“Exactly.” Bingley turned toward the bar. “She’s not dancing, you know. Elizabeth.”
Darcy followed the direction of his friend’s gaze. And there she was—the woman with the inconvenient voice and the inconvenient question. So her name was Elizabeth. He didn’t ask how Bingley knew that. He didn’t want to know.
She stood at the bar with her fingers circling the rim of her glass, her expression somewhere between amused and unimpressed.
“You remember her. From the Q&A.”
Darcy didn’t respond.
“She’s Jane’s sister,” Bingley added, as if it were obvious. “Honestly, I think you two would get on. She’s sharp. You like sharp.”
So, she was Jane’s sister. Darcy sighed inwardly. There hadn’t been a day in recent memory when Bingley hadn’t found some excuse to bring up Jane. If he had attended that ridiculous “catch them young” school programme himself, perhaps he could have spared Bingley the lovestruck dilemma he now found himself entangled in, he thought
Now Bingley wasn’t just gloating about his new romance—he was attempting to play matchmaker.
How much worse could the night possibly get?
Darcy steadied his glass, kept his eyes ahead, and said, “She’s not handsome enough to tempt me.”
“No one said anything about temptation,” Bingley replied, unfazed. “Just a polite dance.”
“I’ve had enough of fun,” Darcy replied coolly.
The words were sharp and surgical.
“You’re just scared you’ve met someone who challenged you,” Bingley said.
Darcy didn’t rise to it. He knew this game. Reverse psychology was one of Bingley’s favourite tricks. But tonight, it wasn’t going to work.
“I’m not dancing with a sharp-tongued stranger to prove a point,” he said. “Go dance with your partner. I’ve got better things to do.”
Bingley rolled his eyes and gave up, melting back into the crowd with a shake of his head.
Unbeknownst to Darcy, Elizabeth had turned just in time to catch the worst of it.
Her hand froze on her glass. She didn’t blink or flinch, but the bartender, observant and merciful, slid another drink her way.
She accepted it with a tight smile and a nod that could have meant anything. Of course, he’d said it loud enough for her to hear, she decided. It wasn’t a mistake. It was a message.
Punishment, maybe. For the question. For not being impressed. For not being another adoring face in the audience.
She lifted her glass in a slow, silent toast.
Message received.
Challenge accepted.
Chapter TWO
ELIZABETH SQUINTEDat her phone screen, blinking against the light as if it had personally betrayed her. She was home, slouched at an angle in her tiny studio apartment on Forsyth Street, Lower East Side, with the faint hum of traffic outside and the louder, insistent hum of wounded pride in her chest. A near-empty glass of white wine sat on the windowsill. Possibly her third. Possibly fourth. Who was counting?
She certainly wasn’t. Not her drinks, not her regrets.
Fitzwilliam bloody Darcy.
It had taken less than two hours for a man she’d never spoken to before that night to become the primary cause of her rage, confusion, and obsessive scrolling.
Her phone screen was a carousel of second-hand mortification. Clips from the gala had made their way online with the efficiency of plague. Some of her, mid-question. Some of Darcy, standing like a Greek statue that had Googled empathy once. But the one going viral—the one already memed into oblivion—was a polished snippet of him smiling faintly and saying:
