Elizabeth folded her hands and arched a brow. “To what do we owe the honor of your visit, Mr. Darcy?”
His mouth pressed into a firm line, as though he had been hoping to avoid that question entirely. After a long, reluctant moment, he admitted, “My uncle… suggested I call.”
Suggested.
A direct statement. No embellishments, no pleasantries—just the blunt, miserable truth.
Elizabeth tilted her head. “And did youwishto call on me, Mr. Darcy?”
There was a half-second hesitation—so small that a lesser observer might not have caught it. Then, with his usual honesty, he said, “I… cannot say I desired it.”
Elizabeth laughed. She could not help it. “How refreshingly frank of you.”
His jaw tightened. “I thought you might prefer honesty.”
“Oh, I do. It is just that one seldom hears a gentleman admit to such reluctance.”
“Disguise of every sort is my abhorrence.”
Elizabeth blinked. And then smiled. “Then by all means, Mr. Darcy, say what you came to say.”
Darcy had spent theentire carriage ride to the Gardiners’ residence mentally composing a list of people he would rather be meeting today. A tax collector. A dentist. A French spy with a loaded pistol.
Yet here he was.
Dragged into a courtship that was not a courtship, chasing an election he did not want, in service of a cause he had not volunteered for. And now he was standing stiffly in a merchant’s parlor, awaiting an audience with a woman he had vowed to avoid.
The moment his gaze fell on Miss Elizabeth Bennet, he knew his day was not about to improve.
She was, in all ways, exactly as he remembered—opinionated, quick-witted, her countenance betraying only as much civility as politeness required. She liked him as little as he liked her, and she seemed determined to make that plain. She greeted him correctly but without warmth, her chin high, her posture poised.
The expected pleasantries were exchanged—bows, curtsies, stiff smiles that did not reach the eyes. She spoke with respectable composure, and Darcy responded in kind, though every word felt like dragging a boulder uphill.
It was all perfectly civil. And yet, somehow, excruciating.
Her eyes—sharp, assessing, entirely too amused—lingered on him a moment too long, as though she were waiting for him to trip over himself. Darcy, already irritated by the necessity of this visit, had no intention of indulging her.
Darcy’s eyes flickered toward Mrs. Gardiner, who was clearly listening with great interest, and then back to Elizabeth. “It seems that that certain appearances must be upheld.”
“Oh, naturally. There is nothing so important as appearances.”
Darcy’s pulse jumped unexpectedly. She was laughing at him, of course she was, but… he found himself momentarily distracted by the sarcastic glint in her eye—it was as if she were mirroring his own feelings back to him. His gaze flickered over her before he could stop himself.
Her posture was poised, but not in the way of the women he was accustomed to in London. There was no artifice in it, no deliberate arrangement of hands and shoulders meant to best display her charms. She carried herself with an air of expectation, as if waiting for the world to challenge her—and fully prepared to meet it when it did.
Her eyes—too perceptive for his comfort—were not those of a woman flattered by his presence. If anything, she looked as though she were studying him, weighing him as a sparring partner, already preparing her next remark. Not for the pleasure of the conversation, but for the sport of it.
There was nothing meek or hesitant about Elizabeth Bennet. No careful smiles, no lowered gaze, no pretense of sweet compliance. She faced him with the same unflinching boldness as before, as if she had already determined that whatever game they were playing, she would not lose.
She was, objectively, not the sort of woman a man in his position would entertain as a possible match.
And yet, when the light caught her eyes just so, he could not look away.
Good Heavens, what was he doing?
Elizabeth was watching him closely, clearly pleased to have rattled him.
Darcy took a measured breath. Time to steer this conversation back on course. “I am here,” he repeated in a clipped voice, “because my uncle wishes it.”
