The announcer stared at her as if he had just witnessed a duel.
“Seven pounds bid by Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” he intoned. “Going once—twice—”
Silence.
“Sold!”
This time the applause was genuine, if uneven—half scandalized, half delighted. Elizabeth turned back to her family. Jane looked stunned. Mary had closed her eyes and was mouthing a verse from the Psalms.
“Well,” Elizabeth said brightly, “I suppose I had better fetch my prize.”
She crossed the lawn at a perfectly civilized pace, chin up, bonnet angled just so. The ribbon was pressed into her palm—navy silk, with a thin silver trim. She took it delicately, stepped onto the dais, and met Mr. Darcy’s eyes full-on for the first time.
If looks could curdle cream.
“Do not glare so,” she said sweetly. “It is all in support of the children.”
His mouth opened, then closed again. She reached up and pinned the ribbon to his coat with care, brushing away an invisible speck of dust as she did.
“There,” she said. “Do smile, Mr. Darcy. You are rather expensive company.”
#
The ribbon itched.
Darcy was certain that was irrational—it was silk, barely the weight of a whisper—but it pressed against his chest like a brand. As if everyone in the garden knew what it meant. Bought. Sold. Pinned.
He had not spoken to her. And he had no intention of ever doing so. She had fastened the ribbon to his coat with deft fingers, made some flippant remark, and then turned smartly on her heel to follow the steward toward the picnic arrangements.
And so now, like some uncooperative sacrifice in a farcical ritual, he was following her—Miss Elizabeth Bennet, of Longbourn and unrepentance—across the grass, beneath a series of strung paper lanterns, toward a tree with an unfortunate resemblance to a candelabrum.
A blanket had been laid out. There was a hamper. There were even cushions. The entire thing looked absurdly like a stage set for a pastoral opera.
Miss Bennet turned to him and gestured with both hands, a sweep that might have been mocking or grand—it was hard to tell with her.
“Your dining hall, sir.”
The sarcasm left his lips quite without permission. “I shall endeavor not to faint from the opulence.”
Her smile broadened. “Do let me know if you require a footman. I am told the stewards are trained in four types of vinaigrette.”
Darcy exhaled slowly. “I had assumed your bid was made in jest.”
“Oh, it was. But you stood there so long I began to worry you would expire from sheer indignation. I thought it best to intervene.”
He watched her settle herself onto the blanket with surprising ease. She untied her bonnet and set it aside, revealing hair only just pinned into civility. The sun caught the curve of her cheek.
“And the price of your intervention was seven pounds.”
“Not mine,” she said cheerfully. “Mostly my aunt’s. A little from my sister. And I believe the dowager Countess may have underwritten the entire production out of morbid curiosity.”
Darcy blinked. “Lady Matlockencouraged this?”
Elizabeth grinned. “One of them, is what I hear. She smiled every time we upped the bid.”
That did not seem reassuring.
He sat, slowly, folding himself into the kind of seated position that always felt like a compromise between grace and dignity. The cushions helped. Slightly.
