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Darcy stayed where he was.

He had believed the Bennets meant to fasten onto his friend's fortune. He had believed Bingley too trusting to see it. But Bingley had seen it all. He had counted the cost and chosen to pay it, knowing exactly what he was about. Bingley was not being trapped. He loved a woman and meant to look after her family.

And tonight Caroline Bingley was working on her other idea.

He did not know what it was. He knew only that he had helped to set it going. It must be stopped before Saturday.

Mary's sonata came to an end. In the pause before the scattered applause, Elizabeth raised her eyes from the sofa. For a moment they met his across the room. She seemed puzzled, as though she were trying to make two pieces fit together that would not quite join.

Then Jane spoke to her, and she turned away.

Darcy picked up his glass again. The port had gone warm. He drank it anyway, and began to decide what he would say to Caroline in the morning.

Chapter Seven

Elizabeth

“Not so tight, Kitty, I beg you. I should like to be able to breathe at my sister's wedding.”

“You will breathe well enough.” Kitty pulled the laces in another inch. “Lydia's gown would not fasten at all yesterday, and she did not make half such a fuss.”

Longbourn had not been so full of women since the Christmas ball. Every chair in the best bedchamber held a gown, a petticoat or a spencer, and the dressing table had disappeared under pins, gloves and paper roses. Aunt Phillips had taken the only empty seat and gave her opinion of each gown as it came out of its paper. Aunt Gardiner knelt at Jane's hem with two pins between her lips. At breakfast Mary had declared that finery was a snare for the vain. She had since asked twice whether her grey silk wanted a new tucker.

In the middle of it all stood Jane, in white, turning whenever her aunt told her to. She looked so lovely that even Lydia stopped talking.

“There!” Mrs Bennet clasped her hands. “Did I not tell you the Brussels lace would do? Sister Phillips, did I not say so from the very first?”

“You said Honiton, sister.”

“I said nothing of the kind.”

Elizabeth laughed and caught Jane's eye in the glass. By this time tomorrow, Jane would be Mrs Bingley. Until then, Longbourn might quarrel over lace as long as it liked.

“Lizzy, my dear.” Aunt Gardiner took the pins from her mouth. “I left my workbasket on the bench by the garden door this morning. The rest of the white satin ribbon is in it. Would you be so good as to fetch it for me?”

Elizabeth went gladly. After the warm, crowded bedchamber, the garden air was cold and sharp and smelt of woodsmoke. The basket sat where her aunt had left it, the lid damp with the morning's mist. She had just picked it up when a figure in black stepped out from behind the laurels.

She did not need to look twice. Mr Collins had been walking up and down the shrubbery since breakfast. She had watched him from the upstairs window, pacing with his hands clasped behind his back, and had hoped very much that he was writing a sermon.

“Cousin Elizabeth! How fortunate.” He came across the lawn towards her, bowing as he came, which did nothing to hurry him along. “I had begun to fear the ladies meant to keep you shut up all day.”

“There is a great deal to be done before tomorrow, sir.”

“Very true, very true. But I trust you have not forgot that there is also something to be done before Sunday.” He lowered his voice, though there was nobody within hearing. “I leave for Hunsford directly after church. Lady Catherine will expect to hear of my success. Indeed, I told her in my last letter that I had every reason to be hopeful.”

Elizabeth's fingers closed on the handle of the basket.

“Mr Collins, I —”

“Lizzy! Lizzy, come in at once!”

Mrs Bennet stood in the garden doorway with her cap knocked sideways, waving her handkerchief as if she were signalling a ship.

“Oh, Mr Collins, you must forgive us. There is the most dreadful trouble inside, and I cannot manage without Lizzy another moment. No, do not stand there staring, child. Come!”

She took Elizabeth by the wrist and pulled her into the house. The door shut on Mr Collins in the middle of a bow.

In the passage, Mrs Bennet let go and straightened her cap. All her alarm had vanished.