Page 23 of A Most Unwelcome Acquaintance

Wickham did not confirm it outright because doing so made the suggestion his, and he needed it to remain hers.

“I would not presume to know Mr. Darcy’s mind,” he said, “but I know he is not a man who revises his first impressions. He saw a young woman too comfortable with livestock and field work to fit his idea of a gentleman’s household. That is the disorder he finds...” He paused before the last word. “Unforgivable.”

Wickham lifted his hands. “I say nothing against your competence, Miss Elizabeth, which is clear to anyone with sense. Only that Mr. Darcy judges by another standard.”

Elizabeth’s teacup sat forgotten on the sill between them. Her shoulders drew back as she considered his words.

The room’s noise continued behind them. Someone laughed near the fire, and the girl at the pianoforte struck a wrong note before correcting it. Wickham waited. He had learned that the most effective lies were those people told themselves; his role was only to provide the materials.

“I see,” Elizabeth said at last, her voice dry. “Then I am to understand that my half-boots and the mud on my hem were indictment enough. He required no further evidence of my unfitness.”

Wickham recognized the tone: wounded pride finding its footing in irony. “I have perhaps said too much.” He offered a small, sympathetic smile. “Forgive me. The subject is uncomfortable, and I had no right to raise it.”

Elizabeth’s lips curved, but the smile did not reach her eyes. “You raised nothing I had not considered myself. Mr. Darcy’s opinion was plain at the assembly. Its origin changes nothing.”

But Wickham could see that it did. The set of her shoulders, her fingers gripping the sill, and the economy of her reply told him the suggestion had landed where he intended. She would turn it over in private, test it against what she knew, and find that it fit.

He changed the subject with the ease of long practice. “The regiment is to drill tomorrow on the common, so I hope the weather holds. There is nothing more tedious than standing at attention in the rain.”

Elizabeth looked again to the window. “I am sure the neighborhood will appreciate the spectacle, rain or no.”

They spoke of the drilling, of the likelihood of fair weather, of a book Elizabeth had been reading. The exchange lasted two minutes, no more. Wickham made it light, effortless, a return to the comfortable footing they had established before he raised Darcy’s name. By the time Mrs. Phillips called for the tea things to be cleared, Elizabeth had recovered enough to contribute a dry observation about the regiment’s timing, but her fingers did not return to the cup on the sill.

Wickham excused himself to speak with Captain Carter and crossed the room with his empty cup in hand, his step unhurried. Before joining the captain, he glanced back. Elizabeth remained at the window, her profile sharp against the gray glass. He had planted the suggestion, and wounded pride would tend it for him.

He set his cup down and joined the officers by the fire, where the conversation had turned to cards and the evening’s likely entertainments. No one had noticed the exchange at the window.

Chapter 10

CAROLINE PREPARED NETHERFIELD’S morning room for guests. She ordered the tea service placed on the low table near the eastern windows and fresh daffodils arranged on the mantel. Two green damask chairs stood at an easy angle to one another, while a third occupied the window, where the light favored its occupant without encouraging a lengthy visit. Satisfied, she surveyed the result. The room was neat, fashionable, and a visible improvement on the drawing room, whose upholstery she had disliked since their arrival.

She took her place near the door, her back straight, her hands at rest, and her expression warmth that one practices in a glass before showing it to one’s neighbors. Louisa sat by the hearth, embroidery in her lap; Caroline approved of the arrangement, as it made her sister look receptive and unguarded, two qualities Caroline seldom risked.

The Bennet party arrived on time, though Caroline did not suppose this was an act of discipline. She heard Mrs. Bennet’s voice through the door before she saw her, the words carrying: “Such a beautiful avenue! The limes are just coming into leaf, do you see, Jane? I declare, no one would think the hedgerows could look so fine after the winter.” The rest of the sentence vanished as the footman opened the door, admitting them in a rush of shawls and bonnets.

Jane entered first in a pale green gown almost the color of the morning-room chairs, passing through the doorway without breaking her step. Her curtsy was low and unhurried, her hands folded at her waist, and she greeted Caroline loud enough for everyone to hear.

Caroline was prepared to forgive the lack of fortune, the mother, and even the rumored disorder at Longbourn, but Jane required none of it.

Behind her came Mrs. Bennet, shawl trailing and bonnet tilted left, her cheeks flushed from either the journey or eagerness to fill the room with her own voice. She launched her greeting as soon as her foot crossed the carpet. “Miss Bingley, you are too kind, too very kind, to have us. The road was dreadful with mud, and it is a miracle we arrived without losing a wheel. But what a prospect! From the lane, Netherfield looks as fine as any house in Hertfordshire.”

Caroline received this with a smile. Mrs. Bennet’s elevation of Netherfield among the finest houses in the county required no correction.

Lydia burst in next, her curtsy extended to the point of collapse. The move sent a ripple through her skirts, which she steadied with one hand. “Is that a real pianoforte? Mary should have come, but she would not leave her new piece.” She was already halfway across the rug toward the instrument.

Kitty hovered a moment too close to the tea table, her fingers touching the edge of a saucer before she retreated to the settee. She glanced at Lydia, then toward the window.

Elizabeth took the chair beside Jane and looked across the tea service at Caroline, who did not look away.

Caroline sat and poured Mrs. Bennet’s tea first, asked after the journey, then offered the biscuit plate to Jane, who took a small one and thanked her. Louisa asked if the road had been passable, and Jane answered that the avenue was much improved by the new gravel, which set Mrs. Bennet off again:

“I am forever amazed at what a few weeks’ attention can do to a house. I tell Mr. Bennet he ought to see what a man of means can accomplish, and perhaps he will mend our hedgerows before sheep and pigs overrun us.”

“Or by officers,” Lydia said. “They march through the mud in shoes worse than ours. Sir William says there will be another assembly before the month is out. I hope to see them there, with clean shoes.”

Kitty knocked a teaspoon against her cup. Elizabeth, silent, watched the cup settle, then looked at Kitty as if to ask whether she might spare the teaspoon.

Caroline smiled at Elizabeth, who returned it and lifted her cup.