“Lizzy, you are engaged to Mr Darcy?!”
The shriek came from a younger woman who bore a striking resemblance to Miss Bennet, her voice pitched to carry not merely across the immediate vicinity but possibly to the next county. Several heads turned in their direction, curiosity transforming into avid interest.
“Lydia, please—” Miss Bennet began, but the protest died as more voices joined the chorus.
Mrs Fitzgerald clutched at her companion’s arm. “An engagement! How sudden!”
“They must have known each other before,” a voice noted from somewhere. “They are both English after all.”
“What a match! Miss Bennet has done well for herself.”
Darcy watched the gossip ripple outward in waves, each repetition adding embellishment and conjecture. Withinmoments, their fabricated betrothal had acquired the solidity of established fact, transformed from desperate improvisation to accepted truth by the irresistible force of collective speculation.
This could not be happening. He had navigated three London seasons with his freedom intact, had deflected matrimonial schemes from families far more sophisticated than these provincial Irish fortune hunters. Yet here he stood, accidentally engaged to a woman he had met mere hours ago, because she had sought to rescue him from a situation he might well have managed himself.
The irony would be amusing if it were not so catastrophic.
Three young ladies descended upon them with unfettered enthusiasm, all speaking at once in a torrent of exclamations that permitted no possibility of response.
“Oh, Lizzy, this is wonderful!”
“How romantic!”
“You must tell us everything!”
The one who seemed to be the youngest, the same individual who had shrieked, turned to him. “Mr Darcy, I am Lydia Bennet, Lizzy’s youngest sister. And this is Kitty, that is, Catherine, our fourth sister. And this is our cousin Effie Ahearn.”
The other two curtseyed, their faces alight with happiness.
“We are so pleased to meet you properly,” Kitty added. “We had not the slightest notion that Lizzy had formed anattachment! She is turning out to be so reserved about these matters.”
“Reserved!” Lydia laughed. “Lizzy, you sly creature! You were always the cleverest of us, but this surpasses everything. To snag a fine prospect on such short notice, and a wealthy one at that! Everyone has been speaking of Mr Darcy’s estates and fortune since he arrived in Westport. You must have worked very quickly indeed.”
The words bit at Darcy uncomfortably. Wealthy prospect. Worked quickly. The general perception of his circumstances had preceded him here as everywhere else, reducing him to nothing more than an attractive sum of money and property waiting to be claimed.
He glanced at Miss Bennet, seeking some indication of her reaction to her sister’s tactless excitement, and caught the mortification that flashed across her countenance before she attempted to master it.
“Lydia, that is not—I did not—it was not like that at all—” Her protest died unfinished, overwhelmed by the continued onslaught of congratulations.
Darcy recognised several faces from earlier introductions such as Lady O’Brien, the O’Connells, Sir Cormac Kennedy—all wearing expressions of astonishment, curiosity, and in some cases barely concealed envy.
“Mr Darcy, Miss Bennet, such wonderful news!”
“What a delightful surprise!”
“Certainly, young love does not wait!”
The felicitations arrived in waves, each speaker adding to the growing certainty that an engagement had indeed occurred. Darcy maintained his courteous mask through sheer force of will, nodding and murmuring appropriate responses whilst beside him, Miss Bennet appeared to have frozen, her face pale and her responses perfunctory.
Mrs Ahearn appeared at his elbow, her eyebrows furrowed in visible distress. “Mr Darcy, Elizabeth, perhaps we ought to retire indoors? The excitement has rather disrupted the party, and I think some privacy might be advisable for the newly betrothed couple.”
Newly betrothed.
The phrase sat wrong and ill-fitting, yet he inclined his head in agreement, grateful for any excuse to escape the public theatre this had become.
“An excellent suggestion, Mrs Ahearn. Thank you.”
They proceed towards the house—himself, Elizabeth, and Mrs Ahearn, trailed by what seemed half the gathering, all eager to extend further felicitations or extract additional details. A woman’s voice carried above the general din with clarity.
