Page 113 of A Most Unwelcome Acquaintance

Darcy came to Elizabeth as the others gathered their wraps.

“I hope Miss Kitty is well,” he said.

The question asked nothing of Wickham and accused no one. Elizabeth appreciated the restraint more than she wished.

“She is not ill.”

“I am glad of it.”

Elizabeth might have left it there. A week earlier, she would have done so and counted the silence a victory.

“My father wrote to Colonel Forster,” she said. “There was some truth in the business that detained Mr. Wickham. Not your truth. A truth of his own making.”

Darcy's expression shifted in the smallest degree. “I am sorry.”

“Are you?”

“Yes. Miss Kitty did not deserve to be involved.”

The answer displeased her less than it ought to. “No. She did not.”

“Nor did you.”

Elizabeth could not tell whether he meant the note, the warning, or the larger confusion into which Mr. Wickham had drawn them all.

“I am not so innocent,” she said. “I believed what pleased me.”

“Most of us do.”

It was not absolution or triumph, and that made it harder to resist.

Caroline called his name from the door. She did not need him as much as she needed Elizabeth to know he was being summoned.

Darcy bowed. “Good evening, Miss Elizabeth.”

“Good evening, Mr. Darcy.”

The carriage left amid thanks and promises, much to Mrs. Bennet’s satisfaction. When the door closed, Lydia complained that the evening had contained too much music and too few officers, Mary defended the music, and Kitty went upstairs. Bennet returned to the library, where Elizabeth suspected he would find more amusement in the evening than she could permit herself.

Jane remained standing where Bingley had last spoken to her.

Elizabeth joined her. “You are happy.”

Jane's answer came too late to deny it. “He is very kind.”

“That was not what I said.”

Jane smiled. “No.”

Elizabeth took Jane’s hand. No promise had been made, but Bingley’s intentions were no longer difficult to read.

Chapter 26

“MY DEAR GEORGIANA,

I write before breakfast because Bingley has embraced country hours and expects all of us to admire his discovery of dawn. Netherfield is in tolerable order, though its master is not. He has given up disguising his preference for Miss Bennet, though he never made much effort to conceal it.

In case you are wondering, I approve. She has a sweetness of temper and a steadiness that Bingley, for all his warmth, requires. If she guards herself, I believe it is from modesty rather than calculation. Her family presents greater difficulties. Mrs. Bennet is everything you learned to dread in a mother; she possesses too much noise to manage anything well. The younger girls are lively without judgment, while Miss Mary Bennet moralizes from books she has read with more diligence than pleasure.