The set ended, and Darcy escorted Elizabeth to where Bingley was speaking to Jane. His friend asked for Elizabeth’s hand for the second set; Darcy felt obliged to petition Jane. She was a pleasant partner, although Darcy found his attention wandering to wherever Elizabeth was. The half-hour set could not pass fast enough, and Darcy returned Jane to her mother. Having no desire to be paraded by Mrs Bennet to her neighbours, he bowed, though with a smile, and was about to walk away when he saw that Elizabeth’s hand was claimed for the third set.
What am I to do now?Elizabeth would tell him to give himself the trouble to ask another woman to dance. Kitty and Mary sat with their mother, and a gentleman should not allow young ladies to sit if they wished to dance.He interrupted their gossiping to ask Mary, with great solemnity, if she would dance the third with him and then engaged Kitty for the next.
After he danced with Mary and then Kitty, Darcy walked the room and spoke with some of the gentlemen from the fishing excursion. But more often than not, his attention was on Elizabeth for the remainder of the evening. The power of his desire for her struck him as she laughed and danced with her partners. She unknowingly challenged his resolve to act in the manner befitting a gentleman. After despairing that she would never forgive him or think well of him, it still amazed him that she loved him. Darcy took in the way her gown clung to her body and outlined her curves, and all manner of immodest desires came to his mind.
When he met her loving gaze across the room, he wondered whether she knew what he had been thinking.
As Elizabeth faced her partner,she felt Fitzwilliam’s stare from across the room. He was likely scowling at her partner for keeping her from his side, but the intensity in his look made her wonder if he was in truth thinking about something else. Something involving his hands around her waist and her arms around his shoulders, pressed against one another. She blushed, and hoped her partner would not notice. Fitzwilliam would never think something so indecorous at a ball.
Elizabeth was working her way up from the bottom of the line and was at leisure to look around. When she caught his eye, he smiled at her. At the end of the dance, she directed her friend to take her to him. He scarcely inclined his head toward the man escorting her and glared at him after he left.
“Did you not find good company to entertain you while I danced?” She tucked her arm into his.
“I would say that I found acceptable company in your absence.” Elizabeth felt his tension through his arm.
“I did as well. My partners were pleasant, but I preferyourcompany to all others.” He looked at her in some surprise, as if realising that she was at his side and on his arm, smiling at him and squeezing his hand in emphasis. “So you must stop frowning at those who ask me to dance.”
“You intend to dance every set?”
“You would curtail my enjoyment?”
“Instances have been known of young ladies passing months without being at any ball, and no material injury accrued either to body or mind.”
“I am fond of dancing, and since I know you are not, I do not feel slighted that you do not ask me again. However, I could not refuse to stand up with other gentlemen. They all have a long acquaintance with me, and I shall soon be happily gone away with you over one hundred forty miles from here.”
“I would by no means suspend any pleasure of yours,” he said in earnest. “If you are not otherwise engaged, would you do me the honour of dancing the last with me?”
“Yes, happily, my taciturn and unsocial dear.”
He looked more serious than her playful manner warranted as his gaze travelled over her body. He opened his lips and looked as though he fervently wished to say more, but the next dance was about to begin. She wondered what Fitzwilliam might have said. She had a secret hope that it might have been more flirtatious and provocative than she had yet seen from him.
When they had a moment to speak after the dance began, he murmured, “Do you wonder how our lives might have changed if your overhearings last autumn were more to my benefit?”
“How do you mean?”
“Had you not overheard me tell Bingley that it would be a punishment for me to stand up with anyone?”
“I think it would be preferable had you not said such an intolerableremark at all.”
“Once again, I concede to your better judgment. I wonder then how things might have passed had I not said anything cruel, and instead you overheard me speaking to Miss Bingley at Lucas Lodge.”
She tried to remember the evening in question. “I recall you attending to my conversations and Sir William putting me forward to you as a dance partner.”
“When you heartlessly refused to dance with me?” he teased.
“Yes, I did not find you tolerably handsome enough to tempt me, but do not worry, for I certainly find you so now.”
“Had you remained near, you might have heard Miss Bingley attempting to guess the subject of my reverie. I told her I was agreeably engaged in considering the great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.”
She looked up at him lovingly, but with no small amount of surprise. “I never thought I inspired affection so early in our acquaintance.”
“I could not live without you, Elizabeth,” he whispered into her ear when the dance brought them together, “and I know by what slim chance I was spared that unhappy lot.”
His eyes were dark brown but now appeared black as he fixed a look on her that expressed the intensity of his love. Elizabeth was conscious of nothing other than him. His presence filled the hot, crowded room until the walls seemed too close together. She was well aware that, as they paused during the dance, his eyes swept up and down her form. The room seemed oppressive under the weight of his gaze amidst all the other people, and Elizabeth was compelled to step away before the dance resumed.
She was overwhelmed, not by his clear desire for her, but by her own equal, thrilling response to him; it was too much for her modesty to bear.His ardour for me has been restrained all this time, but he is as much affected by me as I am by him.She said nothing to him as she abruptly left the dance.
The musicians struck up a fresh dance as Elizabeth made her way out of the crowd and into the quiet tearoom. As she charged into the room, she found, as the evening was almost at an end, that it was not merely less crowded but empty. Elizabeth stood still with her eyes closed and her back to the entrance and attempted to catch her breath.
