Page 120 of Pride and Prejudice Resolutions

The Colonel.

He did not see her immediately. His attention remained fixed on the object in his hand, a single, small parcel wrapped in coarse brown paper, tied with a frugal piece of string. A gentleman, the son of an Earl, carrying his own purchase on Bond Street? It was a social crime akin to walking past St James's Palace in one's shirt sleeves.

Caroline planted her boots firmly on the pavement, effectively blocking his escape route.

"I laboured under the impression that beasts of burden were restricted to the road, sir," she announced, her voice pitching high to carry over the street noise. "Yet here you are on the footpath, doing a porter's work."

He looked up. His eyes, dark and sharply intelligent, swept over her violet pelisse, taking in the brown hem, the velvet, and the feathers. He did not wince, though the corner of his mouth twitched, a danger signal she remembered well. He tucked the shameful brown parcel under his arm with the casual arrogance of a monarch holding a sceptre, showing no embarrassment whatsoever.

"And I laboured under the impression the Royal Menagerie was not due in town until May," he replied, his tone smooth as glass. "Yet here stands the rarest bird in full plumage."

Her spine stiffened against the whalebone of her stays. "I see your wit is as threadbare as your cuffs. Tell me, do you carry that parcel for a wager? Surely even a man of your reduced circumstances can afford a penny for a delivery boy."

"I prefer to ensure the safety of my acquisitions personally." He stepped to the left, attempting to bypass her with a tip of his hat. "Unlike those who trust their valuables to a servant already buckling under the weight of questionable millinery."

She moved to the left as well, the feathers on her bonnet quivering with indignation. "My millinery is the height of fashion. Madame Fanchon assured me this shade of violet is all the rage in Paris."

"If by 'Paris' she meant a bruised plum left too long in the orchard, then Madame Fanchon is a woman of integrity." He dusted a microscopic speck of lint from his lapel, his demeanour infuriatingly calm. "You are blocking the thoroughfare, Miss Bingley. People are beginning to mistake you for a toll gate."

The use of her formal title, delivered with such precise, chilly courtesy, annoyed her more than an insult. He maintained the high ground of manners while dragging her into the mud.

"I am merely admiring the spectacle," she countered, snapping her fan open with a crack that startled a passing clergyman. "It is rare to see a member of the aristocracy performing manual labour. What is in the paper, Colonel? A single candle? A crust of bread? Or have you taken to mending your own stockings?"

"It is a volume on the history of silence," he drawled, looking past her ear as if bored by the very air she exhaled. "I intended to send it to your address, Miss Bingley, but I feared you might mistake it for a coaster."

"Ha! I possess more etiquette in my little finger than you retain in your entire ancient, crumbling family tree." She laughed, a loud, bright sound that caused a pair of dandies to turn their heads. "At least my family can pay for our eccentricities. Youwear your pride like a coat of armour, but we both know it is the only coat you have left."

He leaned in slightly, though he kept his hands clasped on the parcel. "Wealth screams, Miss Bingley. Breeding whispers. At present, your ensemble is shouting so loudly I can barely hear the traffic."

"Better to shout and be heard than to whisper and be forgotten." She gestured grandly with her fan, the movement swift and sharp, encompassing the street, the shops, the world that belonged to those with ready coin. "You sneer at my money, but without people like me spending it, half of London would starve. Including, I suspect, the younger sons of Earls."

"I assure you, my appetite is modest." He cast a pitying glance at the overflowing bags and boxes in the hands of her gasping maid. "Unlike your appetite for feathers. Have you left any birds alive in the kingdom, or is this a total extinction?"

In her haste to deliver a scathing retort, Caroline gestured too widely. Her reticule swung on its ribbon, striking the top of the maid's precarious pile. A small, tissue-wrapped box, containing a bottle of scent costing more than a labourer's yearly wage, tumbled from the stack.

It landed with a soft thud near the Colonel's scuffed Hessians.

Caroline froze. She waited. Schmidt was incapacitated by hatboxes, her arms full, her face red. The laws of chivalry were clear. The laws of Society were immutable. A gentleman stooped. A gentleman retrieved.

He looked at the box. He looked at her. He remained perfectly upright, indistinguishable from a statue in the park.

"Well?" she demanded, tapping her foot on the paving stone.

"Well what, Miss Bingley?"

"Do you intend to retrieve it? Or do you plan to leave a lady's property in the dirt?"

He sighed, a long, weary exhalation that suggested he was dealing with a particularly slow child. "I fear I cannot. I suffer from a debilitating injury."

Caroline blinked, her mouth falling open. "You were walking perfectly fine a moment ago. You sidestepped me with the agility of a fencing master."

"It is a recurring affliction." His face became a mask of solemn, mocking tragedy. "A terrible strain of the lower back. It occurred only a few days past, whilst carrying an unreasonable number of parcels for a woman who possessed more guineas than sense. The physician prescribed strict avoidance of dropped trifles."

She gasped, scandalised. The impudence! "You refuse? You honestly refuse?"

"Doctor's orders."

"I could pay you," she snapped, reaching into her reticule, her fingers closing around a shilling. "Since you are already carrying parcels, perchance you wish to make a profession of it? A shilling to pick up the box. Is that not the going rate for a porter?"