He stared at her. “Upon his own account, to begin with,” he said, more stiffly than he intended. “Upon the universal acknowledgment of everyone who has met him in town. Upon the king’s letters to him—”
“You have seen those letters?” she cut in.
“I have not asked to inspect his correspondence. But I know—”
“You knowofthem,” she supplied. “As much as you knowofThurnia. Or of me.”
“That is hardly the same thing,” he protested.
“Is it not?” Her brows arched. “Let us compare. You have never seen Prince Adrian in Thurnia? Or met his family?”
Darcy sighed. “No.”
“You have never seen him in a crown, or upon a throne, or doing anything that could not be equally done by any other well-dressed gentleman in London.”
“That is not the point—”
“And yet,” she continued inexorably, “you accept that he is a Thurnian prince.”
“Because heis,” Darcy said, exasperated. “Because every circumstance of his life agrees with it. Because his family acknowledges him; because hissovereign employed him; because from the time he first came to England he has been treated as such by every person of rank and consequence.”
“Which you have learned entirely fromhim,” she replied. “And from the time I could first understand anything, my uncle told me that I was a Thurnian princess. Letters came from Thurnia under seal, addressed to my uncle.”
“Haveyouread these letters?” he asked, echoing her inquiry.
She shook her head. “No. But every circumstance ofmylife has agreed with whatIhave been told, yet you will not accept that I am who I say I am.”
He disliked exceedingly the way that sounded.
“Your uncle may have been misinformed,” he said. “Or imposed upon.”
“And Prince Adrian may be an impostor,” she answered serenely. “Perhaps he is only Mr. Adrian Something, who found that ‘Your Highness’ sits more pleasantly upon the ear than ‘sir.’”
“That is absurd,” Darcy said sharply. “He is received everywhere as what he is. Ambassadors do not grow upon hedges; any attempt at imposture would have been exposed long ago.”
“Just so,” she said. “He is believed, because from the beginning everyone agreed to treat him as if he were a prince. You do not require to see his cradle, or his christening robe, because theconsequencesof his birth are publicly visible. You see the result and infer the cause.”
“Precisely.”
“And with me,” she went on, “you have the opposite. You have the cause—my father’s birth and rank, my uncle’s word, the king’s letters—and you refuse to allow the consequence, merely because it has not been paraded before your club.”
“My club has nothing to do with it,” he said, stung.
“No? What, then, makes the difference? You know Mr. Adrian is a Thurnian prince because he told you so, and because his family, whom you have never met, has always treated him as one. You know that I amnota Thurnian princess because I have also told you so and my family always treated me as one.”
“Your family treated you as Miss Bennet of Longbourn,” he objected.
“There was no need for them to do otherwise,” she said. “My mother died when I was born and my father soon after; their marriage was not popular and my uncle was pleased to have me stay with his family. Now I am at last to join my father's family, and the first gentleman beyond my own acquaintance to hear the story looks at me as if I have run mad.”
He had the uncomfortable sense of being briskly arranged in the wrong while his principles were all loudly protesting that he was right.
“It is not madness I apprehend,” he said. “Only error.”
“Because Prince Adrian told you there were no princesses,” she concluded. “Tell me, Mr. Darcy, how much did you know of him before he made that pronouncement? Were you personally acquainted with his entire family? Had you visited Thurnia? Counted its royal offspring?”
He frowned. “I knew enough.”
She spread her hands. “The only difference between us is that he is a man and I am a woman.”