Chapter 6

Darcy wryly thought to himself that he had never once imagined a confession of love from him to a young lady would result in her viewing him with complete and total disbelief.

"In vain I have struggled against such, but I ardently admire and love you. I am irrevocably in love with you Elizabeth and now that I freely admit it, I also confess that I have every intention of making you mine. You are the only woman I ever could wish to marry. Now that I have found you and cast aside the notion of what society and my own relations would make of the degradation of my aligning my family name with the Bennets, I intend to persue you with and earnestness that would put Bingley to shame."

"A degradation? You have struggled in vain?" Elizabeth exclaimed finding her voice before Darcy could say more. "I will halt you right there. Does your arrogance know no bounds? To call my family a degradation? What right do you have to pronounce judgement on them? You have been nothing but uncivil to them and everyone else in Meryton."

"I am not pronouncing judgement on them, Elizabeth," Darcy said in exasperation. "I am merely stating how society will view it."

"If you care so much what society thinks, perhaps you should make haste back to your precious ton," Elizabeth said angrily.

"The ton can go hang for all I care. What I am trying to say, if you would stop misunderstanding me, is that I love you to the exclusion of all else. The reasons I should not mean absolutely nothing to me in the face of having you as my wife. I know you don't care for me, but I beg of you give me a chance."

"The reasons you should not?" Elizabeth asked with a frown.

"Don't need to be elaborated on," Darcy said grimly, realizing that if he did so, Elizabeth would be angrier then she already was.

"I can elaborate on them sister dear," Jane's soft voice interrupted. Seeing what appeared to be an argument brewing between the two, her and the colonel had hastened to join them in time to hear Darcy state he loved Elizabeth to the exclusion of all else. "You detailed them to me as recently as our walk towards Netherfeild earlier. Mr. Darcy does speak the truth. You, I believe, called our family a humiliation. Can you really fault another for seeing the same? How many times have we been mortified by them? Did you not once tease me that it would take a man in love to overlook them?"

"I believe I said a man in love would be blind to them," Elizabeth said testily.

"It would take a fool to be blind to them," Jane said gently. "And you could never love a fool."

"I don't know," Col. Fitzwilliam said. "My cousin does seem to be demonstrating amply thay he can be a fool."

"Mr. Bingley is not a fool, yet he is blind to our family's faults," Elizabeth argued.

"No he is not," Jane said. "He just pretends not to see them. He is to kind to acknowledge how mortifying some members of our family can be. But then again perhaps he is used to turning a blind eye to less appealing aspects in his own family."

Elizabeth glanced uncertaintly at Darcy and then back at Jane. Before Elizabeth could speak, Jane said, "Come Lizzy, let us go home, before you say anything that cannot be unsaid. A pleasure to meet you, Col. Fitzwilliam. Mr. Darcy." Seeing Darcy move to offer his arm to Elizabeth, Jane quickly said, "We can see ourselves back home." The colonel had provided her insight into how Daecy felt about her sister, but she knew that her sister was likely overwhelmed and confused. Elizabeth would need an opportunity to sort things out in her own mind before their mother caught wind of Darcy's interest. According to the colonel, he expected Darcy to make his intentions known to the neighborhood, and therefore Mrs. Bennet, at the next available opportunity since he no longer intended to attempt to hide his regard for Elizabeth.

"Well Lizzy?" Jane gently queried her sister as they walked.

"I have absolutely no idea," Elizabeth said bewildered.

"May I offer you some sisterly advice?"

"I would welcome any advice you have to offer. And this time, unlike when you advised me not to listen to only Wickham's story, I intend to actually consider whatever pearls of wisdom you have to bestow on me."

"You should get to know Mr. Darcy. And only then do I believe you will be able to sort out your feelings for him."

Elizabeth nodded slowly and Jane gave her a serene smile in response. Her sister, Jane thought with satisfaction, was failing in love. If Elizabeth had not been so upset and confused by the process, Jane might have found it highly amusing. Her confident, self assured, intelligent little sister it was nice to see could be just as human as the rest of them.

"If this is your courtship strategy," Col. Fitzwilliam said to Darcy as the two watched Elizabeth and Jane head in the direction of Longbourn, "I think you may need to refine it."

"I just need to be able to talk to Elizabeth," Darcy said in frustration.

"And now I understand that gleam that was in your eye meant. You have been spying on Miss Elizabeth on her walks. You know her preferred paths. You intend to find your time to court her, to talk to her, not just in drawing rooms and at social events, but on her walks as well. You hoped to not only watch over her and protect her today while she was upset, but that once her sister had comforted her that she could be persuaded to talk to you."

"I don't preform at my best in any society, be it the haut ton of London or the less consequential society of Meryton," Darcy said evenly. "If I expect to win her favor, it likely won't be in a drawing room."

"Bingley will be absolutely livid at me," Col. Fitzwilliam grumbled. "Or at least as put out as a man of his temperament can be. I cannot allow you to meet unchaperoned with Miss Elizabeth repeatedly in the wilderness of Hertfordshire, which means for your strategy to win her will require the chaperonage of me and and Bingley's Miss Bennet."

Darcy shrugged and said, "You don't have to chaperone us. You know my intentions are honorable."

"Right, in good consciousness I cannot allow you to arrange chance meetings with her alone. I will merely have to assure Bingley that I have no intentions of stealing his current, and perhaps last, angel from him. How long do you expect his sisters to detain him in town?"

"A week or so I imagine. I doubt they can keep him away much longer once his business is complete, which he expected to only take a few days. Speaking of which, Mrs. Bennet considers herself to lay a fine table and her youngest are enamoured of a red coat. If we time things correctly, when we stop by Longbourn again, we will likely be invited to dine."

"You intend to stop by Longbourn again today?" Col. Fitzwilliam asked in disbelief.

"It can hardly be avoided," Darcy said stooping down to pick up Elizabeth's gloves and bonnet that she had discarded beneath the tree before her sister arrived. "Having found these on our ride, and recognized them as Miss Elizabeth's it would not be neighborly to not return them right away. Let us call on Col. Forester and then deliver these."

"You really do intend to be relentless in your pursuit of her, don't you?"

"Tonight my goal is not to speak to Elizabeth, but to show her I can be civil to her family. I am no good with words, but I have always considered myself to be a man of action. With my actions I will demonstrate my regard for her."