On the treadmill again with my trusty kindle to not leave that cliffy too long, though this will be a short chapter. No worries, no trigger warning needed here (though I rather hate the idea that adults can't cope and need to be warned about everything). NYT, I hear ya with the whole "Darcy's family sucks besides G." But isn't that really how families are when you are inside them? Katzempforte, I'm glad you are liking Lady C. Sacredwoman2k, I'm glad you think I've done a decent job of exonerating Lady C.; Dizzy Lizzy.60, glad you came around to the same place with Ch 35, there will be no compromise. Laure Saint-Yves perhaps Lady C. did relent too easily, but considering Anne's and Darcy's age she's probably beating this dead horse far too long. Sacredwoman2k and Laure Saint-Yves, between the two of you, you've called what I had already decided would happen. I hope y'all enjoy the repurposing of Jane Austen's dialog to for my purposes.

I know it was irrational and probably a vast overreaction, but I tore out of Rosings like a hound after a fox. My feet were already hurting and my throat burning when it occurred to me that I probably should have gone by horse even with the delay that visiting the stable and saddling one would have cost. Yet turning back by then would have been folly.

A few minutes later after I passed a tree thick with foliage, I spotted Edwin and Miss Elizabeth. As of yet they were very small dots but that patch of pale green that was her frock made her unmistakeable. As soon as I realized there was a good space between them, I slowed down to a trot and then forced myself to walk. It would do no good to approach them when I was breathing too hard to talk.

Edwin's back was to me, but Elizabeth was half inclined toward me before I could make out the sounds of talking though not the words themselves. When I was finally close enough to understand any words, it was Miss Elizabeth I heard: "If I could feel gratitude, I would now thank you. However, I have every reason in the world to think ill of you. Why did you with so evident a design of offending and insulting me, choose to tell me with one breath that I am inferior to Mr. Darcy and my family is a degradation and in the next attempt to convince me that his condition makes him unsuitable for me? Was this not an excuse for incivility if I was uncivil? Through your high-handed actions, you have withheld the advantages which you know were his birth right, you have deprived Mr. Darcy of that independence which was no less than his due. You are his cousin, yet you treat his condition with contempt and ridicule."

I felt happy. She defended me!

Edwin replied, "I but made an honest confession of the scruples that should prevent you from entering into any understanding with him. Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and just. Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections being joined to me through my cousin? To congratulate myself on the hope that you would produce five more children with Darcy's affliction? You are then resolved to have him?"

"I have said no such thing." She observed me then I think because she glanced toward me and colored slightly before turning back toward him and continuing. "I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me."

She had neither yet fulfilled my dearest hope nor rejected me. I had already stopped a few feet behind Edwin and wondered what would happen next.