Who? Mr Darcy & Miss Sully Where? At Ashley's place, and then the park on wheel three. What? An afternoon stroll When? This afternoon. Rating? Frustratingly low. Open? It's a public place, so sure.
Although Miss Sully had slipped the note under his door late the previous evening, Darcy had not yet managed to formulate any sort of a response. The first time he'd read it through, he'd rushed it, continually skipping forward to see where it was going. Satisfied that it was going very well indeed, he'd taken the time to read it through more carefully. And then once more equally carefully. And just once more to make sure he wasn't mistaken.
Logically, he knew that he should be outraged, and he even started to respond to her letter in such a manner.It was not her position to express such feelings so candidly, and she could only cause embarrassment to them both by refusing to exercise a little more of a reserved air on the matter. Furthermore, he had not proposed to her, even if he knew that his every action was hinting in that direction. If this was some sort of manipulative attempt to swing the balance in her favour... perhaps she had been encouraged to write it by a meddling family member. He was beyond sick of society girls and their throwing themselves at him with false declarations purely because they wanted to marry well --
He stopped, scrunched up that draft of the letter, and tossed it into the bin.
He started a second letter, this time softer, gentler, more to the tone of her own but certainly holding back a lot more. If she had a letter where he was doting on her too obviously, it could easily be used against him, to force a proposal, or-
That one went into the bin, too.
He'd slept on it, and the next day he was feeling much more rational. Still, he wanted to see her for himself, to see if he could read in her expression or her manner that these words were all her own, all from the heart. He wanted to be sure that he was misjudging the situation, and that if she was 'throwing herself' at him, it was out of a genuine affection and nothing more.
So, that afternoon, without announcing his intention to visit beforehand, Darcy had decided he would just show up to see her. He was dressed for a walk, partly so he could claim to just be wandering past if he needed the excuse, but also because he really didn't think he trusted himself to be alone indoors with her after reading through her letter so many times. He paced the corridor outside her door for about thirty seconds, and finally resolved himself to knock.