Jane and Elizabeth looked at each other.
Kitty nodded. “And he was very attentive.”
Jane smiled, though with some effort. “When we said goodbye at the ball, he asked if he could call… on me.”
The girls gasped, squealed, and hugged Jane.
“Oh. Kitty, you suffocate me,” laughed Jane.
Lydia turned abruptly to Elizabeth. “And Mr. Darcy… What of him?”
Elizabeth looked at her. “What of him?”
“Oh, do not pretend,” Lydia said. “You walk together, you talk together – he reads to you – he looks at you in a very particular way. He must be desperately in love with you.”
Jane gave her a gentle reproving look. “Lydia.”
“What? I only wish to know.” She leaned forward. “Well?”
Elizabeth hesitated. There was a pause. Then, with less composure than she might have wished, she said, “He was at Longbourn yesterday morning.”
“We know that,” Lydia returned impatiently.
“And we walked.”
“Yes-yes, go on.”
Elizabeth glanced at Jane, who met her look with quiet encouragement. “It was nothing of consequence,” she said at last.
Lydia groaned. “Then it must be of the greatest consequence imaginable.”
Kitty laughed softly.
Jane said, more gently, “Lizzy…”
Elizabeth drew a breath. “There was a moment,” she said.
Lydia sat upright at once. “A moment!”
Elizabeth gave her a look. “If you interrupt me, I shall say no more.”
“I shall be silent,” Lydia declared, though not convincingly.
Elizabeth continued. “He… looked at me and… and he was so handsome.”
Jane’s expression softened. “And?” she asked.
A small silence followed.
Lydia leaned closer. “And then?”
Elizabeth hesitated only a moment longer. “Then he kissed me.” She had not thought – until that moment – how little prepared she was to be so entirely understood.
There was a collective exclamation.
Kitty covered her mouth, her eyes wide with astonishment. Lydia gave a delighted little cry.
At that moment, the door opened again. Mary entered. “You are all assembled here,” she observed. “I suspected as much.”
