A Lively Companion (An Austen Ensemble Book 1) by Corrie Garrett

Author:Corrie Garrett
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2019-12-16T23:00:00+00:00

{ 15 }

Darcy rode out of Tunbridge alone that morning, desperate to get out of the stifling hotel. He put his horse down the post road, but when a broad, gently rising field presented itself on the right, with only a short fence to jump, he turned off the road immediately. What he needed was a gallop.

The Kentish countryside was abloom with spring. The trees along the road wore their brightest green of fresh leaves, and the turf that squelched up under his horse’s hooves was heavy with fresh rain and thick clay. The High Weald was much admired for its beauty, though the soil was not much good for crops, being too clay-like and mineral-laden.

He missed Pemberley.

Darcy was being a bad guest; he knew it. He didn’t need Colonel Fitzwilliam’s ribbing to bring it to his attention. He knew that he was being unsociable, and even rude on occasion, to family, friends, and acquaintance alike. But he was fighting a mental battle, and sometimes twenty minutes passed before he realized that he’d stopped engaging with the people around him. It was not well-done of him to allow his distraction and disinterest in his aunt’s friends to show.

Worse, he was honest enough to recognize that his current behavior was almost exactly what it had been in Hertfordshire. But he had not thought himself rude then.

While there, he had barely considered what his behavior ought to be, he had been wholly distracted by the vulgarity of everyone else’s behavior. Was he indeed so deficient in breeding? Had he been as snobbish and arrogant as he now perceived?

His old defense reared its head to protest: Why should he care what they thought: a set of people so far below him?

But then his finer instincts would roar back in. So far below you? Is rank and fortune all that matters in such circles?

Did he believe in decency and courtesy only for the worthy? Such an attitude said far more about his breeding than theirs.

How ungentlemanly! Darcy spurred his horse at the next fence.

The word rang in his head and faced him in the mirror every morning. He, who had been taught from the cradle to think highly of himself and his breeding, had been called ungentlemanly! And it had been true.

The same could be said of the way he had proposed to Miss Elizabeth, though she had not used the word then.

His parents had good morals; they were excellent people. But they had taught him, by their example, to think himself above nearly everyone. They had taught him that selfishness was proper pride, and that such pride was only realism. They had taught him to think less even of those he cared for, and he had done it to Elizabeth and felt magnanimous about it.

Why should she want to ally herself with a man who put down not just her family but her entire society from birth until this time?

Darcy was not satisfied when he finally turned his horse back the way he had come, but at least he had used some of his pent-up energy.

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