“Oh, I do! But do you see any in Meryton? I say we must take our gentlemen where we can find them.”
Mary looked scandalised. “Lydia, you cannot say such things.”
“I can and I will,” Lydia replied. “If no officers appear soon, I refuse to sit at home stitching hems until I am grey.”
Elizabeth bit back a laugh.
Charlotte clucked and wagged a finger. “Lydia is plain enough, but I still say that you, Lizzy, are more intrigued than you will say.”
“Not a bit of it!” she protested.
“I have known you for many years, Lizzy, and I assure you I can spot the signs. A certain stillness. A certain tilt of the head. A certain way in which you pretend to be wholly uninterested in a gentleman until the subject is exhausted.”
Elizabeth gave her a long, level look. “You are mistaken.”
“I seldom am.”
Jane’s soft laugh betrayed her. “Lizzy is more curious than she admits. But that does not mean anything beyond simple curiosity.”
“Oh, certainly,” Charlotte said, threading her needle. “One must always maintain reasonable curiosity. Especially when the gentleman in question has already been seen climbing out of his carriage with a dog the size of a large pony at his heels.”
Elizabeth’s head snapped up before she caught herself.
Charlotte’s eyebrows lifted. “Ah. There it is.”
Jane pressed her lips together, eyes shining. “Lizzy may not love horses, but she adores dogs, the smelly things. The bigger and louder, the better.”
Elizabeth set her work aside with deliberate calm. “Curiosity, Charlotte, is the mark of a lively mind. If you cannot distinguish that from admiration, I despair for your future.”
Charlotte laughed. “Then consider me thoroughly chastened. Still, if Mr Darcy proves dull, we may all be honest and put him quietly aside.”
Kitty shook her head. “I hope he is not dull. That would be so disappointing.”
Lydia clapped her hands. “He cannot be dull if Sir William called him impressive.”
Elizabeth rose and crossed to the window as if to escape the rising cacophony. Sunlight fell across the fields beyond, pale and sharp, the way September light often was. Somewhere out there, she imagined, stood a tall, serious man who had already provoked entirely too much conversation for someone she had not yet met.
She inhaled slowly.
Charlotte’s voice drifted after her. “Lizzy, if you stare at the horizon any harder, we shall conclude you are waiting for him to call.”
Elizabeth did not turn. “I assure you, I am waiting for nothing.”
Charlotte’s amused hum made Jane cover another smile.
Elizabeth lifted her chin one fraction higher, aware her composure was slipping in ways Charlotte saw too clearly.
“Nothing at all,” Elizabeth repeated.
Chapter Five
Bingley plunged straight intothe crowd the instant they crossed the threshold. “Look at them, Darcy—half the county turned out. Meryton thrives on gossip and speculation. We have given them both.”
Darcy followed because there was no place to stand without blocking someone’s way. Bingley was already clasping hands and offering cheerful bows, exclaiming over people Darcy had never seen in his life. Names flew past him with no faces attached—Long, Goulding, Purvis—each greeted as if Bingley had known them for years.
A woman in a plum-coloured gown dipped in a curtsy, and Bingley returned it warmly. “Good evening, Mrs Long. Yes, yes, I have brought my friend with me. Darcy, this is Mrs Long.”
Darcy inclined his head. Mrs Long seized the opening at once.
