Page 25

Elizabeth bit back a smile as he led her onto the floor. The dance itself was unavoidable: their feet were already executing the steps with practiced precision, no input from their actual brains required. But the conversation? That was theirs.

They faced each other, separated, circled.

"You dance well, Mr. Darcy," Elizabeth said in a perfectly modulated voice.

"Do you think so?" Darcy replied.

She waited until they were close again. "That's what I'm supposed to say. What I actually think is that we're both being puppeted through choreography like very well-dressed marionettes."

"Two points," Darcy said. "That's both off-script and accurate."

"What's the score?"

"You: two. Me: one. Though I should get bonus points for keeping my jaw unclenched for a full ninety seconds."

"That's not in the rules."

"I'm proposing an amendment."

"Denied. Now watch this."

Then Mr. Collins (who was dancing with an increasingly terrified Mary King) executed what could only be described as an interpretive dance move. His elbow collided with Darcy's shoulder.

Darcy stumbled directly into Elizabeth. She caught him. Or he caught her. Either way, they ended up pressed rather closer than was proper, his hands on her waist, her palms flat against his chest.

"I believe that was meant to be a turn," Elizabeth said.

"I should prefer not to accompany him through the next one," Darcy replied, his face inches from hers.

"My apologies!" Mr. Collins bleated. "The steps are so complex!"

"I learned them at eight," Darcy said, then glanced at Mr. Collins. "There were fewer casualties."

Elizabeth could feel his heartbeat under her hands, as quick as her own.

Of all the gentlemen she might have thanked for bringing her closer to Darcy, Mr. Collins would have been her last choice.

"You should step back," she said.

"Probably," Darcy agreed.

Neither of them moved.

"The narrative is being obvious," Elizabeth observed.

"Painfully."

"Three points to me for pointing it out while it's happening?"

"Denied. That's just commentary, not off-script dialogue."

"You're going to be pedantic about the rules during a forced proximity scene?"

"Absolutely."

Despite herself, Elizabeth laughed. "Two points to you. That was unexpected." They finally stepped back as the dance resumed, and Elizabeth was pleasantly surprised to note that her breath had only caught once during that entire exchange instead of the expected seventeen times.

Progress! They moved through the pattern again. Separate, circle, return.