These Three Remain Read Online Free PDF Page B

that I should know this that you went down to the parsonage yourself to ascertain the matter?” Darcy asked skeptically. “Why should I wish to know in what manner Miss Elizabeth cares to spend her time?”
    “So that, at all costs, you may avoid her, sir!” Fletcher replied adamantly.
    Darcy pursed his lips and looked narrowly at his valet, weighing their seven-, almost eight-year relationship, and the faithful part Fletcher had played in the terrible events at Norwycke Castle, against what they both knew to be his “improbable fiction.” Fletcher must have had his reasons. Given his exceptional service, Darcy would press him no further, and he acknowledged to himself, he would probably have ample time to regret his generous motion later. Besides, the man had provided him with just the information he required.
    The walking path from Rosings to the lane that passed by the parsonage of Hunsford was refulgent with the bold trumpets of spring and the softer colors of their more retiring bedfellows, but Darcy spared their beauty no more than an occasional glance as he followed behind his cousin and Mr. Collins. The good reverend had presented himself in Rosings’s hall at the earliest possible hour that could not be considered an imposition and had immediately pled that Rosings’s guests do him the honor of meeting his new wife. “We also may boast the felicity of guests.” He preened under the Colonel’s fascinated regard. “My wife’s sister and a cousin on my father’s side, whom Mr. Darcy has already had the pleasure of meeting, Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Hertfordshire.”
    “My nephews are already aware of Miss Elizabeth Bennet, Mr. Collins.” Her Ladyship had cut in sharply as Fitzwilliam was accepting the invitation. “I informed them of her visit yesterday, almost upon their arrival, and of my disappointment in not having the joy of a first introduction. Now you deny me the joy of Fitzwilliam’s introduction as well!” Mr. Collins had flinched visibly at her words and apologized profusely for his error. But the invitation had already been extended, and here they now were on the flower-bordered path to Hunsford.
    Insensible to the lavish beauty freely bestowed by Providence, Darcy concentrated on catching the words of the one-sided conversation that drifted over the shoulders of the men before him. Fitzwilliam’s keen sense of the ridiculous had recognized a fountainhead in Mr. Collins, and he was unabashedly monopolizing the man’s conversation in their stroll to the parsonage in hopes that more of the same would gush forth. For this, Darcy was more than grateful. The emotions and apprehensions battling in his mind and disturbing the balance of his bodily humors rendered him in no fit frame to entertain Collins’s absurdities; yet it was from the parson’s studied speech that bits concerning Elizabeth might be gleaned in preparation for this, their first meeting since the ball at Netherfield. Darcy strained to hear what Collins was saying without giving the appearance of attention, but the odd tricks of the wind carried the man’s words off willy-nilly into the grove, or his sentences so convoluted themselves that any sense of them was lost.
    Giving up in a frustration exacerbated by the undisciplined tangent his emotions had taken, Darcy applied himself instead to shoring up the eroded edges of his composure. Although rather earlier than he had planned, they were to meet. Well, what matter the time? Morning or afternoon, soon or late? Had he not committed himself to a course of action when he released those embroidery threads to the winds? Those convictions, hard-won but held as firmly as his honor, would not be abandoned merely because the reality would soon stand before him! However, he was not a fool. The power his imagination had led him to allow her would be as nothing to the delight her actual person would bestow. His hand, he sternly reminded himself, was irrevocably withheld from her —