“I thank you for your hospitality,” he said, voice wavering in relief.
“Oh, but you must stay longer!” said Mrs. Goulding.
“You must not rush,” said Miss Lavinia, leaping to her feet as though he had dropped a handkerchief and proposed marriage in the same motion.
“Unfortunately, I have another engagement,” Darcy said, bowing.
He did not. But it was either leave now or leap through the window.
As he took his hat, Miss Eugenie curtsied and said, “I do hope we shall see you at the ball.”
Darcy paused.
He glanced at their eager, terrified faces—one too pale, the other flushed to the ears—and forced himself to answer.
“You may rely on it.”
Then he left.
The air outside felt like freedom.
But his stomach twisted—not from the visit, but from the memory of Elizabeth’s laugh echoing behind him as he turned the corner.
The moment the officerstipped their hats and disappeared down the lane, Mrs. Bennet burst into a symphony of delighted speculation.
“Well!” she exclaimed, fluttering into the hallway like a general surveying victorious troops. “You did not say you would be walking back with them! Did anyone see you? Hill, did anyone see them coming up the walk?”
“No one was watching the road but you,” Mary said, already attempting to duck away with her borrowed tract on the Virtues of Vigilance.
“Mary, do not be contrary. That man has a captain’s commission, and the other one—Mr. Wickham—he is very well-favored. Lizzy, I had no idea you liked long walks in town so well.”
“I like them best when someone else is doing the talking,” Elizabeth replied, pulling her gloves off and draping them overthe hook. “Mr. Wickham is particularly good at it. I scarcely had to contribute a syllable.”
“Well, that is how men ought to be. Denny was quite attentive to Mary when he brought you to the door, I thought. Were they calling on your aunt Philips?”
“They were walking by the door at the same time we were leaving. Coincidence, Mama.”
“I have never believed in coincidence,” said Mrs. Bennet, her tone already tilting toward the register she reserved for ribbon counters and marriage prospects.
Elizabeth made her escape to the drawing room. Her journal was waiting on the side table where she had left it, tucked between a volume of Cowper and a very uneven pile of embroidery. She slipped it open and dropped into the chair by the window, where the light still held steady and the noise from the hallway could be tolerated with effort.
Her pencil tapped once on the paper.
Today, I was delivered home like a parcel—complete with ribboned escort and breathless maternal approval.
Denny was Denny—pleasant, forgettable, possibly part spaniel. Wickham was more complimentary than usual. I laughed more than I meant to and began to suspect he enjoys the sound of his own voice the way some people enjoy humming in stairwells—just to admire the echo.
She paused. Tapped again.
It is possible I am not quite as easy to charm as he expects. I flatter myself I require more than a handsome face and a tragic backstory—though I admit, I can be temporarily disarmed by a well-placed compliment and a decent cravat. Still, I like to think I am clever enough to know when someone’s performance has been rehearsed.
Elizabeth frowned. She had written that last word without quite realizing it had been in her mind, but now that it was staring at her on the page, it explained a great deal. She tilted her head and wrote some more.
His compliments land exactly where they should—like darts thrown by someone who has practiced on prettier targets. His stories are just self-effacing enough to seem sincere, the way a cat might limp to gain sympathy before leaping onto a windowsill. He is witty, attractive, and almost certainly lethal in a crowded drawing room.
So why do I keep watching his eyes like I am waiting for the curtain to drop and the real actor to take a bow?
Her eyes drifted past the page to the garden wall outside. The last of her mother’s autumn blooms were now withered and mostly gone. A breath of snow had whispered in on the afternoon’s walk home, and by tomorrow, they might see a white dusting on the ground. Winter was fairly upon them now, and with that changing of the seasons…
