Elizabeth offered a tight smile, already devising ways to avoid such conversations. “Yes, well, if you will forgive me, Mr. Collins, my sister is still feeling rather poorly, and I would like to help her upstairs to rest.”
“Oh! Of course, of course. Indeed, I did think Miss Bennet seemed rather pale, but I had supposed that was only in contrast to your more… vivid coloring.” He spoke the last with almost agasp in his breath, and when Elizabeth rounded sharply on him, he was dabbing his mouth as if he had just finished eating.
Lydia leaned closer to Elizabeth, her whisper loud enough to be heard by all. “You watch, Lizzy. I bet I can make him say ‘Lady Catherine’ three times in one breath before dinner.”
“Lydia,” Elizabeth warned, her tone sharp enough to cut her sister’s laughter short. The last thing she needed was for Mr. Collins to overhear and mistake Lydia’s teasing for genuine interest.
“Lizzy’s right,” Kitty whispered. “You should be ashamed of yourself, Lydia.”
“But why? I could do it,” was Lydia’s petulant response.
“Because that is too easy. It should be four times. No! Make it five.”
Elizabeth shot them both a glare, but Mr. Collins seemed, mercifully, to suffer from that peculiar sort of hearing impairment that is selective in nature. He was speaking again to their mother, and indeed, the name Lady Catherine had left his lips at least twice in one sentence—the lady’s virtues, her generosity, her wisdom, and her superior taste in furnishings.
Mr. Bennet, seated comfortably in his chair, looked on with amused detachment. “And there you have it, Lizzy,” he said when Mr. Collins finally paused for breath. “Our cousin is a man of many fine words and, it would seem, even greater admiration for his patroness.”
Elizabeth suppressed a smile, though she longed to escape the room. “It is always enlightening to hear of such devotion.”
“Indeed, Miss Elizabeth!” Mr. Collins exclaimed. “I believe it is my duty to speak well of those who have so kindly supported my station. Lady Catherine’s wisdom—”
Elizabeth quickly interrupted. “We are most fortunate, Mr. Collins, to hear of her many merits. I am sure my father will beeager to discuss them further during dinner. Come along, Jane. Let us make you comfortable.”
As Elizabeth turned Jane to fairly drag her out of the room, Lydia and Kitty crowded after them. “You’ll take the bet, won’t you Lizzy? Come, now, it is not like you to be shy.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “Perhaps later, Lydia.”
“Oh, but it’s no good later. If I wait too long, you’ll see that I’m right and you won’t take the bet at all.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes as they mounted the stairs. “Very well, I shall consider myself warned. I will not take your bet at all. Satisfied?”
Lydia stopped at the bottom of the stairs, her arms crossed as she pouted up at them. “You’re no fun, Lizzy.”
Darcy sat at thefar end of the drawing room, his fingers tightening around the book he had not turned a page of in at least ten minutes. The muted hum of conversation grated on his nerves, particularly Miss Bingley’s laughter—discordant, like the notes of a poorly tuned instrument. Across the room, Hurst dozed with the effortless indifference of a man for whom boredom was a lifestyle.
Darcy’s focus strayed to the others. Miss Bingley was leaning toward her sister, her tone hushed but animated, her glances in his direction far too frequent for comfort. He forced his attention back to the pages in his lap, but the words blurred, and his thoughts churned with unwelcome insistence.
That blasted poetry. Why,whyhad he done it? Now Miss Bingley probably thought he had written it forher.
Elizabeth’s face when he had read aloud returned to him unbidden: the faint flickering of her jaw, the way she bit her lip as though physically restraining herself from comment. He could almost hear the laughter she had refused to voice. Oh, he had made his point, indeed. She had told him the very best way to drive her away, and he had pulled it off with élan. Sort of.
But rather than to put her back on her heels, as he had hoped, now she was just laughing at him.
Well… did that, after all, achieve his ends? Hang his pride for a moment. Why should he care what a country miss thought of his dignity? Was she prepared to cease her assault on his senses?Thatwas the material question.
And why was she so determined to pluck him apart in the first place? It did not appear to be the usual flirtation—she hardly seemed interested in complimenting him or making herself agreeable in the common way, so he could only surmise that she had chosen him as some sort of social rival in a game to which he had never been told the rules. Was his self-inflicted humiliation enough to send her elsewhere for her amusement?
Enough!He snapped the book shut, the sharp sound startling Hurst, who grunted in his sleep. He had spent far more than enough time this evening fretting about a woman who was not even in the house.
“Oh, Mr. Darcy, will you not join us?” Miss Bingley called. She rose and crossed the room, settling herself on the settee nearest him with an air of possessive ease. “Surely you are not still brooding over the Bennets’ departure? I daresay we shall have our fair share of entertainment soon enough.”
“I am brooding over nothing, Miss Bingley.”
“Of course not,” she said with a coy smile. “You would never, naturally. But I think, perhaps, the absence ofonelady in particular has cast a rather unexpected pall over the house.”
Darcy lifted his head abruptly. “What? I—”
“I was only observing, Mr. Darcy, that my brother is somewhat… diminished this evening.”
