Page 1 of Mr Darcy Bets on Love

Chapter 1: The Assembly

Meryton, Hertfordshire. Tuesday, 15th October 1811

The assembly rooms above the Meryton inn were exactly as Darcy had feared: too warm, too loud, and too full of people who stopped talking the moment he walked in.

He felt the silence spread from the door to the far wall like ink through water. Forty faces turned. Forty pairs of eyes measured his coat, his height, and, he had no doubt, his income. Somewhere near the musicians a woman whispered ten thousand a year, and somewhere near the punch bowl another answered and half of Derbyshire.

Bingley, beside him, beamed as though he had been handed the keys to the county.

"Is it not charming, Darcy? Such pleasant, open faces."

"They are certainly open," Darcy said. "Most of them are open-mouthed."

Bingley laughed and was gone, swept into the crowd by a stout gentleman in a coat twenty years out of fashion who introduced himself, loudly, as Sir William Lucas. Miss Bingley and the Hursts drifted after him. Darcy did not follow.

He had not wanted to come. He had not wanted to come to Hertfordshire at all, if he were honest, but Bingley had begged for his advice on the lease, and London in October had felt unbearable. Every room in Darcy House held some reminder of Ramsgate: the letter he had written and burnt three times, the pianoforte Georgiana no longer touched. His sister had wept when he left her with Lady Matlock, and then wept again, he suspected, from relief that he was gone. A brother who had seen her folly was a hard thing to look at every morning.

So he had come here, to be useful to Bingley, and to be nobody for a few weeks. He had not reckoned on being the most interesting thing to happen to Meryton since the last harvest.

He retreated to the edge of the room, where a broad pillar wrapped in faded green garlands offered some shelter, and set his back to it. From here he could watch the dancing without being part of it. The pillar hid him from the room's gaze. He let out a long breath.

The set ended. The next began. He declined, with a bow and a single word, an introduction to a Miss King, and then to a Miss Long, and then, with less grace, to a lady whose mother had taken hold of his sleeve. After that the introductions stopped. He heard the reason a few minutes later, on the other side of the pillar.

"Proud," a woman was saying, with enormous satisfaction. "Proud as Lucifer. He has not spoken three words together to anybody but his own party."

"He would not dance with my Maria," said another. "Not even one set."

"Nor with Mrs Long's niece. He looked at her as if she were something the cat had dragged in."

Darcy's jaw tightened. He had not looked at anyone like that. He had not, he thought, looked at anyone at all. He shifted his weight, intending to move away before he heard worse, when a new voice joined the others. It was a young woman's voice, low and warm, with laughter running just underneath it.

"Perhaps he is simply shy."

The matrons fell silent for a moment, as though a dog had spoken.

"Shy, Lizzy? A man with ten thousand a year?"

"I did not know shyness was a question of income, Mrs Long. If it were, Papa would be the boldest man in England, for he has very little and says nothing."

Someone laughed despite herself. The young woman went on, lightly, as if it cost her nothing.

"Consider it. He knows no one here but Mr Bingley's family. He has been stared at since he walked through the door, and we have all been adding up his fortune aloud. I should want to stand behind a pillar too."

Darcy went very still.

"He may be tired from the road," she said. "Or grieving. Or worried about someone at home. A man who dislikes a crowd is not necessarily a man who dislikes people. I think we might give him one evening before we decide he is Lucifer."

"You are too generous, Eliza," said a third voice, drier and fond. "And you only say it because nobody has asked you to dance this set."

"That is true, Charlotte. I am generous because I am idle. But I stand by it."

The matrons returned to their grievances; he heard the words arrogant and disagreeable again, with less conviction. Darcy did not listen. He was looking round the pillar.

She was sitting on a bench against the wall with a plain, sensible-looking friend beside her. She was not the beauty of the room. That was the tall fair girl dancing with Bingley, who was already gazing at her as though she had personally invented the quadrille. This young woman was smaller and darker, in a sprigged muslin that had seen at least two seasons, with a mass of dark curls escaping their pins. She was watching the dancers with open pleasure, tapping one foot in time.

Then, as if she felt his gaze, she turned her head and looked straight at him.

Her eyes were dark, and bright, and entirely unembarrassed. For one long moment neither of them moved. He saw her realise where he was standing, and what he must have heard. Colour rushed into her cheeks. And then, instead of looking away, she lifted her chin a fraction, and the corner of her mouth curved as if to say: well, sir, now you know.