Page 161 of Pride and Prejudice Resolutions

Lemon cakes. Of course.

She curtsied. "Lady Keathley. Mrs Darcy. Miss Darcy. Thank you for the invitation."

"We are so glad you accepted," Elizabeth said, her smile sharp and knowing. "Please, sit. You look as though you have walked through a battlefield to get here."

Caroline sat on the edge of a chair, her spine rigid. "The streets of London are treacherous. One never knows when one might be accosted by overly aggressive street vendors or runaway dogs."

"Or Colonels on horseback," Mrs Darcy added innocently.

Caroline's eyes snapped to her. "I beg your pardon?"

"I heard about the incident at Rotten Row," Mrs Darcy continued while pouring tea, entirely comfortable with her mischief. "A bolting horse. A dramatic rescue. Very romantic."

"It was not romantic. It was dangerous."

"Most romantic things are," Lady Keathley said gently, accepting a teacup from her sister. "I once fell into Robert's arms in Piccadilly. I thought I would die of mortification. He thought it was fate."

"It was fate," Mrs Darcy agreed. "Just very ungraceful fate."

Miss Darcy laughed, a soft, surprised sound. "I tripped over my own hem at Pemberley once and nearly knocked a footman into the ornamental pond. My brother still brings it up at dinner."

Caroline stared at them. They were laughing. At themselves. As if humiliation were not a mortal wound but merely an anecdote to be shared over tea.

"I do not trip," Caroline said, her voice stiff. "I plan my steps carefully."

"And then your horse bolts anyway," Mrs Darcy observed, offering her a plate of the cakes. "Life is inconvenient that way."

Caroline took a cake. She did not want a cake. She wanted to flee. But fleeing would look weak, and Caroline Bingley did not look weak.

"I am surprised you invited me, Lady Keathley," she said, carefully neutral. "Given our history."

Lady Keathley's expression softened. "Miss Bingley. I know we did not part on the best of terms in Hertfordshire. I know you discouraged Mr Bingley from pursuing me."

Caroline's throat tightened. "I did."

"I know. And I forgive you."

The words hung in the air like a bell that had been struck and could not be unrung.

Caroline stared. "You forgive me?"

"You were protecting your brother. You thought I was unsuitable. You were wrong, but I understand why you thought it." Her smile was sad but sincere. "And I think you have been punished enough by your own loneliness. I do not wish to add to it."

Caroline's hands clenched around her teacup. She would not cry. She would not give them the satisfaction.

"That is very generous of you," she managed.

"It is not generosity," Lady Keathley corrected. "It is self-interest. I want us to be friends. True friends. Not allies of convenience or strategic acquaintances. Friends."

"Why?"

"Because," Mrs Darcy cut in, grinning, "you are the only woman in London who is not afraid to tell Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam that his cuffs are frayed. And I find that delightful."

Caroline was forming a response—one that involved neither crying nor throwing her teacup—when the drawing room dooropened. Two men entered. Caroline's stomach dropped to her slippers.

Mr Darcy walked in first, tall and imposing in a coat of charcoal grey that made him look like an elegant thundercloud. He wore his polite neutrality face—the same one he had worn whilst listening to her play the pianoforte at Netherfield for three consecutive hours.

Behind him came Lord Keathley, resplendent in a waistcoat of peacock blue that should have looked ridiculous but instead looked expensive. He carried a stack of books under one arm and wore a grin which suggested he knew he was interrupting and did not care.