Elizabeth’s face turned a deeper shade of crimson. The room had already seen enough.
And Darcy realized he could not honestly bring himself to contradict the boy outright.
Elizabeth appeared mortified, though anger and offense were absent from her face. That distinction lodged dangerously inside Darcy’s thoughts.
Wilson recovered first among the gentlemen. “A natural mistake for a child,” he said, though strain roughened the edgesof his voice. “Particularly when frequent company encourages familiarity.”
Darcy met his gaze directly. “Children are sometimes more perceptive than adults suppose.”
The silence deepened further.
Wilson’s expression hardened almost imperceptibly.
Across the table Miss Bingley went perfectly still.
Miss Lydia made a suspicious choking sound behind her napkin while Miss Kitty stared openly between Darcy and Elizabeth with widening eyes.
Thomas and Toby now seemed deeply uncertain whether they had succeeded brilliantly or doomed themselves permanently.
Miss Bingley rose with shaky composure. “I believe the ladies shall withdraw.”
The women stood almost in tandem.
Elizabeth avoided Darcy’s gaze as she crossed toward the door beside Jane.
Just before leaving the room, she glanced back once. Only once but enough for Darcy to see lingering embarrassment—
And something else beneath it. Not rejection.
The gentlemen remained behind.
Bingley attempted several times to regain control of himself unsuccessfully.
Mr. Bennet finally rescued him.
“Well, Darcy,” he drawled while accepting fresh wine, “you have now survived official endorsement from the younger branch of the family.”
Wilson did not laugh.
Darcy scarcely heard the remainder of the conversation afterward.
Because one thought repeated itself relentlessly through every passing minute.
Propriety dictated that denial should have come immediately. It had not. And somewhere in another room at Netherfield, Elizabeth Bennet undoubtedly knew it.
The Matter of Mr. Wilson
Mr. Wilson had become difficult to avoid.
Not impossible. Elizabeth had grown up with sisters, brothers, visiting neighbors, and a father who could vanish behind a book in the middle of a household commotion. She knew something of evasive movement. She could cross a room under cover of fetching thread, retreat upstairs under the pretense of checking Jane’s shawl, or place Mary between herself and an unwanted conversation with the skill of long practice.
But Mr. Wilson had become patient.
That was new.
The first days of his visit had been marked by an excess of conversation, too many recollections of her childhood, and a degree of familiarity unsupported by so recent an acquaintance. Elizabeth had found him tiresome, though never unkind. He had since learned to wait for her attention rather than attempting to claim it.
That improvement made him more difficult to dismiss.
