WITHOUT VANITY OR PRIDE BY LM ROMANO, AMY D’ORAZIO – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: LM Romano
- Language: English
- Genre: Historical Romance
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- Size: 2 MB
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May 1812, Hyde Park
Though it was not quite the fashionable hour, the paths through Hyde
Park were crowded, the populace of London seemingly uniformly
determined to take advantage of the fine spring sunshine. The rains of
spring had begun to abate, and Fitzwilliam Darcy hoped, rather than
believed, the ache in his heart would soon do likewise.
It had been nearly a month since Elizabeth Bennet’s scathing rejection
of his offer of marriage. The first week had been marked by shocked fury as
he contemplated, endlessly, the terrible accusations she had hurled at him.
The second week, fury had dissipated as he had recognised, reluctantly, the
justice in some of what she had said. The third week, despair set in as he
recognised she was entirely correct. He had been selfish, disdainful,
conceited, arrogant, and he was wholly unworthy of her.
In the last week, the fourth since that fateful night at Hunsford
parsonage, he was resolved to forget her. What else could he do? He could
not loll about like a maudlin schoolgirl, no matter that he felt quite maudlin.
Keep busy, he told himself, outrun the agony. So it was that he forced
himself into intense occupation nearly every minute of the day, scarcely
allowing himself a moment’s rest until he dropped into his bed, exhausted,
at night. It had been, thus far, mostly unsuccessful, but he reasoned if he
just kept at it, he would conquer his feelings.
“Come walk in the park with me,” he said to Viscount Saye, nearly the
second his cousin entered his study.
Saye ignored him and walked over to the bookshelf. “You own Thérèse
the Philosopher, yes?”
“I do not. A walk? Will you join me?”
“I am positive you must.” Saye looked over his shoulder from his
perusal of Darcy’s shelves. “I was with Sir Frederick this morning at our
club, and Mr George Boyer comes by and tells us that the author was his
great grandmother—”
“The author was a man.”
“The protagonist then,” Saye replied impatiently. “So Boyer rattles on
some nonsense about the truth in it, and he and Fred begin to argue over it,
so I told Fred, ‘Why not see if what he says is true? Darcy is sure to own
it’.”
“Alas, I do not,” Darcy replied. “I am not in the habit of filling my
family library with erotica.”
“Yet, you clearly know the story, else you should not have known it was
erotica,” Saye replied with a smirk.
Darcy rolled his eyes, ignoring the gibe. “Come with me to the park.”
Saye could not go easily. He insisted on looking over all the shelves,
heedless of the system of organisation that Darcy employed; he then
concluded the tome must be at Pemberley; and lastly, he decried walking as
a hopelessly common endeavour and suggested they ride.
Darcy waited
patiently while his cousin rattled away, secretly rejoicing in the effortless
expenditure of time, and at length the two gentlemen set out.
“I have never known you to be in such a fever to promenade during the
fashionable hour,” Saye remarked as they went. “Dare I say you are
prepared to find another lady to woo?”
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