Charlotte laughed quietly.
“And Mr. Darcy?” she asked.
Elizabeth’s hand tightened in her lap before she could prevent it. She forced her fingers to loosen one by one. “Mr. Darcy is very handsome.”
Charlotte waited.
“And,” Elizabeth added, “he appeared rather removed from the gathering, at least from what I saw.”
“That was certainly true at the beginning,” Charlotte said. “But something must have altered his mood later. He danced more than I expected.”
Elizabeth looked sharply at her. “Did he?”
Jane nodded. “He danced with me.”
“Yes,” Charlotte said. “And with Mrs. Hurst, Miss Bingley, and I believe Maria King near the end, though he looked rather solemn through it.”
Elizabeth tried to arrange her thoughts and failed.
He had refused to dance when she was suggested, yet afterward had danced with others. With Jane. With Maria King. Had he danced because Jane was beautiful and gentle and therefore worth civility, while Elizabeth was not? Or had he noticed that she left? Had he known he had wounded her and tried, too late, to atone by behaving better to everyone else?
Jane’s voice drew her back. “He was very pleasant when he danced with me.”
“Pleasant?” Elizabeth repeated, perhaps too quickly.
“In a reserved way,” Jane said. “He seemed uncomfortable, not unkind. He asked about Hertfordshire, and whether Netherfield was generally thought a comfortable house. He also asked if I had enjoyed the evening.”
Elizabeth could almost hear him: grave, restrained, proper. Not cruel. Not warm either. The contrast only made him more difficult to dismiss.
Charlotte studied her. “You are being unusually cautious in your opinion.”
“I did not speak with him long enough to form a firm one.”
“You were introduced.”
“So were thirty other people.”
“And yet you usually form opinions upon less evidence.”
Elizabeth gave her a rueful smile. “That is a fair accusation.”
Jane’s eyes remained gentle, but there was a question in them. Elizabeth looked away before her sister could ask it. She did not want to explain. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. How could she confess that Mr. Darcy’s slight had hurt because she had spent two years admiring a man who had not even remembered her?
At last she lifted her chin. “I shall simply need more time to sketch his character.”
And with that, she refocused her attention to her needlework with a determination that would have mended the entire household linen chest, had wounded pride been useful as thread.
∞∞∞
The next morning, Elizabeth realized that heartbreak was not the most uncomfortable consequence of Mr. Darcy’s arrival in Hertfordshire.
Fear was.
A softly on the bedroom door interrupted her discomfort.
“Come in,” Elizabeth said.
Susie peered around the corner of the door. “The children are at breakfast,” she said. “Do you require any assistance?”
