On Friday morning, I learned something quite interesting. As it turns out, much to my surprise, it takes considerably less work to feed breakfast to eight than three. It made no sense at all unless of course you reckoned that five of the eight were my sisters and Mrs. Hewes, and they had banned me from the kitchen and the coop at least until luncheon. They were not specific about which particular luncheon, but with Lady Catherine and her entire family coming to supper, I was hoping they meant luncheon today. Naturally, where Mrs. Hewes went, Sargent MacDonald soon followed, so that left me with only one lone companion to while away the time before my sisters most likely burned the parsonage to the ground.

I was not especially hungry at the moment, and politeness did demand some conversation, so I took it upon myself to start one.

"Mr. Darcy, with the ever changing nature of your parsonage visiting schedule, I imagine I will be making up the middle room upstairs for you soon."

He simply grinned, and said, "Be careful what you wish for Elizabeth."

What had been said in jest was returned in jest, and we then spent a few minutes exchanging pleasantries and witticisms, and it was not terrible.

At some point he said, "Speaking of my visits to the parsonage, how is it you always know when I am about. The day your sisters arrived, I doubt very much that you saw or heard me, and I am absolutely certain I was never in your sight that first day."

"What makes you so sure?"

He just laughed a big and said, "Yesterday, before your sisters came I was as silent and invisible as a ghost. After your sisters came, you would not have noticed my aunt lighting your dress on fire."

I smiled and said, "So, are you saying you want to know one of my feminine secrets?"

"I do!"

I just chuckled and said, "How close to your hounds do you have to come before they start baying. If Rosings were downwind, you might stand a chance, but alas, luck is not with you. We do have five senses. Your cologne is very distinctive and has not changed in a year."

He chuckled and we proceeded to talk of anything and nothing or another five minutes. I have not the slightest idea what we did actually discuss, but it was pleasant. Everything was amiable and pointless with nothing at all of significance said or heard, something like Mr. Bingley chatting with Louisa Hurst.

Surprisingly happy with the way the morning was working out, considering what a debacle I thought the evening likely to be, I glanced at the front door. Mr. Darcy saw my glance, and as I was becoming somewhat accustomed to, we simply moved in that direction in unison with no particular discussion. In a very gentlemanly manner, he helped me into my pelisse before donning his greatcoat. I removed my mobcap and replaced it with a brand new bonnet my sisters had decorated personally and brought for me as he put on his beaver and opened the front door to usher us outside.

By mutual agreement, and by that, I mean mutual awkwardness and inability to think of anything witty or intelligent to say, we walked out towards the ornamental gardens of Rosings. It occurred to me that in some alternate life where I was not shackled to my cousin, I might have visited some other more amenable bride. It was easy enough to imagine Charlotte Lucas or Louisa Golding marrying the man just for comfort and security, and should I have happened to visit I may have spent days and weeks wandering these grounds in complete satisfaction. Lady Catherine's taste in gardens tended more toward the formal than was my taste, but nobody could deny their beauty, and the woods to the side of the formal gardens were enchanting. Now both garden and copse had been right outside my door through a winter, a spring, a summer, an autumn and back to winter and I had scarcely noticed. How much had I lost, how much felicity had I missed, simply because I had quit looking for beauty all around me. More troubling, why, in the presence of this particular man was I starting to think about it once again.

We both walked somewhat stiffly with our hands clasped behind our backs, much tighter than any practical purpose required, and for perhaps the first time in his company, I allowed myself to reflect back on our history together. Our easy camaraderie of the breakfast room was reduced, but not quite gone. Neither of us seemed particularly put out or under any real duress, at least by our usual conversational standards, so my mind had time to wander.

In Hertfordshire, every conversation was like a knife fight, with me as likely to be trying to injure him as not. He played the part of innocent lamb that did not even know what a knife was most of the time. I wondered how he had missed my dissembling, and once again how I had refused to see what Jane and Charlotte saw so clearly. That was what happened in a knife fight… sooner or later, you only saw the knife and not the opponent, or the arena or the spectators.

In Kent, every conversation had been like a fire or flood, with each of us alternating between the roles of rescuer and arsonist. Somehow, in a way I did not think I would ever truly understand, we had both laid our souls bare, right down to the bedrock, and in the process, perhaps stopped or slowed something dark that we each had found attached. Somehow, despite our wretched beginnings, we had offered each other some healing.

How it began, I had not the slightest idea, because there was no earthly reason I should have done anything but hate him after his eavesdropping on perhaps the worst conversation of my life… well, fourth or fifth worst perhaps. Mayhap he had formed a preference for me back somewhere in our past life and that established the connection, or perhaps he was just exactly what he appeared to be… an honorable man, trying to do his best in a difficult world and appalled by my situation.

I could well remember the exact words that first allowed him to creep into my thoughts and perhaps into the tiny corner of my heart that still functioned, "my cowardice is screaming at me". Somehow, in that declaration, I had found someone that I could listen to. I recognized a fellow human being in pain, and concluded without actually knowing it, that I could offer some relief. Somehow, I could tell it was a pain I could respond to with something other than more bitterness and pain, and the tide had been slowly but inexorably turned towards… towards what exactly?.

After some considerable time, each lost in our thoughts that were threatening to become more maudlin by the minute, I decided that for once in our lives, we might have a conversation. I did not mean we had never had conversations, but I meant perhaps we could have a conversation that was not likely to leave one of us dead and the other maimed for life, only to start over with alternated roles ten minutes later.

I looked up and he seemed engaged in his own internal thoughts, but also peeking at me from time to time. I finally screwed up my courage and said, "Jane is right you know, Mr. Darcy."

He looked at me more carefully, and thought through his reply, as he usually did.

He said, "Might you use my given name, Elizabeth? I promise that crow is the only witness and he seems trustworthy enough. You have done it once before, so am certain you know what it is."

I replied, "Yes, I did use it just yesterday, but I was spitting, murderously, hopping mad at the time."

He smiled, which I had to admit made him look quite handsome – disturbingly handsome, and also had both a disarming and an alarming effect, and said, "Perhaps, we can dispense with that part. It is less optimal."

I answered that with a small smile that I had not really intended, but I let it stand.

He continued, "I have diverted you long enough. How is Jane right?"

Still caught up in reflections of the past, and nearly forgetting the conversation that I myself had just started; I had to sheepishly admit that back in Netherfield; he said many clever and intelligent things, which I promptly misinterpreted like as not. In fact, I sometimes thought he did the same thing I did in reverse. Things I had given as barbs, he had taken as witty chatter or compliments. Things he gave as compliments, I took as witty but injurious barbs.

For example, I remembered a parlor discussion about the hated accomplishments, he said, "All this she must possess, and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading." That had in fact been a near crippling setdown to Miss Bingley, but I did not see it. In a more prudential light, I suspected it was really intended as a compliment to me, but I had been no more perceptive than the other recipient and had gone on to try to injure his assertion, rather than recognizing it for what it was. More the fool me!

I brought my focus back to the present, but as usual, he seemed like he would be happy to wait until yet another summer had gone by for my answer. I felt the stiffness and tension in both of my arms, and realized that we had been in somewhat easy company for neigh on a half‑hour now, but we were both still unsure of ourselves, stiff and formal, open and afraid. I thought I should at least try to put us both out of our misery.

I gradually relaxed my hands, and then my arms, and somewhat shyly reached over to take the inside of his arm. He immediately released his own hands and moved his arm to the usual walking position, and we walked on for a moment or two, arm in arm, seemingly in perfect peace and accord; for the moment happy with each other's company.

I finally decided to finish my own thought and said, "I am sorry. I was woolgathering. What I meant about Jane being right, Fitzwilliam, is that you are my friend. Perhaps you have always been, or perhaps not, but I believe you are now, and dare I say I believe you will remain. Do you concur?"

He simply said, "Yes, Elizabeth I am your friend. I shall always be. A bond was formed this week that neither time nor distance nor troubles shall break."

The simple declaration warmed my heart, and for a little while, I believed perhaps I could worry about someone else for a change.

"Fitzwilliam, we have not talked of your sister since that first fraught conversation. How does she fare?"

His countenance was easier to read now that both of us seemed to be less diligent in maintaining our defensive masks than we had been, and I thought I saw the signs of both approbation that I was taking his sister into the circle of people I cared about; and sadness at what had nearly befallen her.

He said, "She is much recovered over the past year, but is…"

Now he stumbled for words, and I was afraid that I had once again begun one of our near fatal discussions, but he brightened back up and continued.

"… somewhat reduced, but mostly recovered. I have high hopes for her, as I have recently discovered an entirely new and I believe more effective treatment. I believe the new regimen will result in full recovery almost immediately."

Curiously, I asked, "What exactly is this wondrous regimen you speak so highly of?"

He laughed, and said, "I am afraid I do not know the specifics, as I must leave that to the proper subject experts. In general terms, the procedure is straightforward enough though."

My curiosity was now overflowing, so I asked, "Please at least tell me the broad outlines."

He said, "The principle component of this recovery consisted of putting her in company with you and your sisters, and leaving her there until the deed is done. I have no idea how it will proceed from there, but I am sure Miss Lydia and Jane will have matters well in hand within a fortnight. Truly Elizabeth, this is rather rudimentary sister recovery. I am surprised you had to ask, what with it being so obvious."

He had a knack for making me just stop walking so I could concentrate on staring at him in confusion, and as usual, he just clamped my hand to his side and forced me to restart by carrying on as before. I looked up to see him smiling at me, and said, "Be careful Fitzwilliam, you may end up with a sister that's indistinguishable from mine."

He just said, "Yes, I can hope."

I did not actually know how to respond to that, so I did not. We continued along for a time, commenting on this feature and that feature of the garden. By some type of safety sense, we were learning how to quit prying at sensitive subjects before any lasting damage was done.

So he liked my sisters now! That did prove to me one of my earlier conjectures. He had simply come to his senses, or perhaps, and this seemed more likely, my sisters were more worthy now. I was not blind to what they had been before. Such willful ignorance was to nobody's credit, and I had to admit that the past year on the whole had not been all bad for them. Perhaps the adversity had forced them to become what they might have become eventually anyway, or maybe it was a branch in life that went to the light in one direction and the darkness in the other, and they had all just stumbled on the right path by chance.

We had not talked about the future any more after my assertions he needed to marry, and it was not a subject I would reopen for a while, but I began to wonder if he was giving it serious consideration. After yesterday, he had seen the good sense and iron willed discipline of one more Bennet sister, and there was every chance that he might attach himself to Jane. I must admit the thought brought very ungracious and unladylike quivers of pleasure at the thought of how Mr. Bingley would react to the news.

Fitzwilliam's heart had obviously not been given to any other eligible ladies, and I had noticed he found something quite pleasing in my sisters. There was no way to predict the future, or the direction of his heart, but of one thing I was beginning to be certain. Should he have his heart engaged by one of my sisters, it would solve a lot of problems in one fell swoop, not the least of which would be his felicity. He would be quite happy with his choice, and also bound to all the sisters by law, by duty, by custom, by inclination, by everything. The loss of Longbourn would become a sad bit of family history, not the beginning of a life of penury. He would be our protector, he would be my protector, and as I now knew, he would take the duty most seriously. No longer would we be dependent on Lady Catherine to find suitors when the time came, and for Lydia and Kitty at least, the time could wait for some years without distress. If he liked my sisters so much, perhaps when they were his sisters, he might introduce them to society at the same time as his own. It all made a very good kind of sense.

Yes, there was not the slightest doubt about it. I had over the last six days learned that, much like Jane before me, I actually liked Fitzwilliam Darcy. I liked him very much indeed. He would be the best brother in the world, and I would rejoice in Jane's felicity. I should be most happy indeed… And yet… and yet… and yet… I was not. I was somehow disturbed by the very idea.