Page 9 of A Most Unwelcome Acquaintance

Darcy nodded, his eyes already elsewhere.

Across the floor, Elizabeth Bennet stood talking with a woman he recognized as Sir William’s daughter. She laughed at something the woman said, her hand closing on the other’s arm, the gesture unconscious. Her face was alive, bright with observation, neither flattered by her company nor diminished by it. She carried herself as if she did not want to be noticed, and so was more noticeable than any in the room.

Darcy watched her even as he resolved not to.

Bingley returned with a brimming glass, but he heard little of the conversation.

Darcy drank without tasting it. The air in the room grew thick and tart with candle smoke, the floor marked in circles by dancers’ shoes. He registered none of it, only the line of Elizabeth’s profile as she turned her head toward the wall.

When she caught him watching, he did not look away. Her eyebrows rose, her mouth not yet smiling, before she returned to her conversation. He felt she noticed more than he intended.

The set ended. The crowd swelled toward the refreshment table, and Darcy found himself pressed closer to the Bennet party.

Bingley returned, more buoyant than ever. “Come, Darcy, several have asked after your hand.”

Darcy set the glass aside. “No, thank you.”

Bingley, not to be discouraged, said, “You are standing opposite a row of excellent partners. If you wait any longer, Mrs. Bennet will try to arrange you herself.”

Darcy glanced at the wall, then at Elizabeth, who was within a yard of him, laughing with the Lucases and her younger sisters. He heard Lydia’s high, unfiltered voice: “He is the proudest man in the room, I am sure. He does not mean to dance, not with any of us.”

Darcy looked at Bingley, then back at Elizabeth, and said in a voice not as low as he intended, “None tempt me to dance, and least of all the one who spends her mornings in the fields.”

Elizabeth went still, her attention not on Darcy, but on the woman beside her, as though considering whether to laugh or to leave. She did not color, nor did her expression falter. Instead, her mouth curved in a way that suggested she found the comment less injurious than revealing.

She turned back to her companion and delivered a retort Darcy could not hear. The other woman covered her mouth, struggling not to laugh, and Elizabeth’s own shoulders loosened, though the posture had changed.

Bingley heard the remark. He said, under his breath, “You are harsh.”

“I am honest,” Darcy replied, though he had not meant to say it.

Bingley looked at him. “I hoped you might enjoy yourself. There is much here to admire, if you give it a chance.”

Darcy observed Elizabeth cross the room, her movement neither rushed nor hesitant. For the rest of the set, she neither looked his way nor seemed to notice him.

The crowd grew louder and more candles guttered. The musicians, emboldened by drink, played the next tune at twice its intended speed, scattering the dancers and throwing the figures into chaos.

Darcy found a place by the open window, where the air cooled and the view stretched to the lamps outside, and allowed himself to consider why the remark left such a taste. He had meant it to dismiss, but it felt, instead, like a judgment on his failure to revise what he knew.

He saw the last of the dancers reel to the end of the set, and Elizabeth Bennet, in the press and confusion, catch her father’s arm and pull him aside to say something that made him laugh, then bow her head as if pleased with herself. She belonged, and he had not expected it.

Bingley danced another set, this time with Jane, and the warmth between them was apparent to anyone with eyes. Caroline, stationed by the wall, kept her eyes on her brother and Darcy in alternating turns, her own calculations running beneath the smile.

The evening wound on and Darcy finished his glass. He had not met Elizabeth’s gaze again, but he remembered how she looked when the insult landed.

Elizabeth found Jane near the refreshment table. A half-eaten biscuit sat in Jane’s hand, forgotten in the effort to be pleasant to three different neighbors at once. Spent candles and spilled punch soured the air. Fatigue showed in every face except those of the militia officers, who grew louder as the night lengthened.

She made her way through the crowd and leaned close. “If you missed the best part of the evening, I will perform it for you.”

Jane looked up, her expression softening at the sight of her sister. “You mean the set with Mr. Bingley? I saw, and it was very well done.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “No, I refer to the moment when Mr. Darcy, having surveyed the local livestock and the entire female population of Hertfordshire, rendered a verdict to the wall.”

Jane’s brow creased. “Was it so bad?”

Elizabeth smothered a smile, but her eyes sparked. “He declined to dance. Not for lack of partners, but from a profound lack of interest in any woman who prefers the fields.”

Jane, ever hopeful, said, “Maybe he spoke in jest.”