For the next three weeks, Mr. Allen visited Longbourn every day at two o’clock and remained until ten in the evening. He also joined the family at church on Sundays. Elizabeth quickly came to delight in his easy manner and his dry wit.
This afternoon, the three young women were delayed in returning to the house. They rushed into the foyer laughing and chattering as they removed their light cloaks and gloves. Mrs. Hill hurried from the pantry to assist them.
“Lizzy, my dear, Mr. Allen awaits you in the drawing room.”
Elizabeth tugged at the ribbons of her bonnet.
“Thank you, Hill. I must first tidy my hair, and I shall join him.” She turned to Kitty. “You girls may go in to him now and keep him company until I have seen to my hair.”
She removed her bonnet gingerly and then stood before the mirror, securing the loose curls that had escaped their pins. When she was satisfied, she hastened to the drawing room.
Mr. Allen rose as she entered, and the two girls moved to the far corner of the room, where they took up their embroidery.
Elizabeth curtsied. “Sir, I am sorry to have kept you waiting. Have you been here long?”
“No, Miss Bennet, not long. Yet I would wait as long as necessary for the privilege of conversing with you.”
She laughed quietly, her eyes bright.
“You are an unconscionable flirt, sir.”
Her gaze then fell upon the book in his hand.
“And what have you there?”
He extended it to her.
“I spent an hour at the bookseller’s in Meryton. He produced this volume and informed me that you had ordered it some weeks ago, though it has only now arrived.”
Her eyes brightened.
“Oh, it is The Secret Witness. I confess I had quite forgotten about it.”
He chuckled. “Has my company proved so distracting that everything else has slipped your mind?”
His expression held a trace of mischief.
She grinned.
“You may think so if you wish, sir. I shall not contradict you.”
“Come, Miss Bennet. Sit with me here.”
She sat on the couch a little apart from him.
“Now tell me, Missy, how it happens that you were late to a meeting with one who longs for your attention.”
Her cheeks colored. “Sir, you are very pert this afternoon. To what may I attribute your high spirits?”
He laughed.
“There is no deceiving you, is there? I received a letter from my father this morning. He informs me that my eldest sister is betrothed at last.”
He raised his brows with comic gravity.
“At last, sir?”
“Yes, at last, Miss Bennet. You must understand that Clarinda is neither a beauty nor a wit, and we had long feared she might end her days an old maid, for she is seven and twenty.”
