“The whole neighborhood?” Caroline repeated, her voice climbing an octave. “Charles, surely you cannot mean?—”
“Every family of consequence,” Mr. Bingley confirmed, entirely missing his sister's horror. “It shall be the event of the season. Miss Bennet—Jane—do you not agree?”
Jane murmured something soft and approving. Mr. Bingley looked as though he had received a benediction from heaven itself.
“We shall bring in greenery,” he continued, warming to his theme. “Holly and ivy and—what is the other one? The one with the white berries?”
“Mistletoe,” Caroline said. Something flickered across her expression, a calculating gleam that vanished almost as quickly as it appeared. She tilted her head and smiled in a way that made Elizabeth inexplicably uneasy.
“Mistletoe! Yes, excellent. Very festive.”
“Indeed,” Caroline murmured, still wearing that peculiar smile. “Very festive.”
“It is traditional,” Mr. Bingley said cheerfully, oblivious to his sister's sudden interest. “And tradition is the heart of the season, is it not, Darcy?”
Mr. Darcy, who had been studying his untouched tea with the intensity of a man seeking divine guidance, looked up with evident reluctance. “I suppose it has its merits.”
“There, you see? Even Darcy approves.”
“I did not say I approved. I said it has its merits.”
“Same thing,” Mr. Bingley declared, and returned to beaming at Jane.
“We shall have card tables,” Caroline announced. “And perhaps a poetry recitation. I understand Lord Ashworth hosted one last season that was quite the sensation.”
“Poetry,” Lydia groaned. “How dull.”
“Poetry can be most instructive,” Mary interjected. “Fordyce speaks eloquently on the improving nature of verse.”
“Fordyce,” Lydia repeated, wrinkling her nose. “I should rather listen to shepherds and flowers than Fordyce.”
“Literature is never dull to those with cultivated minds,” Caroline replied, looking as though she could not decide whether Mary was an ally or a further embarrassment.
“Then I am glad my mind is uncultivated. I would rather dance.”
“Dancing can be arranged,” Mr. Bingley offered. “We have a perfectly good pianoforte.”
Caroline's eye twitched again. Elizabeth was beginning to suspect it might become a permanent condition.
“If we are to decorate,” Caroline said, steering the conversation back to safer ground, “we must do so properly. Greenery arranged as it is done in London. Elegant. Refined. Nothing that might suggest—” She glanced at Lydia. “—rusticity.”
“I do hope you will not attempt to match the holly to your gown,” Elizabeth said mildly. “It would be impossible to maintain harmony of color all evening.”
The silence that followed was profound.
Darcy made a sound—half cough, half something else entirely—and raised his teacup to his lips with suspicious haste.
Caroline's smile could have frozen the Thames. “How very... droll, Miss Elizabeth.”
“I do try.”
Jane shot Elizabeth a reproachful look. Elizabeth ignored it. Some opportunities were simply too perfect to waste.
The tea continued, and somehow, through a series of conversational maneuvers Elizabeth could not entirely follow, she found herself standing near the mantelpiece, examining a porcelain figurine, while the rest of the party clustered around Mr. Bingley's plans for holiday merriment.
She was reaching for a second figurine, a rather ugly shepherdess undoubtedly purchased for its expense rather than its beauty, when a low voice spoke behind her.
“Miss Bennet.”
