Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief. “Do you think Darcy will notice?”
“My dear girl, “said Mrs Gardiner, “your husband is apparently blind to just about everything where you are concerned! I daresay you could string the pieces together and hang them as bunting, and he would not blame you for it.”
This comment, after a short, shocked silence, set them all off into the peals of laughter that consumed them still when Mr Darcy and Mr Gardiner entered the room. Having the most direct view of the door, Mary noticed them first and watched with considerable trepidation as Mr Darcy took in the scene.
It was her uncle who first spoke. “It seems we need not have been concerned for their entertainment, after all, Darcy. They appear to have been amusing themselves perfectly well without us.”
All four of the other women started and span around.
“So it would seem,” Mr Darcy said, his gaze fixed upon Elizabeth as he crossed the room and came around the piano to discover the source of their amusement.
Mary fought the absurd impulse to whimper.
Elizabeth only grimaced contritely—and barely so. “Forgive me. I was a little too eager to begin dancing.”
“You intended to dance?” he enquired gravely, adding, when she nodded, “Without me?”
Elizabeth broke into an exceptionally mischievous smile. “Yes, I felt a great inclination to seize the opportunity to dance a reel.”
Mary observed Miss Darcy suck in her breath and quite agreed with her apprehension. She thought she might cry when Mr Darcy turned his piercing gaze upon her—until he smiled. Then she thought she might swoon.
“Mary, would you be so kind as to play for us?”
She nodded mutely, but he could not have seen, for his eyes were already upon Elizabeth again.
“I am suddenly tempted to dance myself.”
Mary watched, incredulous, as Elizabeth accepted his proffered hand and stepped clear of the broken bust.
“Yes, mind not old Tobias,” Mr Darcy said, so dryly it almost belied the glint in his eye. “He only built the place.”
Elizabeth was yet smiling over that remark when all the chairs hadbeen pushed aside, and her husband whisked her with improbable dignity into the first figure of a most undignified reel.
Thursday 6 August 1812, Derbyshire
Elizabeth returned to her bedchamber to find her aunt as she had left her, wandering the room, peering curiously at everything. She closed the door behind her. “There, he knows you are here and will not disturb us or wander into the room in his undress.”
Mrs Gardiner looked at her in mild surprise. “He does not knock before entering?”
“Not usually,” she answered, sitting on the bed and curling her feet beneath her.
Her aunt turned fully towards her, her surprise transformed into alarm. “He ought to! Do not be afraid to ask it of him.”
“I have no wish for him to knock first. We are very easy with each other. We come and go as we please between all our rooms.”
Her aunt looked decidedly sceptical. “Familiarity is one thing—privacy is quite another. What if you are…you know…?”
“I have a separate room for my toilette.”
“No, no—well, yes, that is bad enough, but...what if you are unclothed?”
Elizabeth laughed. “Well, forgive me, but that is often the point of his coming in.”
Her aunt’s eyebrows shot up divertingly. “Indeed! I did mean to enquire whether you were yet comfortable with the intimacies of married life, but I take it you have overcome any trepidation in that quarter?”
She nodded, unable to keep from grinning.
“Lizzy, you look unpardonably smug.”
