The silence stretched, and Darcy said, “What secret matter amuses you so, Miss Elizabeth?”
“No, no, no — it is Caroline’s secrets which I enjoin you to discover. Not mine. In any case — behold! The piano is open. Caro, I must have you play.” Elizabeth looked at Darcy. “She has improved enormously since we were in school. You must wish to hear her play.”
“Of a certainty,” he said bowing.
“No,” Caroline replied, flushing, but also smiling at Elizabeth with gratitude. “My dear Eliza, you know how little I enjoy performing and putting myself forward!”
What a humbug.
There was no one Elizabeth knew whomoreenjoyed putting herself forward than Caroline. But Elizabeth loved that her friend could honestly delight in her own powers — it would be an awfully stupid and dull thing to develop any talent so fully as Caroline had with her musicwithouttaking pleasure in the admiration and joy of others.
“Your modesty does you full credit!” cried Elizabeth. “However, you must give way,Ienjoy your performances too greatly to permit this opportunity to hear you play to pass me by — you have no choice.” Elizabeth led all them to the piano and ordered Mr. Darcy to the stool next to Caroline to turn the pages for her friend.
There.
Thatwas a gesture of promoting flirtation that had every promise of success, and one which had as proof of its value that it was oft employed to good effect in novels.
Elizabeth leaned against the wall, next to the painting that Sir William had commissioned of him making his speech to the king when he was mayor, to listen to the music.
Caroline had always been the best amongst all the pupils at school in perfecting her accomplishments. She took delight in impressing Mrs. Castle and the masters brought in to instruct them in the various arts, and Caroline had improved her play even further since Elizabeth listened to her last.
That practice, inspired by Miss Georgiana Darcy and Caroline’s hope of impressing Mr. Darcy with her excellent taste in music, had gone to good.
Elizabeth closed her eyes to just listen.
Caroline had selected a popular sonata from Beethoven, and each note made Elizabeth’s heart leap. She absently bounced her finger up and down in time to the music, and hummed along to the primary theme.
The rolling and falling piano notes were as beautiful, sublime, and elegant as falling rain from a cloudy sky, or a column of smoke rising cheerfully from a red brick chimney on a snowy evening. Tears came to Elizabeth’s eye.
Daa-daa-da-d-d-Daa. D-d-d-Daa.
The endless, almost but not quite repeating gentle arpeggios of the piece…
Elizabeth lost all sense of her place, and she only opened her eyes again when Caroline began the livelier second movement. Elizabeth was thus surprised to discover that while Mr. Darcysatnext to Caroline Bingley, his eyes and attention were directly wholly on her.
Their eyes met, and her stomach felt fluttery, there was a shock in her chest, and she felt pale and faint.
With a giggle that did not stop her from perfectly maintaining her play, Caroline knocked her elbow against Darcy’s side, to remind him to turn the page. He sharply looked away from Elizabeth and did so.
Elizabeth flushed, and told herself insistently that Mr. Darcy’s study of her face and person was no sign of attraction.
Andshecertainly was beyond a doubt in no way attracted to Mr. Darcy. Caroline was in love with him.
And he certainly had no interest in her.
Not when Caroline was so much more proper for such a stiff and reserved man, such a quiet and unsociable man who nevertheless had the most eligible fortune.
He was not at all to her liking, neither in manners nor in mind.
But in Elizabeth’s dreams that night she lived that intense moment when their eyes met a dozen times, and Elizabeth woke the next morning restless, energetic, and with an ache in her breasts and loins that she only half understood.
Chapter Five
One day about a week later, Elizabeth received a letter from Caroline that had been hurried over by one of the Netherfield footmen:
My Dearest Eliza,
I had the shock of my month this morning when I found that Mr. Darcy’s cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, had joined our party overnight. I half jumped out of my skin when I came down in the morning to find him and Darcy already lingering over their coffee, even though it was only eight, and breakfast had not properly been served.
