Page 28 of Colour My World (The Bennet Sister Variations #3)

Mrs Bennet rose from her chair. “Come, my dears,” she said. “Let us leave the gentlemen to their port.”

The ladies stood. As Elizabeth turned to follow Jane from the room, she hesitated. Mr Darcy did not look at her. He remained in place, his posture rigid, his expression unreadable.

Mrs Ecclestone, however, did look at her. The older woman caught Elizabeth’s eye momentarily before she inclined her head, took Mrs Bennet’s arm, and exited the room.

The door closed behind them.

* * *

Bennet swirled the last remnants of his wine before setting his glass aside. He leant back in his chair, steepling his fingers.

Darcy remained perfectly still. Bennet studied him. Darcy stared ahead, not speaking.

“You know,” Bennet said, “it is a curious thing how a man may step into a house with the best intentions and still find himself standing amidst the ruins of his own making.”

He leaned forward slightly. “Tell me, Darcy. Did you come here to court disaster or merely fail to see the edge of the cliff beneath your boots?”

“I had no intentions at all, sir.”

“No?” Bennet lifted a brow. “That much is clear. And yet, your lack of intention has created quite the spectacle.”

He reached for the decanter, thought better of it, and folded his hands instead.

“Let us review the evening, shall we?”

Bennet ticked off each point, one by one.

“You arrived. You were received with civility. No small thing, I might add, given the circumstances. You then sat through a dinner where you neither engaged nor encouraged conversation. And yet,” he nodded toward the doorway, “the moment my daughter so much as looked at you, the entire room became a battlefield. It was my youngest—and hardly the family diplomat—who called you out.”

“Miss Lydia spoke,” Darcy said, “with Mrs Ecclestone’s leave.”

“If that does not make a man question his choices, nothing will. Although you did something rather extraordinary. You apologised.”

“Was that not enough?”

“I find it unprecedented.” Bennet tilted his head. “A man like you, who stands upon his pride as though it were a birthright, stooping to offer words of regret?” He exhaled. “Forgive me if I struggle to determine whether I should be impressed or deeply suspicious.”

Darcy pressed his lips together.

Bennet folded his arms. “What precisely do you wish to accomplish this evening?”

“Nothing.”

Bennet’s smile vanished. “Come now, young man. You can do better than that.”

Darcy clenched his jaw.

“Ah,” Bennet said lightly. “The silence of avoidance. I have five daughters, Darcy. You will find I am rather well acquainted with that particular brand of evasion.”

“I owed Miss Elizabeth an apology. And I gave it.”

“You did,” Bennet allowed. “And yet, it was not only Elizabeth who witnessed your display at the assembly. It was not only she who bore the brunt of your actions. Do you truly suppose a public wound may be mended with private regret?”

He stood and walked a slow circuit around the study.

“You did not simply injure her pride, sir. You invited speculation. You cast her as a figure of ridicule—and worse, a subject of curiosity. And in a world such as ours, Mr Darcy, that can cost a woman far more than it does a man.”

He turned back. “You say you owed her an apology? I say you owe her far more than that. I am not an unkind man, nor am I an unreasonable one. But if you believe you can enter my home, disrupt the peace of my family, and then slip away under the cover of civility, you are sorely mistaken.”

“What, then, would you have me do?”

Bennet leant forward. “I would have you determine, here and now, whether you are to be a man of words or a man of deeds.”

Darcy felt himself back in the Pemberley schoolroom.

“I do not ask for your friendship,” Bennet continued. “Nor do I seek your approval. But if you mean to place yourself in my daughter’s path, whether as friend, suitor, or tormentor, I will have the truth of it.”

Bennet rose. “Until then, I suggest you not return.”

Darcy stood. Bennet adjusted his waistcoat. “You do play chess, do you not?”

“I do.”

“Then consider this my opening move.”

* * *

He followed Bennet into the withdrawing room. The door to the music room stood ajar; the sound of the pianoforte drifted in—rich, steady notes played with unadorned precision.

Darcy stopped to listen. The composition, measured and unembellished, was one he knew, but under the performer’s hands, it possessed a quiet confidence that was more than pleasant. He had heard Miss Mary play only once before, yet something in the touch felt familiar. Extraordinary, actually.

Mrs Ecclestone sat with a small smile, tracing slow figure eights in the air, like a conductor awaiting her orchestra. “Lovely,” she murmured, eyes half-closed.

Miss Kitty and Miss Lydia were absent. Mrs Bennet, her hands folded primly in her lap, turned to him. “Mr Darcy, I do apologise. The younger girls have retired early.”

“I understand.”

“Mr Darcy, tell us. Does Miss Bingley enjoy the country? I believe she mentioned finding it… refreshing?” Miss Bennet, apparently the family diplomat, asked with mild curiosity.

“She finds it a change from London.”

Miss Bennet smiled as though waiting for more.

“And the Hursts?”

“They, too, enjoy the country.”

“And Mr Bingley?” Mrs Bennet asked. Miss Bennet blushed.

Darcy hesitated. “He is quite content.”

That, at least, was true.

Throughout the exchange, Darcy chanced looks at Elizabeth.

She had yet to speak. She had not even looked up.

Instead, she sat apart, half-turned in her chair, the soft glow of the candle beside her casting golden light over the open book in her lap. Her fingertip drifted along the page margin—absent, distracted.

Darcy excused himself and crossed the room. Without invitation, he lowered himself onto the empty seat beside her. “You appear quite absorbed.”

She closed the book’s cover. “ The Recluse of the Pyrenees ,” she replied.

“A gothic novel?”

“You expected Plutarch’s Lives ?” She looked up and met his gaze.

One brown. One green. Up close, they were not just mismatched—they were absolute. A thousand words he had spoken to her father, and yet here, seated beside her, he felt the truth rather than recited it. It is her.

A young lady with beautiful eyes, different from one another, hair rich with copper and mahogany, who shares her laughter freely.

And I ran from her.

He drew in a steady breath. It caught anyway.

“Have you read it?” she asked.

“I have not.”

She turned a page with deliberate care. “The tale is simple enough. A young woman, orphaned, raised in the country, and given little regard by those of consequence.”

“And the hero?”

Elizabeth tilted her head. “A proud, overbearing man, high in fortune but low in warmth. He insults her, belittles her, and convinces himself she does not command his interest.”

She looked directly at him and lifted an eyebrow. “But he cannot seem to stay away.”

And when you find her, despite the opinion of others, you must never give her up.

The pianoforte played on. He rose and bowed. “Miss Elizabeth.”

She inclined her head in acknowledgement. “Mr Darcy.”

Darcy turned towards his hosts. “I thank you for your hospitality.”

Mrs Bennet sat forward. “Oh, must you leave so soon? Surely, another—”

Bennet waved a hand. “Let the man escape while he can, my dear.” His eyes gleamed as he sipped his port. “You may wish to thank Mrs Ecclestone. She has trained us well.”

Mrs Ecclestone, still leading her absent orchestra, smiled without opening her eyes. “A pleasure, I assure you.”

Darcy gave another slight bow, said nothing further, and departed .