“If I had not seen it with my own eyes…” Mr. Darcy began.
“I would never have believed it!” Elizabeth finished.
Mr. Stanley came to dance with Georgiana. “I heard you were coming tonight,” he said, beaming.
“Do you not usually come to Almack’s?” she asked, as the music began.
“Quite rarely; the refreshments are not to my taste.” He made a face.
Georgiana chuckled. “I do not think they are to anyone’s taste.”
“I came only for the opportunity to dance with you,” he confided.
Mr. Stanley is everything kind, Georgiana thought. But my heart does not pound, I do not blush when he looks at me. But perhaps none of that is necessary! After all, did my heart not pound for George Wickham? Did I not blush at his compliments? And what a disaster that turned out to be! So surely such things as pounding hearts and blushing faces do not indicate anything of importance. She resolved to talk with Lizzy about this…but first she had to get through tonight.
***
Colonel Fitzwilliam was determined to be at his very best tonight. He would forget his old antipathy toward his partner and focus on simply being an excellent escort. He noted that Miss Bingley looked very, very well. Her dress was simpler than he had expected, and her hair was put up in a very becoming fashion, with red-gold ringlets framing her face. Her hair was actually a very interesting colour, a mix of browns, reds and oranges! Amongst all the blondes and brunettes in the room, her fiery tresses were very rare indeed. Her dress was cut as low as was fashionable, but not too low. He could see her skin, very pale, rising above the bodice, and her neck was quite slender…
“Are you done staring at me?”
He jerked his attention back to her face. “I apologise, Miss Bingley. I was caught up in noticing how pretty you look tonight.”
She looked at him levelly as they turned about the floor. “I find that hard to believe.”
“No more than I,” he assured her, grinning.
“You find it hard to believe that I am pretty?”
The Colonel had to laugh. “I am too old a soldier to fall prey to such traps,” he replied.
“I do not think you old,” she said. “You cannot be more than, what, three or four years older than Mr. Darcy?”
“Seven, actually.”
She found herself teasing him. “You seem quite vigorous for a man of such advanced years.”
“Vigorous? I suppose so. Marching for miles on end will either kill you or keep you young.”
“Will you ever leave the Army?”
“My parents very much wish that I would.”
“And why do you not?”
The dance separated them for a minute; when they were reunited, he answered, “I am a second son; I must support myself. My mother hopes I will marry an heiress and thus be able to sell my commission.”
“There must be any number of heiresses eager to marry the son of the Earl of Matlock.”
“Ah, but am I eager to marrythem? I cannot abide the sort of simpering, witless, self-important girls that thetonseems to turn out in vast quantities.”
Caroline winced. He might well have been describing her as of some weeks ago! Ah, that explained it. “So that is why you said you did not like me when we danced at Miss Darcy’s ball.”
He winced. “I beg you not to remind me of my bad manners.”
“But is that the reason?”
“I suppose so, yes. But you do not seem to be the same Miss Bingley that you were.”
