“Mr. Darcy!” Miss Bingley called, her voice carrying across the clearing. She positioned herself at the entrance to the arch, adjusting her bonnet with studied elegance. “Do come and escort me through. The path looks treacherous, and I should feel ever so much safer on your arm.”
Elizabeth saw her opportunity. While Miss Bingley's attention was fixed on claiming Mr. Darcy, she could slip through the arch unnoticed and avoid any botanical entanglements.
She moved quickly toward the opposite side of the structure, intending to pass through before anyone noticed.
She was not quick enough.
Mr. Darcy, apparently having the same instinct to escape while Miss Bingley was occupied, had approached from the other direction. They met directly beneath the arch, both freezing as they realized their miscalculation.
Mistletoe swayed gently overhead.
Miss Bingley's shriek of outrage echoed across the grove.
“What—how—” She stared at them with naked horror, her carefully laid plans crumbling before her eyes. “Mr. Darcy, I asked you to escortme!”
“I was merely—” Mr. Darcy began.
“We were both attempting to avoid—” Elizabeth started at the same moment.
They stopped, looked at each other, and Elizabeth felt an absurd urge to laugh.
Miss Bingley's face had gone the color of a thundercloud.
The rest of the party had noticed now. Mrs. Bennet was clutching Jane's arm with barely contained glee. Lydia was bouncing on her heels. Mr. Wickham watched with an expression Elizabeth could not interpret. Even Mrs. Hurst had roused from her habitual lethargy to observe.
“Well,” Mr. Bingley said cheerfully, apparently oblivious to his sister's distress. “Tradition is tradition! Cannot have bad luck following us into the new year.”
Elizabeth's cheeks burned. She glanced at Mr. Darcy and found him looking back at her, his expression caught somewhere between mortification and something else—something warmer that made her pulse flutter.
“We could simply step apart,” she offered, though her voice came out softer than intended. “Claim transitory occupation, as before.”
“We could.” He did not move.
Neither did she.
The moment stretched, fragile and charged. Elizabeth was acutely aware of every detail—the cold air, the gentle sway of the mistletoe, the way Mr. Darcy's dark eyes had fixed upon her face as though memorizing it.
“Perhaps,” he said, his voice low enough that only she could hear, “a compromise might satisfy tradition without causing undue... spectacle.”
Before Elizabeth could ask what he meant, he reached for her hand.
His fingers were warm even through her glove. He lifted her hand slowly, deliberately, his gaze never leaving hers. Elizabeth forgot to breathe.
He bowed his head and pressed his lips to her knuckles.
The kiss was brief. Feather-light. Perfectly proper.
And yet Elizabeth felt it through every nerve in her body.
When he straightened, his composure had slipped just enough for her to see the flush creeping up his neck, the slight unsteadiness in his breath. He was not unaffected. He was not merely performing for the crowd.
He had wanted to do that.
And heaven help her, she had wanted him to.
“There,” Mr. Darcy said, releasing her hand with visible reluctance. “Tradition satisfied.”
“Most... adequately,” Elizabeth managed.
