"You play with great energy, Miss Bennet," he said, moving to stand beside the instrument. "May I turn pages?"
She looked up at him. "You may. Though I warn you, my page-turning needs are unpredictable. I rarely play the notes written on the page."
"Then I shall improvise."
He stood at her shoulder, close enough to smell the lavender in her hair, close enough to see the fine chain of a necklace disappearing into the neckline of her dress, close enough that when she shifted on the bench, her arm brushed his hip. The contact was accidental. The aftershock was not.
She continued playing. Her fingers faltered, recovered, faltered again. He reached over her to turn the page and his arm passed inches from her face, and he heard her breath catch -- a tiny sound, barely there, audible only because he was listening for it with every nerve in his body.
"Your tempo has changed," he murmured.
"The piece demands flexibility." Her voice was not quite steady.
"The piece is a simple country dance in common time."
"Then perhaps it is the player who demands flexibility."
He turned another page. This time his hand grazed her shoulder. She did not flinch. She did not pull away. Her fingershit a wrong chord and she laughed, a short, breathless sound that cut through his composure like a blade.
"I believe the composer would weep," she said.
"The composer has been dead two hundred years. His feelings are not our concern."
She looked up at him then, and for a moment the room fell away -- Caroline's watchful malice, Mrs. Bennet's chatter, the ambient scrutiny of a dozen guests -- and there was only Elizabeth's face tilted toward his, her eyes dark with something she was fighting not to feel, her lips slightly parted, and the distance between them measured in inches and willpower and nothing else.
"You are staring, Mr. Darcy."
"I am reading the music."
"The music is behind you."
"Then I am staring."
She looked away. Closed the pianoforte lid with a decisive click. "I believe that is enough musicianship for one evening."
The party broke up slowly, guests collecting wraps and calling carriages, the elaborate social choreography of departure. Darcy found himself in the entrance hall as the Bennet family gathered their things, the space crowded with coats and chatter and the barely organized chaos that the Bennets seemed to generate wherever they went.
Mrs. Bennet was lecturing Jane on the importance of making Bingley jealous (Jane was too kind to point out the contradictions in this strategy). Mr. Bennet was retrieving his hat with the unhurried movements of a man who had longsince stopped being surprised by his wife. Lydia and Kitty were giggling about an officer. Mary was delivering an unsolicited critique of the evening's musical selections to no one in particular.
Elizabeth stood apart from all of it, pulling on her gloves, her face composed and distant. Darcy moved toward her, propelled by something stronger than judgment.
"Miss Bennet. A word."
She followed him into the narrow space between the staircase and the corridor wall, a shadowed alcove hidden from the main hallway by the curve of the banister. It was not private -- anyone might turn the corner -- but it was as close to privacy as the evening would allow.
"What is it?" she asked. Her voice was careful, controlled, but in the dimness he could see the rapid movement at the base of her throat. Her pulse. Beating faster than it should.
"Wickham." He said the name like swallowing glass. "Whatever he has told you about me --"
"This is not the time."
"Then when? You have heard his version. You believe it. I can see it in the way you look at me -- as though I am confirmation of every suspicion you ever held."
"And are you not?"
"No." He stepped closer. He should not. He knew he should not. But she was right there, and the candlelight was doing things to her eyes, and the scent of lavender was making coherent thought increasingly difficult. "I am many things you accuse me of. I am proud. I am poor at expressing warmth. Ihave been guilty of judging your family harshly. But the man Wickham described to you does not exist."
"How do you know what he described?"
