Charlotte glanced across the room. “Pity. Because I think he just finished with my father.”
Elizabeth swallowed. Stiffened. Slowly turned.
Mr. Darcy, very tall, very unsmiling, was now looking directly at them.
Charlotte sipped her tea with a pointed slurp. “Do try not to swoon too soon. The pianoforte was just tuned.”
Elizabeth stiffened as Mr. Darcy began to cross the room.
She did not move, but she did lower her teacup, straighten her shoulders, and brace herself for a display of manners that would leave them both bruised.
He was coming directly toward them.
Ten feet.
Seven.
Three—
He passed.
Elizabeth blinked. Darcy did not so much as glance at her as he swept by, stopping just short of the pianoforte to address Mr. Bellamy, a gentleman of respectable age and absolutely no fashion sense.
The two men exchanged greetings — one stiff, one eager — and then Darcy said something low enough to blur beneath the hum of the room.
Elizabeth reached for another biscuit she did not want.
Then she heard it.
“Who? … Oh, you must mean Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourn,” Darcy was saying.
Elizabeth froze mid-chew.
“I do not find her objectionable,” he continued, in a voice so studiously neutral it might have been drafted by committee. “She possesses a certain… liveliness of mind. If one could find the means to bridle it.”
Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed.
“She might even manage a household without incident,” he added, “provided the guests were not overly sensitive or excessively fond of conversation.”
Mr. Bellamy gave a diplomatic chuckle.
Elizabeth, for her part, took a slow sip of her tea.
Charlotte leaned in. “Are you—?”
“Well,” Elizabeth said lightly. “Perfectly well.”
She placed her teacup back in its saucer with the serene exactness of a woman restraining the urge to throw it.
Charlotte studied her. “You do not seem well.”
Elizabeth smiled. “No? I feel quite composed. It is astonishing what one can endure when one expects absolutely nothing.”
Across the room, Darcy continued speaking to Mr. Bellamy with grave civility. Elizabeth did not look, but she heard the scrape of a chair and the rustle of his coat as he turned slightly—angled just enough for his words to carry.
“I fear, sir, you mistake disinterest for loathing. I profess to no such strength of feeling. I hardly know the lady, but I find Miss Bennet’s company… invigorating,” he said, in the same tone one might use for laudanum or a sudden breeze through a crypt. “Though she might test the constitution of any gentleman fond of peace.”
Charlotte’s brows rose.
