“I noticed.”
There was a faint edge in his voice, and she could not tell whether it was pride or pity. She hoped for neither.
He hesitated, then added, “He favors nature. Poetry. Duty—which means he also favors melodramatic verse featuring senseless heroics and overwrought romanticism. You are more likely to impress him with moonlight and fantasy than with your usual pointed blade.”
Elizabeth’s eyes flashed. “You think I am too sharp?”
“No,” he said. “For my part,Ithink you need not be anything else. But tonight, you arenottrying to be yourself. You are trying to be a future wife.”
Her throat tightened. Not because he was wrong—but because he was right, and because he saw her doing it, and because he said it with that maddening softness, like a kindness wrapped in a critique.
For a heartbeat, she hated him.
For the next heartbeat, she almost wanted to cry.
She did neither.
Instead, she said, in the most business-like manner she could manage, “Thank you, Mr. Darcy. Your insight is as welcome as ever.”
He did not flinch. He only extended his arm. “Perhaps we can draw his eye back to you. Shall we?”
And because she could not think of anything clever, and because her legs would not carry her back toward the tea table just yet, she placed her hand lightly on his sleeve.
They walked a slow, meandering circuit of the conservatory. Her fingers brushed his coat, the fine wool warm beneath her gloves. His stride was even, quiet, dignified. He did not speak. She did not breathe. Not properly.
Just long enough.
Long enough for Captain Marlowe to glance over.
Long enough for Miss Langley’s giggle to falter.
Long enough to spark the smallest flicker of jealousy.
And just long enough to see Darcy, from the corner of her eye, offering a perfunctory bow to Miss Ashford, who looked thrilled and slightly seasick.
Very well. She would return the favor.
And heaven help them both, because if they were not careful, they were going to sabotage every decent match in London.
On purpose.
17 December
Darcy had always dislikedparlour games. Even as a boy, he had found them vexing—artificial, forced, reliant on chance. And now here he was, nearly thirty years old and still playing one, though this version involved fine gloves, half-sipped tea, and conversational ambushes scattered across a room of eligible women.
He stood near the pianoforte at Lady Blakeney’s afternoon salon, a teacup cooling between his palms, and regarded Miss Ashford with a kind of grim appreciation. She was, by all reasonable measures, a success. Handsome, composed, well-connected. Entirely uncontroversial.
She would do. And he hated that he thought in such terms.
“Do you not think,” Miss Ashford asked, fluttering her fan like a distracted butterfly, “that hothouse blooms are the most romantic of all? Orchids in December—it is like a secret love letter from the sun.”
Darcy blinked. Not because he disagreed with the sentiment—though he very much did—but because he had just decided this would be the metaphor that haunted him through every conservatory for the remainder of his days.
“An interesting analogy,” he said carefully. “Though I doubt the sun had orchids in mind.”
“Oh, but they are so enchanting,” she said. “Last week I saw one shaped just like a teacup. I told my brother I should like to carry one on my wedding day, and he laughed and said they only bloom for a fortnight.”
“A practical observation,” Darcy murmured.
