He asked it with no flourish. No implication. Just a simple offer, quietly meant.
And for a moment, Elizabeth nearly forgot why that should be dangerous.
Until she heard the voice.
“Mr. Darcy! There you are. I have been positively searching.”
A figure swept in beside them, all orange silk and self-satisfaction.
Elizabeth recognized her instantly. The glare that could freeze a tropical sea. She had pointed her out not ten minutes ago, and Darcy had laughed—or emitted some equivalent sound—at the observation.
Now here she was. Sweeping in like a conquering general and reaching for him without the faintest pretense of manners. And he was not shrinking in horror.
The woman was tall, striking, and draped herself across the conversation like a shawl over piano keys. Her eyes never even acknowledged Elizabeth. Just the man beside her. Possession gleamed in every line of her posture.
“You promised to help me with my Italian verse,” she said, laying a hand on Darcy’s arm with the ease of someone accustomed to getting her way.
Elizabeth waited. Just long enough.
Darcy’s silence was a physical thing—and not in the heroic, defiant way one might have hoped for.
He did not object.
He did not decline.
He merely looked… caught. Caught and cornered. And then—accommodating.
Elizabeth stepped back, her cheeks suddenly and infuriatingly warm.
“I shall not interrupt,” she said, her voice sharper than she intended.
“You are not,” Darcy said quickly, but it was too late. The woman was already drawing him away, chattering about pronunciation and delicate consonants, as though Elizabeth had never existed.
And he let her.
Elizabeth turned before he could explain. Before he could offer some bland apology. Before she betrayed the absurd disappointment welling under her ribs.
She crossed the room with dignity and speed. Sat, a touch too hard, on the edge of the velvet settee. Lifted her notebook.
And wrote without hesitation:
Some men command rooms. Others are furniture—polished, handsome, and rearranged by those with louder voices.
She underlined it.
Once.
Twice.
Her pulse slowed with each stroke. The words were not revenge. They were ballast. Then she tucked the notebookaway, reached for a tart, and forced herself to chew with slow, deliberate disinterest.
She thought no more of him.
So thoroughly, in fact, that not thinking of him consumed every idle moment for the rest of the evening.
Darcy had not meantto enjoy himself.
He had come only to satisfy his aunt, who insisted he needed a break from account books and estate matters and “that expression which makes children cry.” The musicale was her compromise—civilized, quiet, and full of people unlikely to propose marriage before the second aria. Save for Caroline Bingley, but she was no real danger.
