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Elizabeth was pleased to see Jane smiling and happy. Both she and Mr Bingley seemed very happy. Lydia and Kitty were happily dancing with some of the officers. Colonel Forster it seemed was recently engaged and would be returning to Southampton at the end of next week for the wedding.

Mr Collins safely asleep on a settee in the corner, Elizabeth slipped away from the main group to get some fresh air, opening a door to a balcony.

She stood with the cold air rushing over her face.

It was refreshing after the heat and stuffiness of the drawing room.

She turned back to watch the dancing, leaving the door ajar to let the cool air play across her.

She realised suddenly that she was not alone. She could feel his breath on her cheek, she knew who it was, for she could recognise his scent, mix of sandalwood, cigar smoke and something else she could not quite identify .

“You cannot abide the sight of him, can you?” Darcy spoke quietly, his breath warm on Elizabeth’s cheek.

Elizabeth remained facing away, her voice tense. “I do not see what concern it is of yours what my feelings are for Mr Collins.”

Darcy moved closer, his mouth inches from her ear. “I fail to grasp why you of all people are marrying without affection.”

Elizabeth’s hands gripped the balcony railing. “And since when have you been an expert on my character?”

“I have seen enough of your character,” Darcy insisted, his voice low but intense, “to understand that you would be miserable married to him.”

“And what concern is it of yours who I marry or how I live?”

“Are you so blind that you have not understood?”

She was determined not to look at him, or to understand what he meant.

It was easier not to. She focused on what she could see of the others dancing through the open door and not on the infuriating man standing behind her.

He was equally as stubborn and he pulled her further into the shadows and forcefully turned her to face him.

She did not make any noise, for she feared drawing Mr Collins’s attention to them, or anyone else for that matter.

“I don’t have the pleasure of understanding you.” She said, with her eyes fixed anywhere but on his face.

“This is no time to play games.”

“I am perfectly serious.”

“Just answer me this. Do you love him?” His face was very close to hers.

“You should have done something before if your intentions were honourable.” Her temper finally got the better of her. “It is too late now.”

“No it’s not.”

“You had months to act. And yet you choose not to. ”

“I struggled against it for sometime, but it has overcome me. The difference in our situations, the lack of connection, total want of propriety so frequently, so almost uniformly betrayed by your mother, by your three younger sisters, and occasionally even by your father.” There was anger in his voice, although he still spoke quietly.

He had not released his grip on her upper arms. He squeezed them as he spoke. “It pains me to offend you.”

She felt the tears stinging at her eyes and tried in vain to free herself of his grip.

“But amidst your concern for your nearest relations and your displeasure at this representation of them, let it give you consolation to consider that, to have conducted yourselves so as to avoid any share of the like censure, is praise no less generally bestowed on you and your eldest sister, than it is honourable to the sense and disposition of both.”

She was struggling to free herself, tears rolling freely down her cheeks now. Although she still had not made a noise.

“Please do not cry,” he spoke softly, the anger had gone from his voice. He raised his gloved hand to her cheek and brushed away the tears. The gesture awoke something inside of her.

“From the very beginning - from the first moment, I may almost say - of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form that groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to connect myself with.” She heard her own voice.

“And since discovering my engagement to Mr Collins your behaviour to me and only me has improved, so much so that I doubt the motivation for it.”

He coloured as she spoke. She remembered what her mother had said that very morning, if his intentions were honourable he would have courted her before.

“You doubt my motives?”

“I had thought worse of you until that afternoon in London when you explained your history of Mr Wickham. However your behaviour has changed so much towards me that I cannot find any reason for it that suggests the conduct of a gentleman.”

“I will not waste what time trying to persuade you when you so clearly will not be. But I must insist that you answer one question and decide from that what my motives are.”

“Very well.”

“Will it make you happy if you marry Mr Collins?”

Elizabeth hesitated, she knew she should say yes. She had agreed to marry him with her eyes open, she had done it so that her mother and sisters would be happy. They were still standing very close together, his hands holding hers.

“I will be content.”

“I asked if you would be happy?”

The music stopped and the others next door started clapping. He looked at her in alarm, his eyes pleading with her to answer him, his grip on her arm was tight, firm but not painful. His face was very close to hers. She had never seen him look so vulnerable.

“Please answer me before they come.”

“No,” she said and then after a second added, “not at all.”

His grip eased and she fled back to the safety of the drawing room.