Free Mr. Darcy's Little Sister by C. Allyn Pierson Page B

young woman with dark hair and bright blue eyes, and she had a low-pitched, musical voice with a very slight Welsh accent. Although not a classic beauty, her appearance was very striking and her manner was pleasant and elegant. Elizabeth returned her smile and answered, “It is my pleasure to meet one of Georgiana’s friends. Have you known each other long?”
    Georgiana answered, “For years. Catherine has two brothers much older than she, and we were the only little girls in the neighbourhood.” She looked at her friend with a mischievous smile. “It is fortunate that we liked each other.”
    Catherine laughed. “Yes, it would have been very bad if we had loathed each other.”
    ***
    The two pairs of walkers turned and strolled on towards Hyde Park, the girls walking on ahead with arms linked. Elizabeth, when they were out of the girls’ hearing, asked Darcy where Miss Freemont was from.
    “The Freemonts have been neighbours of ours in London for generations, but they have a small country estate in Shropshire. Her father is the younger son of his family, hence the judgeship. Because of his place on the King’s Court, they spend a great deal of time in London.”
    They found a path which wound under a grove of plane trees and turned onto it. There were very few riders out that day on Rotten Row, and the chill in the air had discouraged the less hardy walkers on the footpaths. They wandered slowly along a neat gravelled path, and Darcy found a small bench about halfway down the length of it where he and Elizabeth could sit while the two girls walked to the end. The remaining autumn leaves, teased by the light gusts of a breeze freed from the enclosing buildings of the city, swirled around them like a golden and crimson blizzard. Elizabeth watched the dancing leaves, her hand through her husband’s arm, and felt something rigid inside her relax. All of the tension of the past year melted in the cool autumn air and she was left feeling warm and light. She gave a small, contented sigh and Darcy turned his head towards her and smiled.
    “Happy, my love?”
    “Blissful—I suddenly feel as if I have been translated onto an entirely new Earth from the one on which I had been living, everything bright and new around me.”
    As he opened his lips to respond, a pair of urchins suddenly appeared with a ragged mongrel in tow to chase the squirrels around the trees before running off on some mysterious business of their own, but not before giving cheeky grins at the couple sitting, arms entwined, on the bench. Elizabeth laughed as the ungainly dog lolloped after the children.
    “Well, perhaps not everything is bright and new!” she said, her thoughts involuntarily straying to the difficulties with various in-laws that disturbed her serenity like the urchins invading the park. She pulled her attention back to her husband. “However, I do feel that I have an entirely new outlook on life and on the people I know or meet. I remember a conversation I had with Jane not so many months ago, wherein I expressed to her my dissatisfaction with the human race and how inconsistent were the characters of so many of the people that I knew. This was after my friend Charlotte became engaged to Mr. Collins, an event which, as you know, shocked me greatly. I had not thought that she would disregard every better feeling merely to obtain a comfortable home.”
    “This was also, I presume, after Bingley had left Netherfield so suddenly.”
    She gave him a rueful smile and nodded. “Yes, indeed it was.”
    “And to what do you attribute your more charitable frame of mind?” he asked.
    “I am not sure that I should say,” she replied, raising one brow. “It could be detrimental to your character.”
    “I will try not to let it go to my head.”
    “Well then, it was finding a man who not only had a character that proved to be invariably honest and good in spite of all of my ungenerous acts and assumptions but also was willing to reassess