Well, the short version... *wipes off liquid eyeliner mustache* Not... dead...

I am so dreadfully sorry for the wait, but I am getting back to this, and the next chapter is partially done too so that shouldn't be too long in following.

A quick summary to refresh people's memories before we begin: Elizabeth got injured and Darcy saved her. It was Very Dramatic. Really, dreadfully romantic. Now, Kitty and Lydia think Darcy is a gothic hero; Elizabeth thinks he's obnoxious. In fairness to her, he usually is. There is talk of a scandal, a lot of general silliness, and a great many misunderstandings and awkward moments. Lately, Elizabeth and Darcy ran into one another at Oakham Mount. There was hand touching, saucy Lord Byron quoting, and an excessive amount of confusing sexual tension, but birds interrupted and he walked her home instead - and that sounds even more improper summarised... Chapter 26 picks up at the end of the last scene, with Darcy returning to Netherfield after walking Elizabeth back to Longbourn.

ADDITIONALLY. People with very good memories might recall that in an earlier chapter Colonel Fitzwilliam received a letter calling him to spend Christmas at Matlock. This was a mistake and has been corrected; the letter now summons him to London instead.

Hope you enjoy the update,

~Eleanor

Darcy rode back to Netherfield in a state of the greatest agitation. This was beyond endurance; he had never wanted so much to be engaged to her—or so little to engage himself to her family.

He left his horse with one of the grooms and went on up to the house, still berating himself. What the devil had he been thinking? Nothing remotely sensible, evidently. To even consider kissing her outside the bounds of an engagement! Her neighbours might have been inclined to forgive such an indiscretion, but he was not. He condemned others for wantonness; he would condemn himself for the same. He could only be grateful it had gone no further. Thank God she had not looked up!

'Darcy!' came Bingley's voice from the landing above as Darcy removed his hat and handed it to a footman.

'Good morning, Bingley,' he said as the same footman relieved him of his greatcoat.

'Wherever have you been?' said Bingley, somewhat breathlessly as he came down the stairs to greet his friend, a rather badly creased letter in one hand. 'Caroline was on the verge of sending the footmen out to look for you.'

'Well, I am glad she did not,' said Darcy, straightening his shirt and waistcoat. 'It would have been a wasted exertion for the footmen; I am, as you see, perfectly safe.'

Bingley grinned at him.

'Well, you can hardly blame her for her concern,' he said. 'The last time you vanished unexpectedly, one of our neighbours nearly died.'

'Really, Bingley,' said Darcy, grimacing as he pulled the cuffs of his sleeves back down into place, 'you make it sound dreadful.' He glanced down at the letter in Bingley's hand. 'Is something the matter?'

'Oh! no, not especially—but I must go to London. I had meant to go after the ball, you remember, but with everything that happened—' he broke off, finally noticing his friend's distraction. '—Darcy, are you quite well? You seem out of sorts.'

Darcy's reply did little to reassure him but Bingley continued his explanation without much pressing.

'Well, I would say I was putting it off – going to Town, that is – but in truth, I quite forgot about it. My solicitor has written to remind me of the engagement though, and I intend to make the journey today. I had thought to ask you if you wished to join me—but perhaps you had better stay.'

'No, indeed. I am well,' said Darcy instantly. 'I will join you.'

'Really, Darcy, there is no particular need,' said Bingley as Darcy passed him to go up the stairs. 'I will not want for company; your cousin will ride with me, regardless.'

Darcy paused on the staircase. 'Colonel Fitzwilliam is going to London?'

'Indeed. His father wrote to summon him, you recall?' said Bingley, still standing at the base of the stairs. 'I thought he had told you.'

Belatedly, Darcy recalled that he had.

'Yes—yes of course,' said Darcy, with a quick smile, and an exhalation that might have been intended to be laughter. 'I had forgotten. But I will come—I am perfectly well.'

'Then perhaps you wish to join me now; I am to Longbourn, to take my leave of the Bennets.'

'No,' said Darcy immediately. Composing himself, he added more politely, 'I—I would not wish to delay you. I must wash; I am not dressed for company. You should go.'

'Shall I give them your apologies?' said Bingley, with some confusion.

'Yes, I—I thank you, yes. —Excuse me,' said Darcy, and he went upstairs directly.

Bingley could not be insensible of his friend's manner, but neither could he countenance the thought of prying further when privacy was so evidently desired. The matter was therefore dropt, and the three gentlemen were all away from Hertfordshire within four hours.

The peace which the gentlemen's departure engendered at Longbourn cannot be overstated. Mrs Bennet was so comforted by Mr Bingley's obvious regret at having to leave, and by the fact of his calling particularly to inform them all of his plans, that, for nearly two days, she could speak of nothing else to anyone, and existed in a state of unassailable good cheer.

Elizabeth, for her part, could not have been better pleased—unless of course Mr Bingley had come bearing the news that his insufferable friend was bound immediately for the West Indies, and, regrettably, would never be able to visit again.

Such was, unfortunately, not the case; it seemed that Mr Darcy would be returning with Mr Bingley when the latter's business in Town was concluded. Elizabeth, though frustrated anew at the gentleman and his inconvenient choice of friends, had not the heart to wish her sister's beau away for any longer than necessary, and so warmly added her support to Jane's quiet hope that Mr Bingley's business would not detain him long. Bingley beamed at her, and then at Jane, and then once around the room generally, and took his leave of them.

Bingley's sisters and Mr Hurst, they had been informed, did not travel with the gentlemen, but to Elizabeth's great delight, they saw fit neither to call at Longbourn, nor attend the service on Sunday; and she was, therefore, allowed to enjoy Mr Underwood's sermon in her preferred attitude of total vacancy, unperturbed by the fuss that seemed to follow the Netherfield party wherever they went.

Of course, the respite was of short duration. At four o'clock on Monday, Mr Collins was expected at Longbourn; and, though they might have wished him less punctual, it was at precisely four o'clock that the clergyman made his triumphal return.

He alighted from the post chaise with such an outpouring of felicitations to all his fair cousins – 'all' encompassing only the eldest three daughters, as no one else would come out to meet him – that they might have been very nearly convinced of his genuine goodwill towards them, if he had not also taken it upon himself to remark, with many a pointed look at Elizabeth, how greatly and universally the looks and disposition of a woman were improved by her becoming engaged.

'Indeed, sir,' Elizabeth could not refrain from saying as they mounted the steps to return indoors, 'I am sure you are right, though I do wonder at the source of your information.'

Mr Collins blinked.

'My dear Charlotte can hardly have failed to share with you the news of our engagement.'

'No indeed; of your engagement, I am well aware—but I did not think you had seen your fiancée since she accepted you.'

'Oh! indeed I have not,' he said, with no air of concession whatsoever. And then, continuing with hurried condescension, he assured her: 'My fair cousin – you yourself can have no cause to know – but let me assure you that it is quite true – one need not see one's fiancée to know that they are improved in appearance. You must give me leave, I think, Cousin Elizabeth, to profess a greater understanding of the matrimonial process than yourself.'

Elizabeth smiled.

'Naturally,' she replied, avoiding Jane's eye; 'I should never presume to understand the process by which you, sir, have secured a bride.'

This statement he considered proof enough of Elizabeth's deference to his understanding, and he went up to his rooms to wash with spirits buoyed immensely by the triumph.

'I flatter myself that it shall not surprise any of my fair cousins,' he said over dinner that evening, having declared himself – to the general disappointment of his hosts – not at all too tired to join them, 'to hear that I was summoned to Rosings on no fewer than four occasions—four!—to receive the benefit of Lady Catherine de Bourgh's most invaluable advice on the subject of the matrimonial state.' He paused for effect. 'Could you have imagined such attention?'

They all owned that they could not, except for Lydia, who still retained that childish talent for selective deafness, and had evidently chosen to deploy it now.

'Rare condescension, indeed,' remarked Mr Bennet when the vague murmur of reply had faded to nothing.

'Oh! she is the very soul of condescension!'

Mr Bennet eyed Lizzy over his glass of wine.

'I assure you, Mr Collins,' said Mr Bennet, returning his attention to their guest with an expression of ardent sincerity. 'I never doubted that for a moment.'

Mr Collins seemed wholly pleased with this response, and, thus encouraged, proceeded to recite to them what Elizabeth could only suspect to be the entire compendium of every thought Lady Catherine de Bourgh had ever entertained, even tangentially, on the subject of matrimony.

Only Mr Bennet seemed to enjoy the conversation, and Elizabeth wondered rather uncharitably if he would still take such pleasure in baiting Mr Collins if she were to suggest that both of the men should retire to his study after dinner, and leave the women to themselves a while.

'…There will be no peace in your home, Mr Collins,' that man recounted, 'if you do not from the beginning take care to check any sign of extravagance in your new wife.' Here he awaited a response again, and, receiving none from the table at large, addressed himself more particularly to his host. 'Women are particularly susceptible to such unnecessary expenditures—do you not agree, Mr Bennet?'

'It is more than my life's worth to answer you, sir; you had better go on.'

Mr Collins here demonstrated his particular talent for ignoring any part of a speech that advocated for a change of subject, and fixate only on that which might be taken for encouragement.

'Let me assure you then that it is so,' said a man whose nearest experience to cohabitating with women had been, until his brief stay at Longbourn, to live across the lane from Rosings Park. 'Fripperies are a great danger to women, for they appeal to that vanity which is common amongst their sex…'

By the time they all repaired to the sitting room, Elizabeth was quite ready to see Mr Collins repair all the way back to Hunsford, or at the very least, to his room. It seemed that there was no subject on which he could refrain from espousing his patroness' opinion above his own; and no subject on which she had not apparently written a dissertation. Indeed, Elizabeth could not be entirely sure that he had it in his power to conceive an independent opinion. He certainly shewed no evidence of possessing the ability.

'Some three—no! four days ago,' said Mr Collins, once they were settled in the sitting room, 'when I had been summoned to the house after dinner to make up the last member of a table for whist, she addressed me thus: You, sir, are a bachelor, Mr Collins.—she said. Indeed, I am, your ladyship.—I replied.'

He cast his gaze around the room with the air of one who has just given some fantastical speech, and expects to see an audience deeply moved. In this, he was unsurprisingly disappointed. Jane and Mary were the only two who were really listening; Mr Bennet had long since grown bored of encouraging him; and Mrs Bennet had ceased to find him an object of any interest at precisely the moment that Kitty had identified Mr Darcy walking towards the house with one of her daughters in his arms. Still, Elizabeth thought they might have passed themselves off as polite, if not quite devoted, hosts, if it had not been for Kitty and Lydia, who sat side by side on the sofa nearest the fire. Kitty had managed to angle herself away from Mr Collins in such a way that the copy of The Champion of Virtue that lay open in her lap was obscured from his view, and would likely have gone unnoticed in her perfidious behaviour if Lydia had not been attempting to read over her shoulder, and fussing whenever Kitty turned the page without warning. They were, however, impervious to the pointed looks Mr Collins directed their way whenever a squabble erupted.

'A bachelor,' he said, by no means dissuaded by the constant interruptions, 'such as yourself, Mr Collins, can have no understanding whatsoever of how to properly manage his wife.'

Elizabeth stilled, her eyes lifting to settle on the clergyman's face with an expression of outraged astonishment. Mr Bennet, perhaps sensing the increasing risk of an argument, interceded.

'Ah!' he said, rising from his chair, 'there she is quite right, Mr Collins.' Elizabeth turned to look at him; he met her eye and winked before turning back to Mr Collins. 'It is the province of we married men to understand the intricacies of that pursuit.' Mr Collins seemed about to agree, but Mr Bennet held up a hand and added cheerfully: 'It cannot be done and ought not to be attempted. Good night.'

And with another smile towards his eldest girls, he promptly abandoned them.