When Elizabeth returned home from her visit with the Lucases, she softly walked around the garden to the back entrance so that she might avoid her mother’s questions about the meeting. Elizabeth was in a fine mood, and she had no desire to hear Mrs. Bennet’s pique about Lady Lucas once more. She entered through the unlatched heavy green back door that led to Papa’s study room.

A bluster of cold air came with her, rattling Papa’s sheets of paper, and making him draw his unfashionable, but comfortable, brown woolen dressing gown tightly about himself.

“Fine walk?” Papa asked such a question most times too.

“Success!” Elizabeth almost bounced as she pulled off her lambskin gloves and coat and hung them on the rack next to the door. Papa would prefer if Elizabeth always used the front entrance, to avoid adding the cold to his room, but he did not begrudge her the opportunity to avoid questioning by Mama.

Elizabeth walked to the piped stove to stir up the fire and add a few new coals, letting her nose and cheeks warm from the cold. The weather had turned poor enough that Papa had begun having a fire always lit in his favorite room.

Papa picked his book up again and said as he thumbed through the pages, “John Lucas allows his bride to meet such a scandalous woman as Georgiana Darcy? I hope he knows what he is about.”

“They have been married near four years now. Hardly newlyweds.” Elizabeth enjoyed the flurry of sparks that flew towards her face like fireflies after she put the new coals onto the fire. She closed the door and held her hands close to the hot metal.

“Ahhh. Married long enough that he hopes she will be corrupted.”

“By mine and Jane’s Georgie?” Elizabeth laughed. “Disappointment waits him.”

Elizabeth went to her chair and pulled her stationery out to place on the worn surface of her father’s walnut desk. She had several letters to compose for her circle of friends. Most significantly she owed Charlotte and her Aunt Gardiner reports upon Mr. and Miss Darcy.

Elizabeth first scratched out a few paragraphs to Charlotte. She had met Lady Catherine’s nephew who broke Anne’s tender heart, Mr. Darcy, and his sister who never was spoken of, except in hushed tones (for Lady Catherine). Elizabeth added her impressions of Georgiana, and then a laughing sketch of the first night at the assembly when she met Mr. Darcy.

Halfway through the letter Elizabeth laid down her pen and nibbled on the back of her spiky feather. The memories were vivid. Arguing with Darcy, his handsome smile, the amusement that he managed to turn into anger, and then back into amusement. The sense she’d beaten him that time in their little verbal combat. Then other meetings.

He made her angry — actually angry.

But he was so handsome. So, so handsome.

Those smooth firm lips, the length of sideburns, the angular shape of his chin. The way his coat fell around his hips. The long tapering line of his legs. The shape of his fingers. Elizabeth shook herself. She needed to finish the letter to Charlotte.

Elizabeth did, and then she began a letter to Mrs. Gardiner. First she asked for news — was it true Mr. Gardiner had made Mr. Peake a full partner after only five years in his employ? What were the details of this news? Then Elizabeth wrote about meeting the Mr. Darcy of Pemberley. And her mind wandered.

Of course it wandered to Mr. Darcy. Elizabeth stared outside at the rattling branches of the oak tree, the withered hedges, waiting the return of a warm season to blossom into greenery once more. The bushes more like grey piles of sticks than plants. So beautiful. But her land’s beauty gave her a dissatisfied ache: she had seen these hedges and this winter many times before.

There was some new desire in her being. Some sprig of verdure, and it ached for more. For different.

Elizabeth pushed that nameless sensation away, confused. Her mind settled on Mr. Darcy, and his tall, lean form. Little Anne leaping into his arms. He would make a fine father one day — hopefully to a son, since with his attitudes he should be given no control over a girl.

Georgiana turned out well, though quiet…

“Tuppence for your thoughts, my dear.”

Elizabeth startled at her father’s words. She blushed, realizing it had been some minutes and the fire had burned much lower since the last time she had moved.

“My mind was wandering.”

“From whence to where?”

Elizabeth looked at the banked fire again. Red coals glowed in the grate. The air was lightly chilled, but Elizabeth was warm. She had been thinking of Mr. Darcy. As a parent. She blushed and shook her head. “No, I intend such knowledge to remain private.”

“It must have been a serious matter to distract you from a letter.”

“I have written industriously.”

“Not a line for at least twenty minutes; if you are working, you do so much like the hare in the tale, industrially resting so you might outrun the tortoise in the end.”

“No! It has not been near that long since I stopped writing.”

Papa pointed to the tall old pendulum clock he kept next to one of the book cases in a corner of the room. Its brass arm hypnotically swung back and forth. “I timed you. Twenty minutes.”

Elizabeth glanced at the black painted box of the clock. The hour was surprisingly late.

“What bothers you, Lizzy?”

“I am...concerned how our introduction of Georgiana shall go.”

Papa raised his eyebrows and peered at her over his eyeglasses. “Really?”

Elizabeth blushed at her small dishonesty. Papa knew she had something else bothering her. “My friends will accept her.” Elizabeth said confidently, “Everyone knows many people do…such things.”

“Do they?”

“They do.”

“But what concern were you really worrying upon?”

“Mama told me a story about Jane and your marriage that surprised me. Is it true?”

Mr. Bennet opened his mouth. He closed it and blushed. “No new subjects till we have exhausted the first. We were examining the matter that bothers you.”

“I like Georgiana. Expecting manners to change so that a woman in her situation would be accepted at any assembly is absurd — such will never happen — but she deserves chances to dance, and dress well, and flirt with the young men. I will see to it that she has that opportunity!”

“But what were you really thinking on?”

Elizabeth sighed and scooted her chair closer to Papa. She could not hide from him. She took his hand and rubbed it.

“Is it so horrible?” He smiled warmly at her.

“Oh, Papa, I have become bored. That is horrible to you, since you are perfect.”

“Bored! You?”

“Every week I do the same thing, and I have only realized it now. I walk the same winding paths, then read a book — usually of a sort I have read many times before — I meet the same persons. All tiresome! I wish a change.”

“At your age! But you are so old. Most who have reached your age wish to live in unvaried retirement.”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes.

“London? With the happiest will in the world I will give you the money for a good visit. There is no lack of variety there.”

“London? In this season, with the fog? No! Besides the sort of people to be met in London! In the country one is bored by the sameness of people, but in Town one is horrified by the variety. And the constant balls and routs — I have tired of balls. I could never have imagined as a girl that could occur. But other than seeing Georgiana do well, I anticipate no pleasure for myself at the ball Jane is planning.”

And dancing with Mr. Darcy, a low voice in her head sounded.

Mr. Bennet laughed. “Not even balls!”

“Oh, be still. I am an old enough old maid to value sleep over dancing till the light brightens the horizon whilst I am in the arms of a stumbling young man.”

“Do all your young men stumble? Perhaps your problem has been them?”

Elizabeth laughed.

“To crave a difference after a period of some years is no strangeness.” Mr. Bennet pulled off his spectacles and paused, looking at her intently. “You could visit one of your sisters; we could travel about, you and I. Explore some place you long to visit.”

“You would do that for me?” Elizabeth smiled brightly. She added glowingly, “But I know you hate to travel, and I would not do that to you. My strange longing would not be satisfied.”

“Have you thought of marriage?”

“Marriage?”

“I shall lose you one day, Lizzy, and I shall miss you exceedingly, but I will also be very happy, and—”

“Ridiculous! You will never lose me because I am too particular and strange in my ways. I would only take a husband who has all of your goodness, and who I can confide in as I do you.”

“Pray, find a husband not exactly like your Papa. But you must choose carefully—”

“I’ll not choose at all. No, I thank you kindly. I have never felt anything which would lead me to make such a wild choice.”

“Not even that Mr. Darcy who you send those sharp glances at every time you meet?”

“Mr. Darcy!”

Papa smiled at her expression, but he titled his head in a demand she say more.

“You mean I send sharp retorts at him.”

“With the glances.”

“He is completely wrong. Completely — I would be ridiculous if I married such a man. With his decided opinions on women, and—”

Papa smirked at her, clearly enjoying the passion she was working herself into. His expression also doubted her pretense of disinterest.

“I may like to look at him — I confess that — I may like to flirt with him, but know the difference between a small infatuation and love. What I feel for him is not love.”

“One may lead to another.”

“Ha! He would be quite resistant to my charms, even if I wished to catch him.”

“I considered his arguments with you a form of determined courtship.”

Elizabeth laughed. “No, no, no. And I would be as poor a match for him as he for I. He wants a woman quite the opposite of me. Sweet; tender; easily ordered. A woman who argued with him at every turn would never do for that man.”

“You have thought about what woman would do for Mr. Darcy then.”

Elizabeth blushed. “I determined that she was my opposite in every point.”

“If Mr. Darcy desired a woman who always made the pretense of sweetness and obedience, he would have been wriggling in the Parson’s mousetrap many years past.”

“Yes,” Elizabeth replied sourly. She hated the idea of Darcy being married to anyone but her.

That was not good.

Her feelings were moving beyond simple admiration for his form and frankness into a real attraction.

Elizabeth was a reasonable creature, and she would not permit herself to fall for a man such as Mr. Darcy. No, she would not.

“It would have made his happiness, had he married such a woman.” Elizabeth said, “Alas, his happiness is nothing to me.”

“As a fellow human being, a kind person would care for his happiness, while an infatuated woman would make pretense of caring not at all.”

This deserved same particular gesture of disdain. Elizabeth reached her arm over and moved the collection of essays Papa had been reading to the opposite side of the desk from him. Then for emphasis she softly placed it on the ground.

“Lizzy,” Papa replied with a mild mournful tone.

“I confessed already a small infatuation. No need to tease me further.”

He shrugged and smiled.

“I am too wise to be trapped.”

“Lizzy, I beg you not to depend upon your wisdom. You have never been in love, and—”

“Not this. I hear enough of how a woman in the grip of a passion cannot reason from him.”

“Reason always thinks itself reasonable, while it justifies the hidden reasons of the heart.”

Elizabeth picked up the book and handed it back to her father.

“At least, Lizzy,” he waited to speak until she looked at him, “I beg you to be in no hurry to know either your own or his heart. Do not make any enduring decision in haste.”

“I promise.”

Papa’s expression relaxed. He smiled at her. “Back then to books and letters. If you want to travel from Longbourn, anywhere, tell me — funds and my presence are on call.”

“That is the sweetest.” Elizabeth patted her father’s arm. “You will always be my dearest man.”

“Will I?” He had placed his spectacles back on, and he now tilted them down his nose, and smirked at her.

“Always.”