“Darcy, you are hiding behind a dying plant. This is not the stealthy observation we agreed upon. Ah.” The Colonel’s eyes suddenly snapped to the far side of the room, lighting up with a dangerous glee. “Look there. Miss Elizabeth has arrived.”
Darcy felt the air completely abandon his lungs.
He followed his cousin’s gaze. Miss Elizabeth Bennet was standing near a large, gilt-framed mirror. For once, she was not flanked by her youngest sister or Mrs Forster. She was alone, holding a fan and attempting to press herself into the floral wallpaper as though she hoped the plaster might open up and swallow her whole.
“Richard, no,” Darcy said, his voice dropping to a panicked register.
“Richard, yes,” the Colonel replied. “We must be polite. It is the foundation of civilised society. Come along.”
The Colonel set his disgusting punch on a passing tray and began to weave through the crowd. Darcy had no choice but to follow. If he stayed behind the fern, he would look like acoward. If he followed, he would look like a fool. He chose the option that at least kept him moving.
The walk across the ballroom was a journey across a vast, hostile desert. By the time they reached the mirror, Darcy’s heart was hammering against his ribs with a force that threatened to crack them.
“Miss Elizabeth,” the Colonel boomed, stopping before her with a bow. “Are you hiding from the dancing, or admiring the wallpaper? It is a very robust shade of green.”
Miss Elizabeth jumped slightly, her eyes snapping to them. A faint flush of pink rose to her cheeks. She looked at the Colonel, and then her gaze shifted, inevitably, painfully, to Darcy.
“Colonel Fitzwilliam,” she said, offering a polite curtsy. “Mr Darcy. I am merely... recovering. My sister Lydia has just exhausted her third partner of the evening, and just watching her requires a great deal of stamina.”
“Mr Darcy,” Darcy managed to say, and winced internally. He had just greeted her by stating his own name. He was a master of ten thousand a year, and he had completely lost the ability to speak the English language.
He quickly executed a stiff bow, hoping she would attribute the verbal catastrophe to the noise of the room.
Miss Elizabeth did not laugh, nor deploy the wit that had defined every interaction they had ever shared. She merely stood before him, her fan held tightly in her gloved hands, looking exactly as uncomfortable as he felt.
The Colonel, having successfully dragged them into each other’s orbit, took a step back, but did not walk away. Hemerely folded his arms across his chest and watched them with the unblinking focus of an owl observing two mice in a field.
The silence between Darcy and Miss Elizabeth stretched, pulling taut until it hummed. It was a void filled with everything they could not say. Darcy searched desperately for a topic. The weather. The roads. The appalling quality of the punch.
Miss Elizabeth spoke first.
“I understand,” she said, her voice dropping so low that Darcy had to lean forward a fraction of an inch to hear her over the violins. She was not looking at his eyes; she was addressing the knot of his cravat. “A mutual acquaintance has recently returned to Hertfordshire. To Netherfield.”
Darcy’s heart stammered.
The world around them—the heat, the terrible music, the swirling red coats—ceased to exist.
“He has indeed,” Darcy said, the syllables feeling like stones in his mouth.
Miss Elizabeth looked up, her fine eyes finally meeting his. There was a vulnerability in them that dismantled the remaining walls of his composure.
“My family,” she continued, her voice trembling slightly before she forced it steady. “My eldest sister, in particular, has found her spirits greatly restored by this return. We had feared his absence was... permanent.”
She stopped and took a slow, shallow breath. “I know the return did not happen by accident. I believe I have a great deal to thank you for, Sir.”
Darcy had braced himself to endure her chilling civility, her eye-rolls, her dismissals. He had constructed an entire emotional fortress to withstand her disdain.
He had absolutely no defence against her gratitude.
The knowledge that she had read his letter, that she had believed his accounting of the truth, and that she was now standing before him acknowledging his attempt to repair the damage he had caused—it was too much. It was too much feeling for a man trapped in a wool coat.
He was overwhelmed and the swell of emotion in his chest was so vast, and as a result, his instinct was to lock it down.
“It was nothing,” he said. His voice emerged clipped, harsh, and devastatingly brief. “An error in judgement required correction. It warranted no thanks.”
Miss Elizabeth flinched.
It was a small movement, but he saw it. The softness in her eyes instantly vanished, replaced by the familiar, guarded suspicion. She mistook his brevity for arrogance, he realised. She thought he was dismissing her, waving away her gratitude as though it were an unwanted nuisance.
