And an idea occurred to Caroline.
She pushed the thought away. It would be wrong.
The thought bowed, departed, and then returned, with a villainous smirk. It now offered additional details, practical explanations, and schemes for how to make all the details succeed.
Elizabeth would disapprove.
But Elizabeth also was the reason that Mr. Darcy hadn’t come to love her on his own.
This time Caroline didn’t push the dangerous thought away, but rather let it dance its own minuet in her mind.
Chapter Twelve
After Elizabeth’s dance with Darcy, she noticed that Caroline was not where she had been sitting earlier.
There was a sharp jab of anxiety in her chest, but then she was approached by Mr. Gould, her next partner, and with a smile Elizabeth put her attention on him.
However she kept half an eye constantly out for her friend.
Over the course of that dance, Elizabeth became increasingly convinced that she was not in the room, and had not been in it for at least half an hour. And that she’d left while Elizabeth was dancing with Mr. Darcy.
Darcy had been…
The simple fact was that Elizabeth had enjoyed dancing with him enormously. He’d been mostly quiet, but the way he looked at her made her feel something… something different from anything else she’d ever felt. And when hedidspeak everything he said was persistently intelligent, interesting and clever.
His mind really was like that of her father in important ways, and he had an authentic interest in what she said. When he got her to start talking about a book, or her opinions on the character of their neighbors or anything else helistenedto her.
Beautiful dark serious eyes.
Caroline had watched them. Elizabeth was sure that Caroline had watched them.
She needed to see Caroline and tell her… Elizabeth was not sure what.
Unfortunately, Elizabeth had already agreed to dance each of the remaining sets until dinner, and so she spent the next hour being swung around and around by one partner after another — each dance left her more anxious, more desperate, and more distracted.
She noticed during the supper dance that Caroline was not there to dance with Colonel Fitzwilliam as they had agreed. That gentleman spent the whole set standing with Mr. Darcy and calmly talking with him.
Soon as the supper bell rang, and they went to the other room that had been filled with tables, Elizabeth approached Charlie who was smiling sweetly at Jane as the two of them eagerly talked. “Charlie, Jane, have you seen Caro?”
Charlie blinked and shrugged. He looked at Jane.
She also shook her head. “I haven’t — hmmmm. Odd of her to not be dancing. Do you think she is well?”
“I am sure she is,” Charlie said. “If Caroline does not wish to be part of the party, she has no need to be.”
Elizabeth bit her lip.
She went to Colonel Fitzwilliam. “Do you know where Miss Bingley was when she’d been meant to dance with you?”
He opened his mouth, with half a grin, and then he sighed and shook his head. “Poor girl. But perhaps she has realized at last the reality — to know generally is superior to laboring under a misapprehension.”
Elizabeth then asked Louisa who had seen Caroline leave the room: She had in fact stood up and hurried from the room during the middle of Elizabeth’s dance with Darcy. And she had not been seen since.
Louisa’s comment was, “My poor sister. She’ll have to settle for a more ordinary gentleman — perhaps you won’t. Mr. Darcy seems enthralled by you.”
Elizabeth went pale. “He has no particular admiration for me.”
“Isthatwhat you plan to tell Caroline?” Louisa clucked her tongue. “You both have always been quite silly together. Maybe you both will believe he has no interest in you until he makes you an offer.”
