The Price of Honor: A Pride and Prejudice Possibility
Carrie Mollenkopf
“Who the devil are you?” he demanded, expecting, but denied, an immediate response to his query. Instead, she merely continued to stare, as if some obvious, yet unspeakable flaw remained. Were his trousers still undone? Mortified, Darcy tempted to inspect, but was halted by the amusement in the lady’s reply.
“I should ask the same, but you were too.... preoccupied for an introduction,” insisted a musical voice, clearly bent upon restraining laughter.
Hardly amused, Darcy gave into his anger, applying insult to hide his embarrassment. “And being so, I should have been left some privacy. Is this what I should expect in Hertfordshire? Women with the manners of a goat?” he snapped, closing the distance between them so he smelled the sweetness of her breath. Clad in a diaphanous pale blue muslin, with chestnut hair coming undone from its pins, the woman before him appeared more sprite than human. However, her tone now altered, becoming pure Valkyrie as she returned his ire with her own.
“Me? A goat? It is you...Sir, that chooses to relieve himself in the woods, not I. I am sure my father will not be pleased to know that someone has used his boundary marker as a chamber pot!” she retorted, her face but inches from his own
“And who is this father, that allows his daughters to run about without chaperone? Indeed, I should want a word with him.”
“My father owns the land upon which you trespass, that is all that is needed to know, for I think you will not speak to him or anyone of this, now will you? Lest the issue of chaperonage result in something neither of us desire.”
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