vistas, stopping here and there to show her some delightful view, but he did not expect her to answer him and she felt herself begin to relax.
Halfway down the avenue, they came to a fountain and Elizabeth, feeling in need of a rest, sat on its brim.
He sat beside her and then, taking her hand, looked at her kindly.
‘There is something that makes you unhappy, I think,’ he said. ‘No, do not trouble to say it is not so, I can see it. In English society it is not always polite to discuss affairs of the heart but here, in Italy we think differently. You have no one to confide in here, but I am an experienced gentleman and you are a young lady a long way from home, and as your host, and your friend, too, I hope you will confide in me.’ His voice was soft and soothing, and it was balm to her troubled spirit. ‘It is Darcy, is it not?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she admitted reluctantly, and then she could hold the words back no longer and they came out in a torrent, pouring out of her like long pent-up waters breaking through a dam. ‘I don’t know what’s happened to him—to us. I thought we were in love… we were in love… When we were newly engaged, it was settled between us that we were to be the happiest couple in the world!’ she said, smiling suddenly at the remembrance. Then her smile faded. ‘But once we were married, everything changed.’
‘When did you notice it, this change in him?’ asked the Prince gently.
‘It’s difficult to say,’ she said, trailing her hand in the fountain and letting the cool water slip through her fingers. ‘Although no, perhaps not. It started on our wedding day. It was just after the ceremony. We were returning home from the church when I caught sight of his face in the carriage window and I saw that he looked tormented. I thought I must have been imagining it at the time and so I dismissed it, but now I think differently. I am sure that was when it began. I wondered if he had read something that troubled him but now I think that was not the case.’
‘Ah.’ He paused, thinking. ‘It was love at first sight, your affair?’ he asked.
‘No, far from it,’ she said. ‘In fact, when we first met each other we took an instant dislike to each other.’
‘No one could dislike you, I think,’ said the Prince.
‘Well, perhaps he did not dislike me, for it is true that at that point, he did not know me and so he could scarcely have any opinion regarding me, or at least regarding my character, but he thought me not handsome enough to dance with: “only tolerable”,’ said Lizzy, with a laugh, and then her laughter faded as she thought that, perhaps, he had returned to his first opinion.
‘And you were intrigued by this, yes? And challenged by it. So you tried to win his favour. I see how it must have happened. He is a rich and powerful man and you did not like to be dismissed by him, so you set out to charm him and win his favour.’
‘Quite the opposite,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I had no interest in him, and I certainly had no interest in charming him. What was he to me?’
‘A man with a large estate and a handsome income, and you ask, “What was he to me?”’ he said in surprise.
‘He was not my friend or my neighbour, and as for having a large estate and a handsome income, what of it?’ said Elizabeth. ‘How can it matter, when set beside rudeness and arrogance and disdain for the feeling of others?’
‘And did you tell him that he was rude and arrogant and disdainful?’ asked the Prince.
‘Yes, I did,’ admitted Elizabeth with a rueful smile.
‘I see,’ he said, becoming thoughtful.
Elizabeth turned enquiring eyes towards him.
‘What do you see?’ she asked.
‘I see how it happened,’ he said, looking at her with sympathy. ‘With some men it is so. They do not want the easy conquest; they want the challenge. That challenge is hard to find for a man like Darcy. Women seek him out. They flatter him and praise him, they throw themselves in his path. I see you smile. You have seen it, no?’
‘Yes,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I have. There was a woman in England, the sister of his best friend; she was always trying to attract his