very topic. You know, I can only be so firm with Anne.”

“I know that—as does Anne. I say she has you exactly where she wants you in that regard.”

“Between Georgiana and you, that makes two.”

Darcy set off for a stroll in Hyde Park after his cousin’s departure.

A breath of fresh air was just what he needed to clear his head and decide what he must do.

Should I travel to Kent for Easter or not?

Indeed, it is not a decision easily made.

If I do not go, Anne is bound to suffer considerable disappointment.

On the other hand, should I go, she will also be hurt.

I have no intention of spending two weeks at Rosings Park, pretending to go along with this farce.

I will not marry Anne! She may as well hear it from me, once and for all.

Darcy walked along entirely caught up in his own thoughts until the rumbustious sounds of children at play just up ahead of his path caught his attention.

Immediately, his thoughts tended towards his young friend from Hertfordshire.

Darcy admitted to having grown quite fond of the precocious young boy.

He often thought when the time came for him to indeed settle down to raise a family, he wanted a son just like his young friend, Sir Lancelot.

Despite the brevity of their acquaintance, Darcy had learnt to miss his young friend considerably.

Young Sir Lancelot was not the only one of his Hertfordshire acquaintances he found himself thinking of with some frequency, and even missing to a greater extent than he could have imagined with his hasty departure from Netherfield Park.

Not a day went by that he did not think of her.

Elizabeth. Never before had any woman held him so enthralled.

Day after day, Darcy found himself repeating a dishearteningly familiar refrain. I shall conquer this.

What other choice might I have? How he wished things had been different—her circumstances to have been otherwise.

He had mixed feelings over there having been so much left unspoken between them.

Everything he had ever known of the fairer sex confirmed his belief in her having been not entirely unaffected by him.

Far from it. As much as he had felt the intensity of the passion between them, he was sure she could not have helped sensing it too.

Alas, nothing would ever become of their mutual yearning.

She belonged to another. Still he wondered.

How long had she been married? What circumstances might have led to marriage at what had to have been a remarkably young age?

Were any children born of the union? The more he relived every moment of his fleeting encounters with Elizabeth, the more he thought of his young friend.

The two of them are so much alike in their mannerisms, in their speech, in their countenance.

“In their countenance!” he voiced aloud. Darcy, who happened to be sitting at his desk, rested his face in both hands. He started massaging his forehead in serious contemplation.

What if?