Page 17 of Mr Darcy’s Quizzing Glass

“Do you truly not wish to dance in a drawing room as a rule, Miss Eliza?”

“I dance with my sisters, most particularly when we have new music and wish to learn the steps, or simply express our appreciation for hearing it.”

“That sounds rather wild,” said Mrs Hurst.

“Men are known to do the same,” Darcy interjected. “They must learn the steps rather than embarrass themselves at a ball.”

“True,” Miss Bingley offered eagerly. “A young man cannot impress a lady without knowing the steps to a country dance.”

Miss Elizabeth glanced at him, her expression alight with mirth, her radiance sparkling. “Of course, some men care not to impress, being so impressive themselves.”

Feeling her barb, and determined to repel it from himself, Darcy gave her a keen look. “Mr Hurst won himself a wife despite not being keen on dancing.”

“A singular achievement,” Hurst snorted. His wife sighed.

Bingley sprang up from his chair, providing the others a respite from his incessant foot tapping, and paced back and forth. “I am quite fond of dancing, but Darcy, though he does it much less than I, is far superior at it. I am certain he does not practise on his rugs and carpets, but simply has mastery of the patterns as he does with every other thing he puts his mind to—fencing or shooting, or writing letters with extremely long words in a very fine hand. Some men are superior in whatever they attempt,” Bingley grinned, “and we fortunate ones get to benefit from it. Has he told you of the investment he brought me into⁠—”

“Bingley, please.”

Miss Elizabeth’s eyes sparked with amusement. “Oh, but I assure you that I—and all my sisters agree—never imagined such capacity, and taste, and application, and elegance, united in one person before meeting him. Mr Darcy,” she said, mischief clear in her voice, “our admission to your company is but half deserved.”

Darcy raised a brow, and she nodded, all solemnity—except for the light shimmering not just in her eyes but all round her. It was dazzling. How on earth would she appear if he saw her through the quizzing glass?

Steady, man, he thought, willing his hand to remain at his side. Much as he puzzled over Elizabeth Bennet—tossing in his bed the past two nights as he considered their every interaction, and her eyes, smile, and unrelenting glimmer—he could hardly bear the thought of gazing on her as he might a specimen.

But good lord, she is provoking.

Unfortunate as it was to enter a third day at Netherfield, for that day to have dawned as wet and raw as the weather that had felled Jane was truly disheartening. My sister is nearly full well, Elizabeth consoled herself, and will join us for dinner. And tomorrow, she hoped, they would return to Longbourn. She glanced over her shoulder at the rain-spattered window, pleased to see the sun beginning to assert itself, before opening her book and burrowing more deeply into the oversized chair in the library.

“This cannot stand.” Then the voice, rough and in what sounded like misery, groaned.

Mr Darcy? Elizabeth looked up from her book, and clutching it in one hand, leant forwards, just past the bookcase concealing her seat. She could not see the man himself, but his reflection in the mirror hung in the corner gave her a detailed view of his countenance as he stared out of the window.

He was grim-faced, yet he wore his melancholy rather handsomely. It may have been the shafts of sunlight now streaming into the room, emphasising a few unexpected silver strands in his jet-black hair and the fine details of his countenance—his firm brow, his dark eyelashes, and the shadows underneath them. Those, especially, she had never before noticed.

He looks tired. Exhaustion with the company of Miss Bingley and these dull countryfolk, Elizabeth surmised, had led to his fleeing the drawing room the other afternoon. Mr Darcy appeared more restless than weary now, running his hand through his hair, lifting a hand to his waistcoat pocket, clenching and unclenching that muscle in his jaw...

Blinking, she sat back in the cushions and returned her gaze, but not her mind, to her tome.

If it were not the sun which revealed and flattered his appearance, perhaps it was his discomposure. Was she awful for appreciating the sight of his unease? He seemed more natural, more real when agitated—as he often was when he looked at her. His expression, usually so blank and unreadable, came to life whenever they conversed. Was this why she enjoyed teasing him? To see whether she could prompt an alteration in his spirits? Elizabeth set aside the question of why she should like to affect his spirits and twisted in her chair to look at him again.

Why is he so discomfited? He does not even know I am in the room!

Perhaps she should tell him of her presence. It would not do—it was impolite—to impose on his privacy.

“Ow!”

“Miss Elizabeth!”

Well, dropping the book on her foot certainly took care of that concern! She winced as Mr Darcy bent to retrieve her book and rose, looming over her. She accepted it and nodded her thanks before blurting, “Pardon me, sir. I did not realise you were in the room⁠—”

“It is of no consequence. Clearly you were here when I entered, and I did not check the reading nooks and crannies before I...” Shrugging, he leant against the wall and folded his arms. “I hope I did not disturb your reading or cause lasting injury to your foot.”

She smiled up at him. “The blame for any injury would lie with me and with Mr Defoe’s heavy tome.”

After an acknowledging nod, Mr Darcy surprised her, saying, “We are both, I believe, readers who once caught up in a book, become immersed in the words of a poem or story. The sounds of others, their voices and clatters, fall away when so deep in a tale.”

“My father and I suffer from this ‘affliction’, and others in our household must suffer for it. I have been known to awaken Jane when I stay up to read and gasp at a turn in the story’s plot—or when I fall asleep and drop my book, as I did now,” Elizabeth laughingly confided.