She was attractive. More than attractive. Her features were fine, her expression intelligent, and she wore her anger like a crown.
She had overheard every word.
Darcy felt the heat creep up the back of his neck.
“I apologize,” he said quietly. “That was poorly done.”
Mark did not smile. “It is not me who deserves an apology.”
Darcy hesitated, then squared his shoulders.
“Would you do me the honor of introducing me to your sister?”
Mark gave him a long, unreadable look, then turned and led him across the floor.
∞∞∞
Elizabeth saw her brother from the corner of her eye the moment he and Mr. Bingley approached the tall man by the wall. She had known exactly where Mark was the entire evening, just as he always knew where she was. Such was the bond between them; an invisible thread tugged gently, persistently, from across even the most crowded room.
Her feet ached from so many turns about the floor, and she had gratefully taken one of the few empty chairs lining the room—just a few paces from the tall, unsmiling gentleman who had not moved from his station all evening.
With so many young men away at war, there were never quite enough partners for every lady who wished to dance. She and her friends had long ago adopted an unspoken system: each would sit out at least one set to give others a fair chance. On occasion, when the imbalance was especially bad, they would even pair with one another, cheerfully switching roles for the sake of the music.
She had not spoken to him, nor had she tried to. But she had watched him—quietly, sidelong—ever since their arrival. Hestood still as a statue, his expression unmoved, his mouth a tight line of apparent disapproval.
Mr. Bingley, by contrast, had been as amiable as he was eager. Elizabeth had liked him at once, especially given the warmth with which he treated her brother. And if Mark held a man in esteem, it was reason enough for her to grant him her good opinion.
Still, it was the taller gentleman who drew her attention. He was more handsome of the two; that much she could admit.
Not that she would ever say so aloud, but she had always preferred dark eyes and darker hair.
So when Mr. Bingley gestured in her direction and the tall man uttered, “She is tolerable, I suppose, but not handsome enough to tempt me”—
—there was a dull roar in her ears.
It was not the insult alone. It was the thoughtlessness. The cruelty of dismissing her so completely when she had done nothing to deserve it.
She stared down at her hands, resting in her lap, and tried to force her expression into stillness.
No flicker of hurt. No flare of embarrassment. Nothing to betray the sudden pounding of her heart.
She did not want to see Mark’s face.
She already knew what it would look like.
He had always been protective—moral and upright, yes, but also impulsive when wounded on behalf of those he loved. She still remembered the day that John Lucas called her a freckledscarecrow, which had wounded her ten-year-old heart. Mark had bloodied the boy’s nose within seconds of seeing his sister’s tears.
But he could not do that now. Not at twenty. Not in a crowded ballroom.
And not in front of half the county.
So she forced herself to breathe, to school her features into polite detachment, and to count the stitches on her glove to keep from crying.
You would think I would be used to it by now, she thought. I have been compared to Jane my entire life.
Her mother’s occasional words did not bother her—not very much, that is. There was a plethora of people in Meryton, as well as her aunt and uncle Gardiner in London, that had told her she was pretty, time and again. She knew no one could surpass Jane’s serene beauty, but to hear a complete stranger utter such similar words as her mother did on occasion.
My friends love me and judge my appearance with my disposition as a factor. This stranger knows nothing about me, so he does not have my character to aid his assessment.
