By Force of Instinct Read Free Page A

elizabeth Bennet at all, she of the cruel and spiteful words and the misjudgments. she was as misguided and capricious as all the other women he had known. He had taken her fine eyes and wit and spun them into a fantasy of a woman of real sense and feeling who would understand him, and now he knew that no such woman had ever existed.
    He was mortified for himself and furious with her, and the worst of it was that the instant he had laid eyes on her again, standing in front of the church, he had wanted her every bit as much as he ever had. He hated her for her power over him and despised himself for a weak fool.
    As attuned to her presence as he was, he could not fail to notice that she was lacking her usual sparkle that morning. He hoped that this meant that she had realized what a dreadful mistake she had made, and that she was going to pay for the rest of her life for listening to George Wickham’s lies and then spewing her venom all over Fitzwilliam Darcy. she would end up a poor spinster, dependent on the charity of her family, or married to some ignorant pig of a tradesman, she who could have been mistress of Pemberley. If she is suffering now, it is no more than she deserves, he thought with vindictive fury, and then closed his eyes in pain, knowing that all he had wanted when he had seen those dark circles beneath her eyes was to take her soft body into his arms and kiss those tempting lips, and to tell her that she need not worry, that he would take care of everything …
    But fantasies would not provide him any answers, he told himself grimly.
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    Abigail Reynolds
    And if his uncle said to him one more time, “It would be different if you were married and settled, but with a bachelor lifestyle, it simply will not do,” he would not be responsible for his actions. He could ignore Lady catherine’s repeated demands that he marry Anne immediately; he had a lifetime of practice at that, but to face the accusation that it was his fault that he was not married just at this bitter juncture was more than a man should have to bear. He realized that his fists were clenched, and that he had not heard a word that elizabeth’s embarrassment of a kinsman had servilely uttered—not that it was any loss.
    He could see that Georgiana was looking at him strangely. He took a deep breath to calm himself and forced a pleasant smile to his face, at which point she resumed the sullen expression that she had worn ever since her arrival, a reminder of her obvious disappointment with him for his inability to make all her problems disappear. What had happened to the sweet, docile girl she had been? sometimes he could still see that girl, but more often these days she seemed angry with him about one thing or another.
    colonel Fitzwilliam thought it was but a matter of her being at a trying age, but Darcy could not help suspecting that the whole George Wickham affair had something to do with it. Georgiana could not know, of course, how harshly he continued to castigate himself for his error in choosing Mrs.
    younge as her companion. The thought brought back the all too familiar refrain of reproaches: Why did I not question her references further? Why did I al ow myself to believe that her amiable manner implied impeccable morals?
    Why did I send Georgiana off with her so quickly, instead of keeping her under my observation for a longer period of time? Why did I give in and agree to let Georgiana have her own establishment in the first place when she was still so young? The entire situation was wholly my fault. no, on the whole, Darcy did not think that his life could be substantially worse.
    He was forced to reconsider this a few minutes later when he heard his aunt issue an invitation to Mr. collins and his party to come to rosings that evening. He ought to have expected as much; she had done so the previous two sundays as well, but he had thought that with so much of her family around her, her interest in having her pet clergyman fawn