As the evening wore on though, Elizabeth found herself watching Darcy more and more anxiously. He was polite, answered every question, laughed at her father’s jokes, and even complimented her mother on the dessert. But there was something careful about it all, something that suggested he was working quite hard to be charming.
When it came time to leave, her family clustered around the front door like they were seeing off visiting dignitaries.
“You must come again soon,” her mother insisted, pressing a container of leftover dessert into Darcy’s hands.
“I’d be delighted.” Elizabeth couldn’t tell if he was being polite or if he truly meant it.
Lydia hugged him goodbye again, despite his obvious discomfort with the unexpected physical contact. Mary gave him a pamphlet about economic theory “for light reading.” Kitty made him pose for a selfie with her and Athena.
Her father shook his hand and said, “Take care of our girl.”
They drove the first ten minutes in comfortable silence while Elizabeth tried to work out how to ask the question that was eating at her.
“Well,” she said. “That was a lot.”
“They’re lovely,” Darcy told her. “Your family is wonderful.”
But Elizabeth could hear something in his voice, some careful politeness that alarmed her. “You don’t have to be kind. I know they’re a bit much.”
“Elizabeth.” Darcy glanced over at her, his expression serious. “I meant what I said. They’re lovely. Your father is witty, your mother is warm, and your sisters are spirited. Did you say Lydia wants to be an actress?”
“Yes, you can see that she’s definitely got the larger-than-life bit down.”
Elizabeth thought about meeting Georgiana, how easy and elegant that had been. How natural it had felt to sit in that expensive café and have a civilised conversation about books and music and travel.
Then she remembered Waffles performing chair gymnastics while slobbering all over Athena, Lydia asking Darcy if he had any single friends before the starter was even served, her mother interrogating him like he was applying for a security clearance, and her father gleefully recounting the purple hair disaster as though it were peak comedy.
The two of them came from different worlds. Not just different—completely, fundamentally, utterly different.
And not for the first time since she’d fallen for William Darcy, Elizabeth wondered if that might be a problem.
“I like your family, Elizabeth,” Darcy insisted. “They’re genuine. There’s no pretence there.”
“No,” Elizabeth agreed. That was certainly the truth. “No pretence at all. What you see is very much what you get.”
She kissed him goodnight on her doorstep, watching through her front window as he and Athena drove away into the London evening.
Chapter Six
The night after dinner with the Bennets, Darcy stood at his windows and watched the evening traffic crawl along in the amber glow of the streetlights.
It wasn’t that the dinner had gone badly. Mrs. Bennet had been welcoming, if rather determined to extract his entire financial history. Mr. Bennet had been amusing, though Darcy suspected he’d been cataloguing every response for future entertainment value. Lydia had asked him directly whether he had any single friends before regaling him with tales about the book narration business she had started to help pay for her acting classes. Mary had delivered what appeared to be a prepared lecture on economic inequality that had segued into the commercialisation of Christmas, and Kitty had managed to take approximately forty-seven photographs of her dinner without once appearing to eat any of it.
The whirlwind hadn’t bothered him. Elizabeth had given him fair warning, and in fact, there had been something rather appealing about the complete absence of ceremony, the way they all cheerfully talked over each other, the casual warmth that filled every corner of the modest dining room.
What unsettled him a bit was how perfectly Elizabeth had belonged in it all.
She’d deflected her mother’s more invasive questions with gentle humour, translated her father’s dry observations for Darcy’s benefit, mediated between her sisters with the practised ease of someone who’d been doing it for years. She’d been effortlessly herself—quick-witted and warm and unpretentious.
And Darcy had sat there feeling like a visitor from another planet, tense, polite, and desperately trying not to put a foot wrong.
Had she noticed? The way he’d hesitated before every response, measuring each word against some internal standard of proper social behaviour?
The concierge rang up with the news that his sister was here to see him. Darcy told him to allow her upstairs.
He pressed his forehead against the cool glass. It was one evening. Elizabeth had seemed pleased that he’d made the effort, had kissed him goodnight with genuine warmth. If he’d felt out of place, well, that was hardly surprising. Different families had different rhythms, and he would need time to find his footing.
But the nagging sense that he’d somehow failed an important test refused to fade.
