With a decided spring to her step, she made her way to the breakfast room. To her satisfaction, it was Darcy, discomposingly handsome in all his sartorial splendour, whom she first espied upon entering. He halted in his path from the sideboard to bow. She smiled warmly and expressed her sincere pleasure to see him. That was as long as her satisfaction lasted.
Darcy continued on his way, revealing a wider view of the room—in the midst of which sat Miss Eliza Bennet. All visions of dancing at Lady du Grallier’s next ball evaporated in the blink of an eye.
“Oh, you are not dead.”
Several objections went up about the table, though the lady herself looked only amused.
“You see, Miss Bingley? I am not without accomplishments, after all.”
Caroline had forgotten, in the months she had been away, how very much she detested this woman. “Forgive me, madam. I was informed yesterday you had passed away.” She threw Colonel Fitzwilliam a withering glance, but he only shrugged. “I amvastlyrelieved to discover that is not the case. I trust you are well?”
“Very well, I thank you.” She smiled at Darcy, and he, to Caroline’s disgust, returned it. With a burgeoning sense of foreboding, she turned to her brother for explanation—and was startled a second time to see Miss Eliza’s sister.
“Miss Bennet! What a surprise! Are you well also?”
The terminally insipid bore replied that she was, her smile revealing no hint of discomfort to be breakfasting with her erstwhile suitor and his new paramour, her sister. Beginning to suspect she was overlooking some salient information, Caroline edged into her seat and turned an enquiring look upon her brother.
“Louisa wrote to me of your decision, Charles.” He blanched, deepening her suspicion. “I came as soon as I was able. I naturally assumed matters had been forestalled when I heard of Miss Eliza’s passing, but…well, thankfully,I was misinformed about that. May I assume congratulations are in order after all?”
Charles had progressed from looking pale to looking positively unwell.“Yes. I am engaged to Miss Bennet.”
Caroline held her smile fixed in place, her eyes locked with her brother’s beseeching ones. “MissJane Bennet,” she replied, attempting to keep the enquiry from her tone but raising an eyebrow slightly in question.
“Yes,” he repeated, this time reaching for Jane’s hand and patting it as though to prove a point.
While Caroline could not deny her preference for the meek and tractable Jane Bennet as a sister over the insufferable younger alternative, an alliance witheitherof them would inevitably mean the sinking of the Bingley name in the eyes of the world.She offered perfunctory congratulations and turned her attention to Darcy in the hope he might yet be able to prevent the union. “What think you of Charles’ news, Mr Darcy?”
“I am very happy for him.”
He seemed in earnest, which vexed her further still. “Perhaps, when Charles next visits Pemberley, he will bring his new relations with him. His mother, mayhap, or his aunt and uncle from Cheapside.”
“They would be very welcome. It would not do, I am sure you agree, for me to begin excluding Bingley’s relations from Pemberley.”
“Certainly not.” She selected a muffin and concentrated on buttering it.
“Oh!” Miss Eliza exclaimed. “I shall no longer be able to travel with my aunt and uncle!”
“You were due to travel?” Darcy enquired.
“Yes, in a few weeks. To Derbyshire, as it happens.”
“Think you they would accept an invitation to suspend their travels for a few days to visit with us?”
Caroline’s muffin abruptly wedged itself in her craw, and she suffered several exceedingly uncomfortable moments attempting to repress the consequent sputtering cough.
“I think they would be delighted if all our plans allow. I should dearly love to receive them.”
Caroline placed her trembling hands in her lap, out of sight. “Miss Eliza, are you planning to travel to Pemberley with my brother and Miss Bennet?”
“No, Miss Bingley,” Darcy answered for her, unequivocallyextinguishing all Caroline’s aspirations to distinction with his next dozen words. “Miss Elizabeth will be travelling to Pemberley with me after we wed.”
How utterly, stupendously marvellous!She glared askance at her brother. This, then, was the reason for his earlier discomfiture. How on earth the tragic buffoon had ended betrothed to the wrong sister she dared not suppose.
“What simply wonderful news,” she offered as graciously as she was able. Oh, how she reviled the pity overspreading Miss Eliza’s countenance—so much so, it quite overshadowed her reason for a moment. “Your catalogue of accomplishments certainly increases, Miss Eliza. Not yet deadandbetrothed to a man of great fortune. You will be quite the envy of society.”
She heard someone, Colonel Fitzwilliam perchance, suck in his breath, but she only continued eating her muffin. What had she to lose now?
“I could not agree more, Miss Bingley,” Darcy said. “Being alive and being mine are presently my favourite of all Miss Elizabeth’s accomplishments.”
