The exchange was perfectly civil and perfectly brief. Mr Bennet betrayed neither surprise nor approval, merely allowing his eyes to travel from Darcy to Elizabeth and back again with thoughtful deliberation. Elizabeth felt the colour rise in her cheeks.
Mrs Bennet, however, had now noticed Darcy properly. Her eyes widened. "Mr Darcy! Oh! Mr Darcy is here."
"Yes, Mama," Elizabeth said faintly. "He is."
"So I see." Mrs Bennet looked from one to the other with a rapidly shifting expression in which alarm, calculation and dawning hope all struggled for mastery. "Well. That is... that is very well indeed. Or perhaps it is not well. Mr Bennet, is it well?"
"I am still gathering evidence, my dear."
Mr Bingley stepped forward, plainly unable to bear the confusion any longer. "Miss Elizabeth, I fear this is all my fault. Or rather not my fault precisely, though I was present and ought perhaps to have prevented... That is, I did attempt to prevent it, but not quickly enough."
"Bingley," said Mr Bennet mildly, "you are making a noble attempt, but I confess myself no wiser."
Bingley stopped, coloured and looked helplessly at Jane.
At that moment a shriek of laughter came from the garden, followed by Colonel Fitzwilliam insisting that pirates who changed sides in the middle of a battle could not expect to be taken seriously. Mrs Bennet turned sharply towards the window.
"Who is that?"
"My cousin," Darcy replied. "Colonel Fitzwilliam, the son of the Earl of Matlock."
"A colonel and the son of an earl?" she exclaimed. "Lizzy, I declare you have been keeping exceedingly grand company."
Before Bingley could attempt another explanation, fresh footsteps sounded in the hall beyond, accompanied by a lively dispute which appeared to concern the proper conduct of pirates after capture. Simmons looked to the heavens and left the room. Clearly the lack of propriety was too much for the staid butler.
Colonel Fitzwilliam stepped into the drawing room wearing a black eye patch of decidedly homemade construction and carrying a wooden sword beneath one arm. Little Lucy Gardiner clung triumphantly to one hand, whilst George followed close behind, loudly objecting that the colonel had surrendered far too easily. Fitzwilliam came to an abrupt halt as his one visible eye travelled slowly around the crowded room, taking in the Bennets, Bingley and the unmistakable air of interrupted conversation.
"Ah," he said after a thoughtful pause. "I appear to have chosen my moment with unusual distinction."
With perfect composure he removed the eye patch, folded it neatly and slipped it into his pocket before bowing to the assembled company as though appearing dressed as a pirate in a respectable drawing room were an everyday occurrence.
"Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam," he said pleasantly. "At your service. Until a few moments ago I was also chief prisoner to a particularly bloodthirsty band of pirates."
"You surrendered," George corrected him at once.
"I was hopelessly outnumbered."
Lucy shook her head. "No. You stopped because I wanted lemonade."
"That, Miss Lucy," said the colonel gravely, "is a detail I had hoped to keep to myself."
Mr Bennet, who had watched this exchange with growing amusement, turned quietly towards Darcy. "Your cousin appears to possess a remarkable gift for accommodating himself to any company."
"He has had many years in which to cultivate it," Darcy replied, the corner of his mouth betraying the smallest smile. "Richard has never considered dignity worth preserving if it can be exchanged for amusement."
Mrs Bennet had been staring at the colonel throughout this extraordinary introduction with increasing bewilderment.
"You are the colonel?" she asked at last.
"Only when the Army insists upon it, ma'am. This afternoon I have chiefly been a pirate."
Mrs Bennet looked from Darcy to the colonel and then back again with increasing bewilderment. "I confess I understand less now than when I arrived," she declared. "One moment I am told my poor Lizzy's reputation is being torn to pieces all over Hertfordshire, the next I find her sitting quite comfortably with Mr Darcy and a colonel who has only just ceased being a pirate. I really do not know what I am expected to think."
Elizabeth stared at her in astonishment. "My reputation?"
Before anybody else could answer, Darcy crossed the room and quietly took her hand in his own.
Mr Bennet's eyebrows rose to his hairline, and then the room erupted. Jane, already close to tears, hurried towards her sister with a stream of apologies which nobody could properly hear. Bingley followed immediately behind, attempting to comfort Jane whilst at the same time assuring Elizabeth that he had done everything in his power to prevent the story spreading, until even he appeared uncertain to whom he was speaking.
