The room went silent.
Then, as if on cue, everyone laughed.
Everyone except Elizabeth, who wanted the floor to open and swallow her whole, and Darcy, whose face had gone completely still, as if his features had been carved from the same stone as the mantelpiece behind him.
The pig sighed and settled more firmly onto his boot.
"Good heavens!" Sir William was delighted. He clapped his hands. "It appears the young lady has made her choice! Mr. Darcy, you have a most devoted admirer."
Laughter rippled through the room again. Mrs. Long leaned over to Mrs. Goulding and whispered something. Mrs. Goulding's eyebrows rose to her hairline. Kitty was giggling. Lydia was laughing so hard she had to hold onto a chair. Mrs. Bennet had pressed her handkerchief to her mouth, though whether from horror or the effort of not screaming was unclear.
Mr. Bennet, standing by the bookcase with a glass of port, looked at the scene with an expression of pure, unfiltered enjoyment.
Elizabeth crossed the room. Every eye followed her. The distance between the window and the fireplace had never felt so long.
"Mr. Darcy, I am so sorry. I cannot begin to — she was locked in the kitchen. I do not understand how she — Truffles, come here."
Truffles did not come. Truffles pressed herself more firmly against Darcy's boot and closed her eyes.
Elizabeth knelt and tried to slide her hands under the pig. Truffles went limp, which was a pig's way of becoming immovable. Twenty pounds of boneless, contented pork, draped across a gentleman's Hessian boot.
"Truffles. Now."
The pig opened one eye, looked at Elizabeth, and closed it again.
Darcy looked down at the pig. Then at Elizabeth, kneeling at his feet. Then at the room full of people watching them.
"Miss Elizabeth," he said. His voice was very even, very controlled. "Your pig appears to be... comfortable."
"She is not comfortable. She is disobedient. Truffles, release the gentleman's boot this instant."
A brief, terrible pause. Darcy bent down. His hand closed around Truffles' middle with a firmness that surprised Elizabeth, and he lifted the pig and held her out.
Their eyes met over the body of the pig. His face was unreadable. His ears, she noticed, were red.
"Thank you," Elizabeth whispered. She took Truffles, who squealed in protest. "I am so very sorry. She has never — well, she has done this before. In Meryton. As you may recall. I am mortified."
"It is of no consequence," Darcy said, in a voice that suggested it was of considerable consequence.
Elizabeth clutched the pig to her chest and retreated to the window. Truffles strained backward over her shoulder, staring at Darcy with the tragic intensity of a lover being dragged from the arms of her beloved.
Charlotte appeared at Elizabeth's side. Her face was carefully composed, but her eyes were dancing.
"Do not say a word," Elizabeth said.
"I was only going to observe that your pig has excellent taste in gentlemen."
"My pig has appalling taste. My pig chose the one man in the room who would rather be anywhere else on earth."
"Did you see his ears? They went pink."
"His ears are not relevant."
Charlotte's mouth twitched. "They were very pink."
Elizabeth buried her face in Truffles' neck. The pig smelled of turnip and grass and that warm, biscuity scent that was uniquely hers. She was still straining toward Darcy, making small desperate grunts, her back hooves scrabbling at Elizabeth's bodice for purchase.
"Stop that," Elizabeth murmured into the pig's ear. "You are making a spectacle of us both."
