“You should go,” she had said. “You should enjoy yourself.”
Darcy wished he knew how.
He watched Bingley lead Miss Bennet through the dance with open pleasure. His friend’s face had brightened from the moment Sir William introduced them, and the lady’s calm beauty seemed to soothe rather than encourage the more impetuous parts of his nature. Miss Bennet’s manners were gentle, her smile sweet, and her complexion lovely enough to justify the stir she had made. Darcy could not blame Bingley for admiring her.
He only wished admiration did not make Bingley determined to distribute happiness to everyone within reach.
When the set ended, Bingley returned to Darcy in a state of almost unreasonable satisfaction. “Darcy, you must dance.”
“I must do no such thing.”
“You have been standing about in this stupid manner for half the evening.”
“I have danced with Mrs. Hurst.”
“That does not count. Louisa is as good as family.”
“Then I am fortunate to have fulfilled a family obligation.”
Bingley gave him a look of mingled amusement and frustration. “Come, you are not usually so determined to be miserable.”
“I am not miserable. I am fatigued.”
“You are bored.”
“I am fatigued,” Darcy repeated, though the words sounded unconvincing even to himself.
Bingley glanced toward the dancers, then back to him. “My partner is very pretty and exceedingly pleasant, is she not?”
“She is very pretty,” Darcy said. “And her manners are agreeable.”
“Then there, you see. The neighborhood is not so dreadful. One of her sisters is sitting just there. Miss Elizabeth Bennet. She is pretty as well, and I dare say very agreeable. I could ask Miss Bennet to introduce you properly for the next.”
Darcy looked where Bingley indicated.
A young woman sat near the wall behind them with a glass of lemonade in her hand, her figure partly screened by a cluster of matrons. She was not dressed richly. Her gown was neat, becoming, and almost severe in its lack of ornament, though she wore it with an ease that made the simplicity seem a choice rather than an apology. Her face was turned slightly away, but when she looked up, the candlelight caught her eyes.
Darcy felt it then.
Only a thread. A sudden tug of memory and attraction so unexpected that his chest tightened before he understood why. Fine eyes. Dark, bright, intelligent eyes, watching him with an expression he could not immediately name.
For one instant, he thought of a cellar in London, of mud upon a cheek, of a Roman coin resting in a young woman’s hand.
The memory struck too sharply, and because it did, he resisted it. The girl in Gracechurch Street had been connected somehow to Gardiner’s household, a tradesman’s relation or servant girl or something near enough to make foolishness impossible. He had thought of her more than he ought, especially in the first months after returning to Derbyshire, and had been ashamed of the indulgence. He was not a youngman free to be governed by passing fancies. Attraction without sense was precisely the sort of folly his father had mistaken for pleasure.
Now, standing in a country assembly room, feeling awkward, unsettled, observed, and strangely diminished in his own skin, Darcy answered with more sharpness than judgment.
“She is tolerable, I suppose,” he said, “but not handsome enough to tempt me to overlook her lack of dowry.”
The words seemed to fall between them and strike the floor.
Bingley’s eyes widened.
At the same moment, the young lady looked down.
Darcy’s stomach clenched.
He had spoken too loudly. Not greatly. Not enough to carry across the whole room. But enough. Enough that she had heard. Enough that the faint color rising into her cheeks could not be mistaken for anything but mortification.
