He did none of it.
He looked at her.
Only her.
And in that gaze, Elizabeth read all she needed to know:
She had never left his thoughts—
just as he had never left hers.
Miss Bingley stood silent, her expression arranged into polite indifference—
but her gaze flicked sharply between Elizabeth and the Matlocks, the strain of displeasure plain beneath her composure.
The exchange of pleasantries was necessarily brief, as decorum required.
The Gardiners, ever graceful, offered their parting courtesies with quiet ease.
Mr. Bingley, full of cheerful bustle and blissfully unaware of the charged air around him, soon guided their party on to their seats.
It was only once they were settled that Elizabeth allowed herself to exhale.
Her pulse still raced—
a quiet, relentless rhythm that echoed the truth she had read in his eyes.
It was only once they were settled that Elizabeth allowed herself to exhale, her heart still pounding in her ears.
That Lady Catherine had written of her was no surprise.
But that Georgiana had spoken of her—
that she had read aloud letters which mentioned their time in Hertfordshire—
that gave Elizabeth pause.
In her other life, she had known from both Darcy and Georgiana that he had written of her freely.
But this time...
this time was different.
He had grown suspicious of her at Netherfield, when she had foolishly let slip something she should not have known.
She had seen the change in him then—had feared he believed her somehow entangled with Wickham, or worse.
And so she had not expected—
had not dared to hope—
that he would speak of her to his sister again.
But he had.
Even in his uncertainty, even when he must have questioned her very nature,
he had still trusted Georgiana with her name.
