Page 62

It was not a smile. But it lived in the same country.

The music shifted. A call for partners. And like that, they were drawn back into the tide. Elizabeth followed the motion of the crowd, head held high. For the first time all evening, she was breathing.

She sensed her before she heard her.

Music trilled, conversation hummed, but the practiced sweetness of Miss Ashford’s voice cut through it all. ““Oh—there you are, Mr. Darcy. I was beginning to fear I should have to dance alone… or else impose on Miss Bennet’s generosity a moment longer.””

Miss Ashford was all grace and silk as she arrived, fingers curling lightly around Darcy’s arm—nothing forceful, nothing sharp.

Just the quiet certainty of a woman used to being welcome.

Her skirts whispered across the floor, brushing his leg as though the fabric itself had been trained to claim her territory.

Darcy paused. Only for a breath—but she saw it.

Not hesitation. Not exactly.

A flicker. A thread tugged loose before he caught it again.

“Of course,” he said. Smooth as always. “Forgive me.”

Miss Ashford tilted her face up to his, smiling with the satisfaction of a lady whose dance card would never be found wanting. She slipped her hand through his arm, light as ribbon, and steered him gently toward the dancers. He went without resistance.

Elizabeth stood where he had left her, one hand still against the cold plaster of the column. The warmth he had lent her vanished with his coat sleeve. The space beside her collapsed.

The violins rose. The candlelight bled gold over the parquet floor. Someone laughed—high and musical and unaware. Elizabeth did not move. Did not speak. She only watched them go, and told herself it did not ache.

He had not looked back.

But he had not wanted to leave—she was sure of it.

And that—Heaven help her—that might be worse.

M iss Ashford angled herself toward the firelight, lifting her skirts just so. Darcy reached for a fresh glass of wine without tasting the last. Across the room, someone laughed—sharp, delighted, too loud for any anecdote that harmless.

Mr. Ashford stepped closer, brushing a bit of invisible lint from his cuff. “A lively house,” he said, his gaze sweeping the chandelier. “I see what you mean about Mr. Bingley. He is very… welcoming.”

Mrs. Ashford adjusted the fall of her sleeve and offered a mild smile. “Your Miss Bingley is quite the hostess. I believe she introduced me to six people in as many minutes.”

Darcy inclined his head, offering nothing more. He would not speak of Miss Bingley tonight. Not while his tongue still threatened to betray him.

“Mr. Bingley has a gift for hospitality,” he said instead. “He is well-liked, and justly so.”

Mrs. Ashford smiled, pleased. “Yes, yes. And how fortunate for us—next year, Susan will be out, and with Penelope already so well-situated, I daresay her dance card will fill itself.”

She said it with the modesty of someone entirely certain she had won. Darcy did not trust himself to answer. He was looking for Bingley.

Darcy had intended to speak earlier—pass a quiet word to Bingley at the matinée, advise him of his sister’s apparent betrayal of her former “friend.” But Caroline Bingley’s smug presence, the guests’ eyes… he had held himself back, believing discretion was protection for the moment.

Miss Ashford glanced up, just for a moment. “Mama—”

“It is a promising new year ahead,” Mrs. Ashford interrupted. “Surely, that is a sentiment we can all echo.”

Darcy offered no reply. What could he say? That protection and position was a mirage? That London’s polite society had the manners of a chessboard and the instincts of a wolf pack?

A violin trilled, bright and insistent, dragging the dancers into another set. He stepped back instinctively as a swirl of skirts passed too close. Miss Ashford leaned toward him—said something light, something about the card tables, perhaps—but the words splintered before they reached him.

He nodded. Or thought he did.

Movement by the stairs caught his eye. Two women, half-shadowed, their heads bent close. They did not glance over, not directly, but their posture changed as he neared. One pressed a hand to her chest in mock surprise. The other’s mouth curled into something that might once have been a smile.

Not laughter.

A whisper sharpened to a point.

He turned his face away—too sharply. His collar itched. His gloves felt damp.

A gentleman brushing past muttered something just loud enough for the syllables to carry—“hasty match”—before the voice was lost to the music.

Darcy’s spine locked. His hand hovered behind Miss Ashford’s back but did not touch her. He did not dare look up, lest his eyes blunder into Elizabeth’s again.

He circled the edge of the room instead, skirting conversation, avoiding Miss Bingley’s gaze with careful precision. Her voice rang out—light, false, unmistakable—but he turned away before it could settle on him. A waiter offered champagne. He declined.

Then—

Her.

She stood apart, near the fireplace. The light gilded the curve of her cheek, the gleam of her hair. She was not watching anyone, yet she saw everything. Unmoving. Unsmiling.

He felt it in his chest like the strike of a match. Because she looked exactly how he felt.

And the whispers were getting louder.

He moved—slowly. Not toward her. Not toward anything. Just away from the scalding ache in his chest.

“…quite the little pamphlet. She must think she is dashingly clever…”

“…ought to be ashamed…”

“…no real breeding…”

He passed, not pausing, not looking. Every word a match on dry paper.

She should not have been left to face this alone. He should have spoken. Taken her arm. Faced them all.

But that would confirm it. Confirm her , and make matters worse by making her look like his… well, that did not bear repeating.

And still, he wanted to.

A voice behind him—two men, laughing too softly.

“…she bit the hand that fed her…”

“…you mean the one about virtue?”

“…he still asked for her hand, though. Makes you wonder.”

He stopped walking. So, the rumor mill had found her out—discovered that her engagement to Captain Marlowe was little more than a thin veil.

Darcy glanced at the captain, across the room—smiling just a little too widely, his eyes fixed on the person he was speaking with a little too glaringly.

To the man’s credit, he had not disavowed Elizabeth…

yet. But neither was he by her side, where he belonged.

He was still burning with it—every glance Elizabeth endured, every half-smile aimed like a dart. He could see it all. The tightening of shoulders. The tilt of fans. The subtle recoil of genteel conversation.

He was ready to speak. To call them out, if need be. If they wanted a villain, let them have him. He would rather be hated than let her stand alone.

He turned—half a step toward the card room, or the stairs, or anywhere he could find her.

And then he heard his own name.

“…Darcy…”

Not addressed. Not called. Pried open.

He slowed.

“Yes, I am surprised he is not at the Matlocks’ this New Year’s…”

“…unthinkable, with his standing…”

“…they say he has made himself unwelcome.”

His stomach turned.

An instant later, he caught another voice, lower, nearer.

“…well, you heard about the will…”

“…a clause, something about turning thirty—”

“Oh, yes, he had to marry in a hurry, that is the whole of it.”

He felt the heat rise up his neck. Not from wine. Not from the crowd.

From the sensation of being dissected.

“…and the sister, did you not know? Something happened, a quiet little disaster… patched over quickly, but not well…”

Laughter, gentle at first, then sharper. Each word carved space around Elizabeth. Around him.

“…this match is all of a piece. The whole thing reeks of desperation.”

Darcy’s teeth set behind closed lips. His hands curled, slowly, into fists at his sides. Every breath had to be forced.

So, this was how it would be. Not just Elizabeth’s name dragged through drawing rooms. His, too. His sister’s.

He did not blink. He did not move. But he saw Miss Bingley across the room, smile fixed and triumphant, as though she had orchestrated the entire spectacle from behind a fan.

And perhaps she had.

Each gaze struck like a match—sharp, searching, stinging.

He stood straight, jaw locked, every muscle drawn taut to hold in what might spill out. Rage. Humiliation. Helplessness.

How had it traveled this far?

The clause in his father’s will—private, legal, buried in dusty parchment—and now laid bare in careless mouths? And Georgiana. They dared to speak her name! Who in London could have…

He swallowed hard. The air itself felt false. Too bright. Too warm.

And then—

Elizabeth. Across the crowd. Not behind Captain Marlowe. Not beside him, where she belonged—the one thing that might have shielded her.

Alone.

Her gaze met his. Raw. Open. No mask left to hold.

A second passed. Then another.

The shame they both wore, stitched in silence. The price of being watched too closely.

He looked away. He could not bear it. Not with her eyes still open like that.

He turned, cutting a path through silks and cravats and laughter, his vision narrowing.

Bingley stood near the archway, in measured conversation, a half-glass of wine in his hand. He saw Darcy coming and straightened—not alarmed. Expectant.

Darcy did not slow. He could no longer stand by. Not now, not after allowing whispers to turn to volleys. Georgiana deserved better. Elizabeth… too.

He squared his shoulders, jaw set. There would be no pause this time.

“Charles. I must speak with you.”

It landed like a command.

Bingley blinked. “Now?”

“Yesterday would not be too soon.”

He glanced once at the room behind them. Then he led the way—past the firelight, beyond the music. Into the hush of the corridor, where the world might finally stop spinning long enough to put it right.