Chapter 25
By the time Longbourn came into view, Elizabeth had persuaded herself that she was prepared.
This was foolish, of course. No one could ever be prepared to enter one’s family breakfast room with a suitor beside her, especially when one had left the house before breakfast on an ordinary walk and returned with a gentleman well before an appropriate hour to make calls. Still, she had arranged her thoughts as well as possible. Darcy would speak to her father. Elizabeth would endure whatever followed. Mr. Collins would, she trusted, be silenced at least for one morning by the sight of another suitor so far beyond his own consequence.
That last hope was enough to carry her up the steps.
Hill opened the door and looked at Darcy, then at Elizabeth, then back at Darcy with the expression of a man who had served Longbourn long enough to know when extraordinary events were best met with silence.
“Good morning, Hill,” Elizabeth said, with more composure than she felt. “Is the family at breakfast?”
“Yes, miss.” Hill’s eyes shifted again to Darcy. “All of them.”
All of them.
Elizabeth felt Darcy’s arm tense beneath her fingers before she released it. “Thank you.”
They entered the breakfast room together.
Conversation stopped.
Every face turned toward them at once. Jane’s eyes widened, then softened with immediate understanding. Mrs. Bennet stared as though Elizabeth had brought home a duke, a ghost, or both. Lydia’s mouth fell open in delight. Kitty’s fork remained suspended halfway to her plate. Mary blinked over her toast. Mr. Bennet slowly lowered his cup, eyebrows lifting by degrees until they nearly disappeared into his hair.
Mr. Collins, seated near Mrs. Bennet and apparently in the midst of a very substantial bite, stared with his mouth slightly open, a portion of chewed egg visible within.
Elizabeth bit the inside of her lip so hard she nearly hurt herself.
It was dreadful. It was mortifying. It was also so absurd that the laugh rose in her throat before she could suppress it. She lowered her eyes at once, but the effort to contain herself made her shoulders tremble.
Beside her, Darcy cleared his throat.
The sound was stiff, uncomfortable, and so very unlike the man who had poured out his heart on Oakham Mount that Elizabeth’s threatened laughter nearly broke free again.
“Forgive the intrusion,” he said, bowing to the room with formal gravity. “Mr. Bennet, might I request a few moments of your time? I should like to speak with you privately, if it is not inconvenient.”
Mr. Bennet looked from Darcy to Elizabeth.
There was a question in his face, sharp and suddenly much more awake than he had appeared a moment before. Elizabeth gave one small nod.
Her father’s eyebrows rose higher.
Slowly, he set down his cup, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and stood. “By all means, Mr. Darcy. I find myself unusually curious this morning. Pray, come with me.”
Darcy bowed once more. “Thank you, sir.”
Elizabeth watched them leave the room. Her father moved with deliberate calm, but she knew him well enough to see the interest beneath it. Darcy followed, tall, grave, and composed enough to satisfy any observer who had not seen his hands tremble slightly when he offered Elizabeth his arm on the walk home.
The door had not fully closed before Mrs. Bennet spoke.
“What in heaven’s name is Mr. Darcy doing here at this hour? Lizzy, where have you been? Why were you walking with him? Why does he wish to speak to your father? What can possibly be going on?”
All eyes turned back to Elizabeth.
Mr. Collins swallowed audibly. “Indeed, cousin Elizabeth, this is most unexpected. Most unexpected. I would not presume to question the propriety of—”
“Then do not,” Lydia whispered to Kitty, who choked on a laugh.
Elizabeth ignored them. Her mother’s face had already begun to sharpen from astonishment into anxiety, and in that moment, Elizabeth saw the opportunity her uncle had not given her but might approve all the same. She could ease some of Mrs. Bennet’s fear without revealing Netherfield. She could stop, or at least redirect, the campaign for Mr. Collins. She could give her mother something true enough to comfort her and safe enough to say aloud.
