Page 143 of Pride and Prejudice Resolutions

She marched upstairs and pounded on his door.

"Charles! We are leaving in five minutes. If you are not dressed, I shall attend alone and let Society assume the worst."

The door flew open. Charles stood before her in shirt sleeves, one boot on, the other in his hand, and his cravat hanging around his neck like a noose awaiting deployment.

"I cannot find my other boot!"

"It is on your foot, Charles."

He looked down. "Oh! So it is! How marvellous!"

Fifteen minutes later, because nothing in the Bingley household ever occurred on schedule, they arrived at Hyde Park. The morning was crisp, the sky a pale wash of grey and gold. Rotten Row stretched before them, a wide dirt path flanked by trees still bare from winter but showing the first tentative hints of green.

And there, sitting astride a horse that looked as though it had been carved from granite and bad temper, was Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam.

He wore civilian riding clothes: a dark brown coat, buckskin breeches, and tall boots that had been polished to within an inch of their life. His horse, the infamous Black Thunder, stood seventeen hands high, black as coal, was calculating the quickest route to murder.

The Colonel looked equally forbidding.

"You are late, Miss Bingley."

Caroline urged her mount, a showy chestnut mare named Seraphina, hired at ruinous expense from the most fashionable stable in London, forward until she was level with him.

"We are twelve minutes late, Colonel. Hardly a capital offence."

"In the army, twelve minutes is the difference between victory and death."

"Fortunate, then, that we are in a park and not a battlefield."

Charles, who had somehow managed to mount his horse without falling off, trotted up beside them with a grin that could have lit the Thames. "Colonel! Good morning! Splendid weather! Is that your horse? He looks like he wants to eat me!"

"He does," the Colonel confirmed. "I advise you to keep your distance. Black Thunder dislikes men in shiny buttons. He finds them offensive."

Charles glanced down at his gleaming brass buttons, his face falling. "Oh. Should I take them off?"

"Unless you wish to ride naked, Mr Bingley, I suggest you simply avoid any sudden movements."

Caroline suppressed a smile. "Shall we proceed, Colonel? Or did you summon me here to discuss equine fashion preferences?"

His mouth curved. "We proceed. Stay close, Miss Bingley. Rotten Row can be treacherous for those unaccustomed to it."

"I am an excellent rider."

"I am sure you are. I have no doubt you handle your mare with all the grace and skill you apply to every other aspect of your life."

"Is that a compliment, Colonel?"

"It is an observation. Whether it is a compliment depends entirely on how well this ride concludes."

He nudged Black Thunder into a trot. Caroline followed, Seraphina moving beneath her with the high stepping precision of a horse that knew it was being admired.

Behind them, Charles called out cheerfully, "Wait for me! My boot is slipping!"

The disaster, Caroline would reflect later, began exactly four minutes into their ride. It began, as most disasters do, with good intentions and a complete absence of common sense. They had been trotting sedately along Rotten Row, nodding to the few other riders brave enough to face the morning chill, when Charles Bingley spotted a dog.

Not just any dog. A small, white, fluffy abomination, a mobile cloud with legs. It trotted across the path some thirty yards ahead, pursued by a flustered lady's maid who was clutching her bonnet and shrieking in a pitch that could shatter glass.

"Oh!" Charles cried, his voice bright with misguided heroism. "The poor creature is loose! I shall retrieve it!"