Bingley nodded carefully. “I can see your point.”
Miss Bingley smothered a smile. “One wonders if we ought to invite the lady at all, then, if, as Mr. Darcy says, she cannot shine well enough on her own. We hardly need another pet to fondle and entertain when we can do well enough ourselves.”
Darcy cleared his throat. “If I may, I also suspect the weather to turn tomorrow.”
Bingley scoffed. “What makes you say that, man? This evening was as fine and clear as one could ask for. Are you now a soothsayer? And what has that to do with Miss Bennet coming to dine, anyway?”
“There was a pronounced heaviness in the clouds on our drive home. Did you not notice the lack of moonlight? If your invitation obliges a lady to travel in poor weather…” He stoppedthere, for he truly had run out of inventive excuses. He could hear himself grasping, voice steadier than his pulse. The truth was, he would say anything—anything—to keep her away.
And for once, Miss Bingley proved his rescue.
“Quite right, Mr. Darcy! Why, now that I think of it, I did hear it said that the family had but one carriage and team. And on such a small farm as Longbourn, surely the horses will be wanted for work, so it would be just our luck that the lady would be forced to ride on horseback. If Mr. Darcy is correct, as he usually is, the lady might arrive with a chill. Adangerousone, Charles,” she emphasized, blinking innocently at her brother.
“Oh, very well,” Bingley sighed. “I suppose we will have other opportunities for you to come to know her in town.”
“Indeed,” Mrs. Hurst agreed. “Both Miss Jane Bennetandher younger sister ought to be easy enough to encounter again.”
Darcy’s cheek flinched. That remark sounded terribly deliberate, and rather targeted.
“What is this, Mr. Darcy?” Miss Bingley cooed. “You do not seem pleased by the notion of coming to know Miss Elizabeth Bennet better. I should think you already had more than a passing acquaintance with the lady. Why such reluctance?”
Darcy turned toward the window, where the moonlight pressed weakly against the glass. “I do not concern myself with Miss Elizabeth Bennet. I think only the most foolhardy of gentlemen would.”
That remark drew a pleased smirk that Miss Bingley probably thought she concealed behind her fan. But Darcy saw it clearly in her reflection in the glass.
It mattered not, though. The image of Elizabeth Bennet—chin lifted, eyes bright, voice like flint and rain—was still stamped somewhere behind his ribs.
He should have stayed in Derbyshire.
At least there, he knew which way was north.
Elizabeth had not intendedto stop in Meryton that afternoon, but her mother had insisted on trailing poor Jane through three separate milliners’ shops, and Mary had somehow vanished into a discussion on psalm structures with the curate’s wife.
Which left Elizabeth loitering outside the butcher’s with nothing but a half-penny in her pocket and the distinct sense that she might scream if one more person asked if Jane’s heart was now committed after her two dances with the gentleman at Netherfield.
So she crossed the square.
The bookshop was crammed to the rafters with shelves, unevenly heated, and smelled faintly of crumbling pages and dust. In other words, paradise.
It was not a large bookshop. Which was unfortunate, as Elizabeth had ducked inside precisely because she wished not to see anyone—particularly anyone tall, silent, and given to brooding near firelight.
And yet, standing three paces from the poetry shelves, she found herself staring at Mr. Darcy. Or at least, at the back of his coat.
He was studying a volume of Pope with the sort of intensity one reserved for obscure treaties or classified naval plans.
Elizabeth paused mid-step.
He had not seen her—she was certain of it. His back was to her, his attention fastened to the page, his entire posture the picture of practiced disinterest. And yet she could feel it—he knew. Of course, he knew.
She hesitated a beat too long at the end of the aisle, then turned pointedly toward the moral essays, pretending toexamine a volume on dutiful wifehood that made her eyelid twitch. She had not come to talk to anyone. Certainly not to Mr. Darcy.
It would be unbearable if he turned.
Worse if he did not.
He did not.
She shifted. The book she held had an unfortunate mildew stain. She returned it and picked up another. Too heavy. She returned that one as well and picked up one that crackled loudly when she tried to open it. That would not do at all. She put it back.
