Page 24

It is possible I am not quite as easy to charm as he expects.

I flatter myself I require more than a handsome face and a tragic backstory—though I admit, I can be temporarily disarmed by a well-placed compliment and a decent cravat.

Still, I like to think I am clever enough to know when someone’s performance has been rehearsed.

Elizabeth frowned. She had written that last word without quite realizing it had been in her mind, but now that it was staring at her on the page, it explained a great deal. She tilted her head and wrote some more.

His compliments land exactly where they should—like darts thrown by someone who has practiced on prettier targets.

His stories are just self-effacing enough to seem sincere, the way a cat might limp to gain sympathy before leaping onto a windowsill.

He is witty, attractive, and almost certainly lethal in a crowded drawing room.

So why do I keep watching his eyes like I am waiting for the curtain to drop and the real actor to take a bow?

Her eyes drifted past the page to the garden wall outside.

The last of her mother’s autumn blooms were now withered and mostly gone.

A breath of snow had whispered in on the afternoon’s walk home, and by tomorrow, they might see a white dusting on the ground.

Winter was fairly upon them now, and with that changing of the seasons…

There was a shriek from upstairs—Kitty’s voice, pitched somewhere between delight and outrage. Footsteps followed, thundering down the stairs, and Lydia appeared a moment later in her corset and stockings, waving a gown above her head.

“It does not fit!” she bellowed. “It fit two months ago and now it is shrunk!”

Elizabeth raised her head. “Blame the syllabub, not the garment.”

“I shall have to wear Jane’s!” Lydia wailed, vanishing again in a flurry of underskirts.

Elizabeth’s mouth dropped open, just in time to hear a cry of dismay from Jane. “No, Lydia, you took my last gown. I have just made over another, and—”

But Mrs. Bennet’s voice echoed up the stairs. “Well! It is not her fault she is blooming like a prize rose! Jane’s gown will do perfectly—if we let it out a bit—and it will only prove how very womanly our Lydia is becoming!”

Elizabeth sank her teeth into her lower lip and turned back to her journal.

There is to be a ball. There is always a ball. But now it is his ball. Or at least, hosted by his friend.

Mr. Darcy has begun making social calls. I saw him leaving Mrs. Goulding’s house this morning—walking as though he had endured a personal tragedy and no one had yet offered him a drink.

The Hartfield nieces—Miss Eugenie and Miss Lavinia—are very nearly passable. Eugenie has a dowry, at least. And teeth. I think.

I should congratulate him. They are a fine match. Twice my dowry and half my sense. If he survives two visits, he may even earn a medal.

She added a small, ungenerous sketch of Darcy frowning over a tea tray. One eyebrow nearly reached his hairline.

I shall ask him about it, if I get the chance. Though he looked today as if he were riding directly into a thunderstorm.

She hesitated. Her pencil slowed.

He has been different, lately. Still proud, still intolerable, still too tall for any room he enters. But less certain. More—

The pencil stopped.

—sensible. Or perhaps I am.

I do not like this. I prefer it when my opponents stay perfectly ridiculous.

I t was a sort of penance.

That was how he justified it.

He had made two calls already today, and was preparing for a third. He had smiled, complimented, endured, and—in one case —survived a plate of undercooked pheasant and an argument about musical theory between three sisters with identical hair.

The Lucases had been first.

Charlotte Lucas was not unappealing. Her face was rather plain, but she was sensible, direct, and only rarely gave the impression of calculating futures during a conversation.

Darcy had asked about her reading. She had mentioned a passing interest in cookery receipts.

He had fought the urge to reach for the window latch.

Her parents, however, had been another matter. Sir William’s enthusiasm hovered somewhere between embarrassing and contagious. Lady Lucas had spoken of potential matches in a tone that suggested the drawing room was a livestock pen.

Miss Lucas had not seemed particularly impressed with him. That, at least, had been refreshing. He would save his trouble for somewhere else.

His second visit had been worse.

The Wheatons were well-meaning and entirely exhausting. Mr. Wheaton spoke in long, circular monologues about regional land management. Mrs. Wheaton had taken to rearranging the seating until he was precisely next to her sister, Miss Mary King.

Mary King had thin, damp hair, freckles so numerous that he could not decide where they ended and her blush began, and an uncertain smile. She blinked frequently. She also—he could not explain this—had brought him a rose.

“A late bloom from Uncle’s hothouse,” she said. “They are but small this time of year.”

He had thanked her.

She had then proceeded to mention roses three more times in the next fifteen minutes.

Mrs. Wheaton had done nothing to disguise her intent. “Mary may not have a fortune today,” she said brightly, “but circumstances do change. Her great-uncle—dear man—passed only last week. No one has read the will yet, of course.”

Darcy had nodded. He had offered nothing.

Miss King had asked if he liked roses. Then whether he liked the concept of roses. Then whether he had ever grown one himself.

He had escaped as soon as manners allowed.

Now, riding back to Netherfield, he felt neither accomplished nor relieved. Only tired. And increasingly certain that he would rather spend his remaining months in quiet disgrace than marry any woman who decorated her conversation with floral hypotheticals.

H e returned just as Bingley was leaving for an evening with the regiment.

“Dinner with Forster,” Bingley said cheerfully. “I shall see if they’ve any word from the quartermaster yet.”

Darcy raised a brow. “Quartermaster? Whatever for?”

“Oh! Nothing but a jest about their uniforms. Caroline is in high dudgeon about it—she says the red will clash with her décor.”

Darcy looked up, blinking. “They are soldiers, not footstools.”

“I know, I know,” Bingley said. “I told her they would not change uniform to flatter her drapery.”

“She would prefer they wear blue, I suppose?”

“She said navy was more dignified. I reminded her the French wear blue. She called me unpatriotic.”

“I suspect Colonel Forster will think otherwise.” Darcy turned toward the stairs, but Bingley’s voice stopped him.

“Come with me, Darcy. You look like you could use a drink, and the colonel is always good company.”

For half an instant, Darcy considered it. But then he shook his head wearily. “Make my excuses to the colonel, please.”

“Suit yourself.”

Darcy stepped through the front hall, already charting the most efficient route to his room and a door he could close behind him. He had no desire for conversation. No appetite. No interest in being seen.

He had nearly reached the stairs when a voice drifted from the drawing room.

“Mr. Darcy—do join us,” Miss Bingley called. “We were just discussing the local color.”

He paused.

A moment later, she appeared in the doorway, holding a book she clearly had no intention of reading. “You have been so diligent with your visits of late. It seems ungracious not to share your impressions.”

Darcy turned, slowly. He could not retreat without inviting comment.

So, he entered the room.

“I do hope your visits were productive,” she said sweetly, not looking up as she resumed her seat.

Darcy inclined his head. “They were not intended to be.”

She laughed. “Indeed! Well, you are certainly being spoken of as though they are. I daresay you have caused a ripple in the pond. Mrs. Wheaton has already begun pricing bonnets.”

Darcy twisted so he could stare at the fire.

“Of course, none of them quite understand whom they are entertaining. Gossiping about Mr. Darcy of Pemberley as if he were truly in play in such a small town! So provincial. So… eager.”

He crossed one foot over the other and kept staring at the fire.

“I suppose there is always Miss Gray,” she continued airily. “Quite pretty. Excellent dowry. And you would not believe her embroidery. So delicate. So… quiet.”

“I find silence overrated in company.”

“Do you?” Miss Bingley asked, with more interest than the remark deserved. “How curious. I was under the impression you preferred women who knew when to remain still.”

Darcy looked up from the fire. “You are under several impressions.”

Her smile wavered before reasserting itself. “Indeed. One can hardly be blamed. Your preferences are so rarely stated aloud.”

“Because they are not up for discussion.”

Miss Bingley tilted her head. “So mysterious. No wonder the local girls are all aflutter.”

He raised a single brow and turned his gaze back to the fire.

“It must be flattering. The attention. “Even Miss Eliza Bennet seems rather determined not to look your way, but she is forever standing somewhere you cannot help but see her.”

Darcy did not reply.

But the image arrived anyway—clear, unbidden. Elizabeth by the garden wall at Lucas Lodge, head tilted, lashes low, a crooked smile curving like she knew exactly how visible she had made herself. He had looked away first.

Heat prickled behind his collar. He shifted his stance—too quickly, too sharply—like the memory had caught some nerve he could not name.

He blinked, slow and hard, and stared at the fire.

“She has her charms,” Miss Bingley allowed. “Though I suspect they are more appealing in moderation.”

“You would know best, I am sure.”

The jab hit; there was a faint intake of breath.

“Still,” she continued, too brightly, “it must be difficult—so many prospective matches at once. You have known Miss Bennet for years, have you not? Since before… well. Since before others began to notice her.”

He did not answer.

“Affection is such a tricky thing to manage,” she added, “especially when it has been long-established. A gentleman might confuse it for something more serious. Something foolish.”

Darcy rose.

The chair made no sound, but the motion cut clean.

“If you will excuse me,” he said, voice low but final, “I have letters to write. And no interest in discussing Miss Bennet’s charms. Moderate or otherwise.”