Page 14 of Moments of Truth
As the days passed, Darcy could not help but be drawn further into Elizabeth’s orbit.
Each evening seemed to place them in some new proximity, and each encounter unsettled his equilibrium a little more.
Her refusal to be cowed by Lady Catherine’s domineering presence, her unstudied intelligence, and her quicksilver wit all stirred something in him that he had not fully anticipated.
At moments, when she spoke with others, he found himself silent only that he might better listen; when she laughed, he discovered—though he would never have confessed it aloud—that the sound haunted him long after she had left the room.
Darcy often lingered in the drawing room after dinner, ostensibly to please his aunt, but in truth for no reason so respectable as that.
He listened with studied composure to Elizabeth’s lively exchanges with Colonel Fitzwilliam, though every laugh of hers seemed to reverberate more strongly in his chest than any argument of his cousin’s.
Against his better judgement he would, on occasion, hazard a remark of his own—never without immediate regret, for Elizabeth’s bright eyes had a way of turning even the simplest reply into an examination.
Yet these brief encounters carried always a peculiar tension: as though some invisible thread drew them irresistibly closer, while at the same moment pride, prejudice, and propriety conspired to tug them apart.
One particular evening, after an exceptionally long and tedious discourse from Lady Catherine on the sacred art of arranging table settings—a lecture so detailed that even the salt spoons seemed to quake under her authority—Darcy once again found himself drawn into conversation with Elizabeth.
The candlelight, softened by the polished glass of the sconces, fell warmly upon her countenance, animating her eyes with such brightness that every syllable she uttered seemed to strike him with dangerous clarity.
The company had thinned; Lady Catherine retired in high satisfaction with her own eloquence, and Mrs. Jenkinson followed in her wake. Only Fitzwilliam remained, stretched upon a chair with indolent ease, his smile half-amused, half-knowing, as one who perceived far more than he chose to reveal.
Elizabeth, in her characteristic fashion, did not hesitate to press him.
“I daresay, Mr. Darcy, you appear quite sure of your opinions on every subject,” she observed, her eyes sparkling with playful mischief.
“One wonders whether you ever allow for the faintest possibility that you might be wrong.”
The remark struck Darcy with disarming force.
A familiar heat rose to his cheeks—not from indignation but from the uncomfortable suspicion that she spoke the truth.
“I assure you, Miss Bennet,” he replied, striving for composure, “I am as capable of error as any man.” Yet the stiffness of his tone betrayed him, rendering the admission more a defence than a concession.
“Capable, perhaps,” Fitzwilliam interposed with infuriating good humour, “but willing to admit it? That, Cousin, is a different story entirely.” He leaned back with the air of a man delivering judgment upon a case he had long since won, clearly enjoying Darcy’s discomposure.
Elizabeth raised a brow, her silence eloquent, and Colonel Fitzwilliam chuckled again, adding with mock solemnity, “You see, Miss Bennet, I have known him since boyhood. Were one to publish a record of his confessions, it would hardly fill a pamphlet.”
Darcy cast his cousin a look meant for censure, but anger would not come.
Instead, he felt a curious admiration for the young woman who dared to challenge him so freely.
Here, at last, was no sycophant, no schemer eager for his notice, but a creature of candour and courage—undaunted, irreverent, radiant in her defiance—and for that very reason, dangerously irresistible.
***
Another evening, Mr. Darcy learned from Mrs. Collins that Miss Bennet, ever eager to escape the oppressive atmosphere of Rosings and the endless lectures from Lady Catherine, found solace in her daily walks through the park.
Mrs. Collins mentioned it with a fond smile, half-amused at her friend’s preference for hedgerows over drawing rooms, yet grateful that Elizabeth had discovered a retreat from the parsonage’s ceaseless noise.
Even at Hunsford, Elizabeth could not find peace, for Mr. Collins filled the air with either rehearsals of his sermons or freshly minted praises of his patroness, unoffered in her presence but no less oppressive in their repetition.
Such exertions often drove Charlotte and her sister Maria to contrive errands into the village or market—pretexts invented with a frequency that betrayed their desperation.
Elizabeth did not always join them; more often, she preferred the stillness of the fields and the liberty of thought afforded by solitude.
The grounds surrounding Hunsford Parsonage and Rosings Park were vast and beautiful, and she took full advantage of them, wandering along the paths lined with budding trees and early spring blossoms. The damp air smelled of turned soil and wild violets; the first birds called timidly in the hedgerows.
With a book tucked beneath her arm, she often paused on a sunlit bench, though more frequently her thoughts wandered farther than her eyes could travel.
The fresh air cleared her mind, and the solitude allowed her to read—or at least to carry the comfort of a book, whether she opened it or not.
Mr. Darcy also enjoyed walking around Rosings when visiting his aunt, but upon hearing Mrs. Collins’ remark, an idea fixed itself with unwelcome force: chance might be persuaded to favour him, should he arrange to walk when Miss Bennet did.
In truth, it was no accident. Darcy, unable to trust himself entirely, insisted his cousin accompany him—half to lend propriety to the pursuit and half to disguise it beneath the veil of coincidence.
Colonel Fitzwilliam, delighted by the scheme, declared himself on his first “mission as a spy” and entered into the game with good humour.
Thus it happened that Elizabeth, rounding a bend in the path one morning, found her solitude interrupted by the approach of two gentlemen. She greeted them with composure, though a flicker of surprise crossed her countenance.
“I fear we intrude, Miss Bennet,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam with a bow. “My cousin and I had the same notion—that a morning so fine should not be wasted indoors. You will forgive us if chance has made us rivals for the same path?”
Elizabeth smiled. “Chance, Colonel, is most obliging these days. I begin to suspect it conspires against my solitude.”
“Surely not against it,” Fitzwilliam replied, his tone light. “Rather to improve it. A walk is well enough alone, but in company it may prove excellent.”
“Depending on the company,” Elizabeth returned with a playful glance to his cousin.
Mr. Darcy, who had thus far remained silent, found himself compelled to speak, though the words emerged with more gravity than ease. “I hope, Miss Bennet, you do not count us unwelcome intruders.”
Her eyes met his with a steady brightness. “Not unwelcome, sir,” she said, “though I own I often prefer the hedgerows to conversation.”
Fitzwilliam laughed outright, but Darcy coloured faintly, uncertain whether to take her words in jest or earnest. He walked on beside them, his silence betraying more than his speech could manage.
Where Colonel Fitzwilliam spoke freely—of the regiment, of music, of the latest gossip from London—Darcy answered sparingly, his pauses weighted, his gaze too often straying toward Elizabeth as though unwilling to look, yet unable to resist. Elizabeth noticed; she could not help but notice.
To her, his reserve was a puzzle: an odd mixture of restraint and attention, as if every word risked betraying more than he intended.
At one point Fitzwilliam strode ahead to examine a fallen branch, leaving them briefly side by side. The stillness pressed upon them, broken only by the soft crunch of gravel beneath their feet.
“You are very fond of walking,” Darcy ventured, the simplicity of the remark concealing the tumult it cost him.
“It is my favourite occupation,” Elizabeth replied lightly. “The air here is fresher than Lady Catherine’s drawing-room.”
Darcy’s lips curved in what might almost have been a smile. “That is not difficult.”
Elizabeth laughed, surprised by his dry candour, and the sound caught at his heart with painful sweetness. But before he could hazard another word, Fitzwilliam returned with some trifling discovery, and the spell was broken.
Since the cousins’ arrival at Rosings, Elizabeth still brought a book on her solitary walks, though the pages went increasingly unread.
More often she found herself retracing her steps in thought rather than in prose, reflecting on the strange interruptions her peaceful habit had suffered.
Her favourite occupation now was not reading, but attempting to unravel the enigma of Mr. Darcy—his behaviour at once cold and attentive, proud yet oddly deferential.
With each step she took, her thoughts alternated between confusion and annoyance toward this man who seemed to have inserted himself into her life without her consent.
She had never invited his company, and yet he was there—hovering at the edge of her solitude, turning it into something unsettled, half unwelcome, half strangely alive.
But despite his cousin’s tact and his own halting attempts, Mr. Darcy failed to understand this. Where Elizabeth perceived intrusion, he imagined only a fragile nearness that could not yet bear the weight of words.
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