Her eyes caught his, just for a heartbeat, and something in her expression softened. Her lips parted, curved. She turned back to the game too quickly, as if nothing had happened.
He exhaled. Too sharply. Almost angrily.
God help him, he had waited for that smile.
“Rustic,” came Caroline Bingley’s voice, somewhere off to the right.
Darcy blinked, turning just enough to see her gliding toward the circle of girls with her most brittle smile in place, a fan dangling from one gloved hand.
“You exhibit such… charm in this quaint pastime,” she said, aiming her words like darts. “Perhaps the game of graces would offer a more elegant display.”
Elizabeth turned, and whatever she had been about to say died on her lips. Darcy saw the spark in her eyes. She was not flustered. She was planning something.
“I adore the game of graces,” Elizabeth said. “Shall we?”
Caroline smiled and granted a dip of her head. Darcy crossed his arms and prepared to be amused. Caroline had no idea who she was trying to best…
The footman fetched the rods and the hoop. The Bennet girls drew back, making space.
Darcy watched, arms crossed, mouth set.
The first pass was Caroline’s—slow, stiff, overly rehearsed. The ribbon fluttered. Elizabeth caught it easily and launched it back in a clean arc, the motion so fluid it barely looked intentional.
They continued, and Caroline’s timing frayed with every exchange. Elizabeth never looked triumphant. Just amused. Calm. Bright-eyed and maddening, like she always was.
Darcy wanted to laugh and strangle something at once.
Then Elizabeth sent the hoop high and spinning, and Caroline lunged too late. It fell at her feet.
There was a pause. Then polite clapping. Lydia giggled.
Elizabeth stepped forward and bent—graceful, always graceful—and handed the hoop back with a bow of her head.
“A delightful diversion,” she said sweetly. “Thank you.”
Caroline took it without reply, her knuckles white against the ribbon.
Darcy turned away before anyone could see the expression on his face. He needed air. And distance. And a stronger will than he possessed.
For the next quarter hour, Darcy stayed where he was, at the edge of the festivities, half in shadow and half in torment. Elizabeth had moved on from the game of graces and now stood beside Jane Bennet near the booths lined with preserves and hand-painted ceramics. An older matron was gesturing grandly with a pot of quince jam, but Elizabeth’s attention kept drifting. Every few minutes, she would glance sideways, scanning the green, eyes moving past the horses, the fiddlers, the girls with sugar sticks, until—
There.
Her eyes met his again. No flourish. No surprise. Just a spark of greeting, or perhaps relief, and then—deliberately—she looked away.
Darcy felt the moment like a blow to the chest. She was content to know he was there, watching, but she did not need him for her pleasure. Never would.
Nor should she.
He turned aside, pretending to study the angle of the sun through the trees, as if that might explain why his breath had caught or why his stomach twisted whenever she looked at him like that. She was not flirting. She never flirted. That was part of what made her so damnably dangerous. She justsawhim.
And it undid him.
A bobbing horse head cut through the crowd, threading in the opposite direction of most of the activity.
Darcy straightened instantly, instincts overriding emotion. This rider had all the look of a courier, carrying a message.
Not one of his.
