A/N: Thanks to everyone who's left a review, but make them superlative to fia-blue, best partner in crime there can be, and LotsOfLaundry, my first reviewer of my first story. Hat tip to you, dear ladies!


"It takes a lot of work being careless when one is everything but", mused Mr. Darcy as he carefully planned his weekly appointments around fortuitous meetings with Elizabeth at Hyde Park. He had decided he wouldn't see her more than once a week, but wouldn't let two weeks go without, at least, a bow of the head and a smile of greetings.

He knew he had sounded too forthright and did not like it but his chances of being in her company were minimal, and in all honesty, he would not regret provoking (and admiring) that becoming blush and reluctant smile gracing her lips.


Elizabeth thought often of her meeting with Mr. Darcy and went to the park with the children with a sense of foreboding. She couldn't shake the remembrance that she had once been cruel and unfair to him, and that for her insolent words she had been punished.

He could have sniggered at her misfortune, being that he had given her the opportunity to avoid it by revealing Wickham's true character. She had been the only one to know the truth and she hadn't done anything to avert the tragedy. It was a heavy burden on her shoulders.

To his mention of governesses and balls, she thought he might have been gloating; for what she once had and enjoyed but was now, even if closer than ever, well beyond her reach. Didn't he know servants don't come to balls? Was it a mockery to her feelings and diminished situation? While it wasn't a nice thought, Elizabeth believed Mr. Darcy might have been laughing at her, and even if it pained her, she couldn't blame him for it.

In spite of her misgivings, she had to admit that Mr. Darcy was always very courteous when they met. He would cross them at the park or on the street, and stop for a moment to chat, which consisted of simple of remarks on the weather or a salutation if it was a festive date.

Elizabeth did not know whether he was readying himself to attack, exposing and humiliating her, or whether he was simply a very courteous gentleman who for some unknown reason didn't care much for her situation. She quite didn't know how to understand it, and mentioned it to Jane one Sunday, their free day, over tea.

The eldest Miss Bennet, true to her character and still oblivious to the role said gentleman had played in her present unhappiness, said this was a chance for Elizabeth to make Mr. Darcy justice. Elizabeth was not so sure but did not contradict her sister.