“Aha, there you are!” Bingley’s voice boomed as Darcy entered Netherfield’s hall. “I suppose I dare not hope that you have waited to allow me the pleasure of taking you on a tour of Netherfield’s lands?” Bingley stood in mock sternness in the doorway of the morning room, his arms crossed and his brow lowered, glowering at his friend.

“No hope at all, Bingley,” he responded without contrition. “It’s this deuced autumn weather! It just pulls one out-of-doors.”

“Indeed?” queried Bingley imperiously, in obvious delight at the unusual experience of having the upper hand with his friend. “I rather thought it was the prospect of having to provide amusement for Caroline this morning that pushed you out! Lord knows, I would be off in a shot!” The hauteur Bingley had assumed was then replaced with a genuine frown as he continued. “But really, Darcy, I was very much looking forward to riding over the estate with you.”

“And you shall,” Darcy hastened to assure him. “I apologize for anticipating you, but I needed to encounter Netherfield for itself without seeing it through your eyes, as would happen on a joint tour. Well you know that you would be filling my ear with rhapsodies about this stream or that wood.” Darcy paused briefly at Bingley’s strangled objection to his scenario. “You know I am right! Such distractions would give me no opportunity truly to be of service to you.”

With a crooked smile, Bingley ruefully acknowledged the reasonableness of his friend’s excuse. “I know it is not, nor will it ever be, a Pemberley. But even I know it can be more than it is,” he responded. “The thing of it is, I have not the slightest idea where to begin.”