I thought that after that expression, even Elizabeth's poultry should have improved their opinion of me. Of course, she looked completely lost and confused, as if she had just learned her dog spoke perfect Latin, except for declensions. She was obviously deep in thought, but after a few moments, she shook it off as if she had made her decision, or decided to defer the matter to another time. She took the basket and put it back under the shed where the grain was stored, and brushed off her dress and apron, even thought they were both spotless already, and started towards the parsonage.

"Mr. Darcy, would you care to step into the parsonage for your traditional afternoon tea?"

She seemed in a funny mood, since I had never taken afternoon tea in the parsonage even once, but I agreed to this plan, exactly the same as I would have agreed to just about any plan she might suggest.

"Yes, I would be most happy to, Elizabeth."

I followed her to the kitchen, and we set about getting the kettle, cups, tea and all the other accoutrement of her tea service set on a tray, which I carried it up to the parlor. As before, I found some comfort in the sharing of a simple task, particularly since this sort of thing was almost always left to servants in my normal life, and I suspected it was the same for Elizabeth previously. A few moments were spent organizing the tea things strategically around the table, and then a few more with Elizabeth preparing the tea, then pouring it for both of us following exact protocol as expected. After that, we finally settled down to our tea, and mostly dispensed with idle pleasantries for a few minutes with tea and biscuits. I thought to compliment her on the refreshments, but somehow it seemed like it would be empty praise.

I started off with a bit of a difficult question… Well forget that… I opened with a real barn breaker. I had never been any good with small talk in general, and with Elizabeth I seemed to have lost the ability to even pretend to try.

"Elizabeth, since you are intending to go through with this plan of yours, I heard you assert to your father that you know exactly how it is all… er… done. Should I take you at your word, or were you blustering?"

She replied, "I say Mr. Darcy, you appear to be of the 'take no prisoners' school of conversation. Is this truly how you talk in the first circles?"

I could not really tell if she was teasing, offended, or genuinely curious, so I set out to answer as best as I could.

"This particular type of question and answer, to the best of my knowledge, only happens either among your poultry or at your table; and so far only when the two of us are alone. This is a very distinct conversational style we have developed, Elizabeth. I only speak this way with you. Not even my closest cousin or sister is treated thus."

She replied, "Admittedly, we have developed a level of candor that would be surprising even among close friends, let alone among…"

She seemed lost in thought for a moment before continuing.

"What exactly are we, Mr. Darcy? We are not really friends? At the moment, I cannot even pretend to either know you or like you very much. In the beginning, you were the man I disliked the most in the world, an arrogant rich ill-mannered cretin that I could barely stand; but you were not the least bit significant to me. Then you became a man I had entirely forgotten for months and months, and probably would have never thought of again in my life had you not been the nephew of my patroness. That was followed by your stint as an ungentlemanly eavesdropper who feels a compulsive need to poke his nose into my personal business. You have been all of those things, and yetyou seem to have lately become my most trusted confidant. At this moment, you are the only person in the world who has heard the entire unvarnished Elizabeth Collins née Bennet story, in all of its gruesome details."

She sat up straight in her chair, stared at me with a look that would have been alarming had I not known her better, and finally said, "How have you become my confidant, Mr. Darcy? I started telling you shocking things simply to drive you from the property, and then eventually found there were apparently no things shocking enough to accomplish that; at least there have not been thus far. Why are you so stubborn Mr. Darcy? Why do I accept it? You must know that I could probably say something that would send you away forever if I truly wanted to. I can have a razor sharp tongue when I choose to. Why have I demurred?"

The questions sounded mostly rhetorical, so I was not entirely certain she wanted answers or even discussion. They sounded much more like her thinking aloud, trying to work the puzzle out for herself.

At length, I responded, "Perhaps, I have not done enough to earn your approbation, but I have done enough to earn your trust. Or perhaps, you just needed to unburden yourself to somebody. The traditional confidants; parents, siblings, clergy were not available to you. Perhaps, I was the only reasonably trustworthy confidant at hand; the best of a bad lot."

She thought about that for a moment, and replied, "I imagine that explanation makes sense, although you could just as well say it is hard to find a person I know at all who has less connection to me; but I suppose that is not very generous. I must say I have learned something surprising. I find I will miss this level of candor when you go."

That matter-of-fact way she blithely assumed I would leave bothered me, so without overly thinking upon it, I said, "I am going nowhere, Elizabeth!"

She looked at me quite carefully, almost top to bottom, as if evaluating livestock, or searching for the meaning of my thoughts. This only took a second or two, before she replied.

"Oh! You shall leave Mr. Darcy, because you must leave! It is inevitable, and truly must be done sooner rather than later. I know it! You know it! Anyone who thinks about it for more than a moment knows it. Your aunt and Miss de Bourgh would certainly concur. It is inevitable, that it must and will happen soon. I was simply ruminating on how things will be different after your departure."

Perhaps not her most diligent or brightest student, I said, "What do you mean I must leave? I am master of Pemberley! I will not ignore my duties to my estate, but otherwise I go where I choose!"

Here I was having yet another bout of abominable pride, which I now looked at more judiciously than I had prior. How arrogant that sounded, and yet I was not to be moved on this particular subject, so it was at least accurate.

Elizabeth looked at me as if that were the exact answer she was expecting, and said, "Do I truly have to explain it to you, Mr. Darcy? It all seems so obvious to me that it should not even need to be spoken of."

I just shrugged my shoulders, a mannerism my aunt would despise, and said, "Perhaps you shall need to be more explicit, because I have no idea what you are talking about Elizabeth."

She looked at me carefully and asked, "You may find my answer offensive or insulting. Do you still wish it?"

I chuckled and said, "I believe I have proven my resilience. Do your worst!"

She looked pensive and said, "Did you know I saw you the very first day you appeared in Hertfordshire. You and Mr. Bingley were riding out to see Netherfield, and I saw you on the way back home from one of my rambles. You were on a black stallion that seemed just a touch hard to control. It was faster than Mr. Bingleys, but at least the Bingley horse went where he wanted it to go. Do you still have that horse?"

Puzzled, I told her, "In fact, I do. It is standing in the stable at Rosings as we speak. You can even credit or blame him for my presence here today. I rode him from London last week and he lost a shoe a couple miles outside of Hunsford. That is how I came to be eavesdropping on you and your… er… Mr. Bennet."

She continued with her interrogation, "And, how often do you ride? I do not mean just a leisurely cantor suitable for your sister or Rotten Row. I mean a hard manly ride that has the horse lathered and your hat in danger."

This seemed quite as far as it was possible to get from the original question, but I went along as I had no better idea.

"Usually once per day, sometimes twice, but not every day. Perhaps a dozen times per week on average, I would say."

She nodded sagely and asked, "How long has it been since your father died?"

Puzzled, I wondered where she was going, but answered sadly, "It has been nine years now."

She continued relentlessly, "And your sister, she is quite capable of managing the estate, is she?"

Shocked, I said, "Certainly not!"

She looked at me and said, "You may think I am talking in circles, but I assure you I am not. Everything we have spoken of since we sat down is related."

I simply waited patiently for her to continue, and at length she did.

"I have been thinking a great deal about duty Mr. Darcy, and I am not convinced you have been doing yours, nor do you appear to be inclined to. By your own admission, you have risked your life on your horse perhaps 5,000 times since your father died. You not only have no heir; you appear to not even have a potential mother for that heir, unless you have someone hidden away I do not know about. Your aunt thinks to pair you with Miss de Bourgh, but I doubt she would survive the rigors of childbirth; or at least, I would not want to bet the future of a great estate on her health."

Now she sat up straighter, stared me in the eyes and continued.

"Who would look after your estate in case of your death, Mr. Darcy? You have told me that you have a small family, just your sister; no spare. How will your estate survive if you do not produce an heir? It is more than twenty years until any heir you produce will be even remotely capable of handling the burden, and more likely thirty. Will you depend on your extended family? Will a cousin or uncle become owner or trustee should you fall? Will they take diligent care of your sister and your tenants when they have their own estates to manage? You will be close to fifty, with 10,000 more dangerous rides by the time your heir is the age you were when you took over the estate. Sixty when he is truly prepared for the burden, and that assumes you start looking for a wife now. Truly, you should have been looking five years ago."

Each word hit me like a hammer. I was used to being considered arrogant, rude, bad mannered, egotistical and all the other things she had once correctly thought of me; but I was I no way accustomed to being considered derelict in my duties. I was a good and conscientious master, kind to my tenants, servants and retainers. Generous to those under my control. Diligent in management of the responsibilities left to me; except for the one lapse with Georgiana.

She continued relentlessly, "Your sister is what, seventeen now? When will she enter society? Has she recovered from her debacle with Wickham? Will she be able to function without a mother or sister to guide her? I would hope you are not counting on Lady Catherine! Will she be torn apart by the harpies of the ton, whom I have been assured are fierce gossips if her brother remains unmarried at near thirty, and spends his time with an ineligible widow with perhaps a bastard or two. The truth about any children I have will come out sooner or later Mr. Darcy, I can assure you. It always does, and it will harm you, your estate and your sister. What happens to your sister's reputation if people make the not unreasonable assumption that I have stepped outside the bounds of marriage with you, if you are still hanging about? True or not, it will be spoken of, even if Wickham has to start the stories himself."

She paused and looked at my countenance, which was admittedly most likely quite shocked and said, "As I said Mr. Darcy. I am not trying to be harsh, but I do believe it is time for you to get on with the serious business of producing an heir, and you are probably materially harming both your estate and your sister if you remain in my company very much longer."

With a deep breath, she fired her last arrow.

"I intend to do my duty, Mr. Darcy. Will you do less?"

With that, she folded her hands on her lap and looked down at them somewhat shyly, as if just waiting for my reaction. Perhaps she expected me to be angry, or storm out of the parsonage, or yell at her or profess my innocence or; who knew what she expected. She had previously asserted I was generally ill‑mannered, a point that was not in contention, so she had every right to be cautious, but I was not inclined to censure her for telling the truth.

I had never actually taken the trouble to truly understand all the particulars of my life. It was all so obvious when she pointed it out to me. My aunt had been rattling on about duty for years, but none but Elizabeth had ever managed to make it sink in.

She obviously had courage in abundance, as well as great sense and education. Perhaps she had always thought these thoughts, but I did not think so. This was most likely a result of her recent encounter with the duties and responsibilities of position. She had not had an estate handed to her on a plate, hers since birth with nobody to gainsay her. She had been forced to think all the way through all the implications in the ten minutes she spent staring at her father in the lane. She had thought through the entire thing, made a life‑changing decision that would give her unknown risks and rewards, and she had done it all while only barely restraining herself from doing harm to her father, and doing her best for her sisters.

I believe it was in that small interval between her declarations of my need to do my duty, and when I was capable of making a response, that I decided once and for all, irrevocably, that I was in love with Elizabeth. Perhaps I had known it all along, but much like her assertions about my duty, I had not seen what was sitting plain as day, right in front of my eyes.

I was in love with Elizabeth Collins née Bennet, and the idea of loving another was quite impossible to fathom.