“May I be of service?”
“Would you?” She looked relieved.
He laid down his fork quickly, then wiped his hands on his napkin. “Of course.”
She turned so that her back was to him, then reached up, pulling as much of her hair away as she could and exposing the length of her pale neck. He closed his eyes against the rush of desire that engulfed him—he could too easily imagine himself unfastening these problematic buttons even as he ran his lips over her nape—but then opened them again and set to work. She smelt delightful, sweet and floral and decidedly feminine.Good lord, stop before you embarrass yourself!
“What is it that you find to dislike in dancing itself?” Elizabeth asked him as he gently unwound the hair. “It can be undignified, and if your partner is the tedious sort, it is nothing short of agony.”
“Nothing like that,” he said, undoing a particularly tightly wound strand. “In fact, my feelings on dancing trace back to when I was only sixteen or seventeen years old.”
“Oh?”
“I had grown quite a lot that year,” he told her just as the last bit of hair came free. “Seemingly overnight, although I am sure it was not so. Suddenly it felt like I had a lot more elbows and knees to account for than previously. My father thought dance instruction would help me, but in the event, it did quite the opposite.”
She turned back to face the table with a smile of thanks. “Did it?”
He smiled faintly, remembering his younger self’s humiliation. “The dance master told me that he had never been so fortunate as to go to the African savannah but that I had given him as good a view of a giraffe cavorting about as he would likely ever see.” He smiled at her to show her it was an old embarrassment, and she laughed accordingly.
“Those childhood hurts do leave a mark, do they not? I can still recall when my father told us of Mr Benjamin Franklin’s kite experiment. He said that the hemp strands on the rope of his kite stood on end with the electric charge travelling through it and Jane exclaimed, ‘it must have looked like Lizzy’s hair!’”
Darcy gasped but managed to turn it into a chuckle, unable to imagine the very sedate Jane Bennet ever exclaiming anything, much less such an unkindness.
Elizabeth seemed to have read his mind. “Sisters are always capable of injuring one another, but in this case, I laughed and Jane cried, dismayed by her own cruelty. But the fact is, she was not incorrect. If it is not dressed properly, my hair can be quite wild—as you have just learnt first-hand—and back in those days, I would not sit still long enough for more than a plait.”
“I think you have the most beautiful hair I have ever seen.” His compliment was blurted out in the most inelegant manner imaginable and he reddened slightly at his own stupidity.“Fitzwilliam once told me that his sword was less sharp than my nose.”
“Your nose?” she cried out. “But it is a fine, noble sort of nose!”
“It was far less noble on the face of a twelve-year-old, I assure you.”
That made her laugh heartily, and he thought how strange it was to be hurling insults at himself so willingly.Anything to hear her laugh.
“My sisters used to say that I had such a boyish figure, they ought to dress me in breeches and pretend I was my father’s heir,” she told him.
Happily he stopped himself before uttering some inappropriate, albeit truthful, remark admiring her figure. “Um…my cousins teased me for my thinness as well,” he confessed. “Saye always wanted to see whether I could fit into things—cupboards and barrels, one leg of a pair of old breeches we found once. I once got stuck in a hollow log they made me climb into.”
She shivered. “Dreadful! I cannot bear small, confined spaces.”
“Then I shall not even dare to mention the spiders to you,” he said gravely.
“I have always liked spiders. Is that terribly odd for a lady? I used to cry when Hill killed them, and made her carry them gently outdoors instead.”
He laughed and admitted, “I shall not lie, Miss Elizabeth—that is peculiar.”
“You begin to see why my mother has always despaired of me,” she said with a cheerful sparkle in her eyes. “A frizzy-headed moppet with a fondness for spiders.”
“I find it charming,” he said quietly, but it might have been lost in the rustling about the table. Mrs Simpson had risen towithdraw with her lady guests. As was proper, the gentlemen, Darcy included, also rose and assisted the ladies in their leave-taking.
Elizabeth hurriedly dabbed her lips with her napkin then laid it on the table and stood, picking up her gloves as she did. “Until next time, sir.”
“Next time what?” Fitzwilliam pressed himself into their tête-à-tête. “Miss Elizabeth, what nonsense is this rapscallion tasking you with?”
“Nothing at all, sir, only speaking of spiders and the African savannah.” She gave Darcy a little private look that was thrilling, then left them.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“The African savannah?” Fitzwilliam asked, but Darcy would not gratify his curiosity. He only shrugged; he much preferred to lose himself in recollections of the scant time he had spent talking to Elizabeth and the brief but glorious moments spent touching her, helping her with her small problem.
