Mr. Bennet lowered his newspaper at last. “My dear Mrs. Bennet, if Lizzy manages to capture Mr. Darcy, I shall be forced to revise my entire understanding of human nature. The man appears allergic to enjoyment.”
“You are no help at all, Mr. Bennet.”
“I am an excellent help. I help by staying out of the way and making unhelpful observations.” He turned a page. “Lizzy, you have my permission to refuse Mr. Darcy when he inevitably proposes in a fit of besotted confusion.”
“He is not going to propose, Papa.”
“Of course not. That would require him to form a facial expression other than disapproval, and we cannot have that.”
Elizabeth laughed despite herself. The sound came out too loud, too bright. She pressed her lips together.
Mrs. Bennet huffed. “You are both impossible. Mark my words—by Christmas, I shall have two daughters engaged. Two!” She raised two fingers for emphasis. “And then we shall see who is laughing.”
“Almost certainly still me,” Mr. Bennet declared.
Elizabeth escapedto the hallway the moment propriety allowed.
The letter lay on the side table where Kitty had abandoned it. Elizabeth traced the edge of the paper with her fingertip.
A tea at Netherfield.
She should be pleased. She was pleased. Jane deserved every happiness, and the invitation confirmed what Elizabeth had observed at the ball: his affection was genuine, his intentions honorable.
And yet.
She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes.
Mr. Darcy's face rose unbidden in her mind. Dark eyes, sharp jaw, that peculiar intensity he carried like a second coat. He had been insufferable at the assembly: proud, dismissive, and far too aware of his own consequence. She had disliked him on principle.
But at the ball...
There, he had been different. Not charming. But his gaze had followed her across the room with an attention she could not quite explain. When they danced, his hand had been steady, his conversation stilted but not unkind. He had looked at her as though she intrigued him.
As though he could not decide whether to flee or to stay.
Elizabeth pressed her hands to her cheeks. They burned.
“This is absurd,” she whispered. “He is proud and disagreeable and thinks himself above everyone in the county. I do not care what he thinks of me.”
Her pulse, inconveniently, disagreed.
She remembered the way he had held himself during their set. Cautious. As though she were a flame and he could not decide whether to warm his hands or step back from the fire.
She remembered his voice, low and measured, asking whether she enjoyed country dances. And when she had returned with a jest, had he smiled? Almost.
Her own heart had beaten faster at that expression, quite against her will.
“He is nothing to me,” she told the empty hallway. “A proud, silent, difficult man who happens to be Mr. Bingley's friend. Nothing more.”
The words rang hollow even to her own ears.
She straightened her shoulders. Tomorrow she would go to Netherfield. She would support Jane, endure Miss Bingley, and treat Mr. Darcy with cool, distant civility. She would give him no reason to stare, no cause for further attention. She would be perfectly composed.
She would not think about his dark eyes or his almost-smile or the way his hand had rested at the small of her back.
Not at all.
She picked up the invitation and read it once more. The words swam before her eyes.
