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I spent the rest of the evening in a pleasant cocoon.

I had never been easy in the company of marriageable ladies because I am an acknowledged catch.

But this one, this Miss Elizabeth Bennet, was fair game.

She made it clear to me somehow that she was not the catching sort.

She could endure my attentions without her expectations being raised, and the echoes of our testy, jesting dancefloor match reverberated delightfully in my mind.

Before I knew it, my party was in the carriage returning to Charles’s leased estate, Netherfield Park.

My pleasant reflections could not be penetrated, even by the sharp criticisms of his sisters.

Caroline Bingley, in particular, was waspish that evening as we gathered in the salon.

She had a great deal to say about how horrible the company had been, how mortified she was to be required to be civil to such mushrooms, and how shabbily Mrs Bennet’s daughters were attired.

Bingley took up a good-natured defence of Miss Jane Bennet, the eldest. She was an angel, he insisted, and inwardly I laughed. Her sister Elizabeth was definitely not an angel.

Miss Bingley, believing herself to be crafty, appeased her brother by acknowledging that Miss Jane was a pretty and pleasant sort of girl but the mother and the younger sisters—deplorable hoydens! And Miss Elizabeth was thought to be nearly as handsome as Jane.

“Hardly,” Caroline Bingley sniffed and slanted her eyes at me.

I continued to smile blandly at all that was said.

Miss Elizabeth Bennet did not need me to defend her against the likes of a Miss Bingley.

Needless to say, I was the first to retire for the night, and needless to say I spent the rest of the week riding along the road to Mr Bennet’s estate, Longbourn, in hopes of accidentally meeting my new flirt.

As with every expert temptress, Elizabeth Bennet was elusive.

I saw her once on a parallel track, her petticoats flashing out as she walked briskly up and over a rise.

I shall own to a jolt of surprise because never in my life had I seen a woman truly walk.

They toddled or minced along, or in the case of those serving pints in a tavern, dashed about in a helter-skelter rush.

Two weeks passed, and I still had not had the satisfaction of meeting Elizabeth Bennet again.

Certainly, there had been a few sightings—hat tipping and a bobbing curtsey in Meryton and again after church services.

At last, however, our party was invited to Lucas Lodge and from the buoyancy and exuberance of my friend Charles, I surmised that he had been assured the Bennets would be in attendance.

An afternoon at a country house filled with strangers who are neither elegant nor dignified, moreover people who have known each other all their lives and are so comfortable together that one is acutely aware of being an outsider, is a kind of torture for me.

Caroline Bingley attempted to commiserate with me as I stood awkwardly on the fringes of the melee at Lucas Lodge.

I was having none of it, answering in a dead, mechanical voice to all her lamentations, while watching the doorway for the Bennets.

When Elizabeth Bennet entered the room, I left Miss Bingley and went directly to my object.

“Mr Darcy!” she exclaimed in mild surprise at my undisguised eagerness to greet her. “You seem in high spirits. I had not thought this sort of gathering would be to your taste. I came fully prepared to witness your silent indignation at such a mode of passing an evening.”

“Yes, but I have thought that this middling sort of entertainment would be delightful to you. Am I right?”

“Well, when one lives in drudgery while plotting out how to marry well, these middling entertainments as you call them are a respite.” Just as I opened my mouth to reply, she turned to greet Miss Lucas.

“Oh Charlotte, how pretty you look! Excuse me, Mr Darcy, but I believe Mrs Long is trying to get my attention.”

Dismissed! Delightful girl! I was sure a lazy smile threatened to give me away at that moment, and so I found a window and looked out at a mediocre garden while Miss Elizabeth’s middle sister—the plain one— plunked away at the pianoforte.

Miss Bingley was sure to trap me there for the purpose of more commiseration on such horrid playing however, and so I looked around for an alternative and encountered my host, Sir William Lucas.

He was a garrulous and amiable man, benevolent and believing himself to be quite an important figure after having been tapped on the shoulder by the Prince of Wales.

He was not in any way an elegant or intelligent man, and he spoke endlessly of his brief moment in the sun at St James’s Palace.

However, just as I was about to snub him as he droned on in a most insufferable way, I caught the eye of Elizabeth Bennet.

She was evaluating me, poised to judge me as I spoke to Sir William.

She glanced softly at the man I was about to skewer with some pithy remark, and I pulled up short.

Did she indeed like this oaf? Well, he was a harmless sort, I could grant her that at least. I took a deep breath and began to converse with a bit more consideration for someone who was trying desperately to earn my approbation.

With one eye on my host and one eye on my monitor, I listened to the minute details of a room at the palace where Sir William was honoured—a second-rate chamber if I recall, used to dispatch the hordes of persons singled out for a token aimed solely at keeping the mythology of the Liege Lord intact.

I expected a reward, and what I received was a most dissatisfying afternoon in which I tried desperately to put myself in a position to earn it. Finally, at the very end of the ordeal, I pinned down my quarry only to receive a pert sort of farewell.