Page 88 of The Longbourn Bloodline

“So I gathered,” Elizabeth replied, entering with Charlotte securely at her side and removing her gloves with a studied leisure. “Your arrival has set Meryton in a positive ferment, Lady Catherine. In fact, you very nearly hastened my companion, Mrs. Collins—Mr. Collins’s widow, as you may recall—into the next world before she had the pleasure of your acquaintance.”

“Mrs. Collins,” Lady Catherine repeated, her thin lips thinning further as she cast a dismissive glance at Charlotte. “Ah. The unfortunate young woman who buried my late parson so prematurely. One would have thought she might remain quietly in her widowhood rather than loiter on public highways.”

“The lane, madam, belongs to Longbourn,” Charlotte replied with a serene, unbothered curtsy that visibly infuriated the visitor.

Before Lady Catherine could formulate a suitable snub, Mrs. Bennet fluttered forward, desperate to seize control of the hospitality. “Your ladyship is most welcome! Though we are quite crowded today, with Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy—well, not Mr. Darcy at present, of course, but our dearest Jane and Elizabeth so soon to be settled. Sir William, do step back a trifle; you are eclipsing the winter jasmine!”

Sir William Lucas, however, was not a man to be eclipsed by anyone short of royalty. He bowed low, a magnificent sweep of his hand indicating the room at large. “A red-letter day for Longbourn, Lady Catherine de Bourgh! To be graced by Rosings Park is an honor we shall long commemorate. Allow me to present my good wife, Lady Lucas, and our younger daughter, Maria—though she is quite grown now, and almost ready for court, or at least a very good assembly.”

Lady Catherine merely inclined her chin by a fraction of a degree, as though acknowledging a particularly bothersome spaniel.

Jane rose from the window seat and was introduced next, receiving nothing more than a glacial stare that implied her beauty was an impertinence. Mary took this as her cue to step forward, clutching her sheet music. “Perhaps your ladyship is fond of sacred motets? I have been practicing a particularly rigorous translation of⁠—”

“I am partial to silence, young lady,” Lady Catherine snapped, cutting Mary off mid-cadence.

At the back of the room, Kitty and Lydia began a violent contest of suppressed giggles, their shoulders shaking until Mrs. Bennet threw a look of such absolute terror their way that both girls abruptly stiffened into statues of mock solemnity.

“Miss Elizabeth Bennet.” Lady Catherine’s gaze snapped back to Elizabeth, ignoring the rest of the assembly entirely. “I require a private word with you.”

Elizabeth felt a persistent pulse in her chest—not anger, exactly, but the thrill that preceded the most considered of her responses. She met Lady Catherine’s gaze and did not rise.

“Your ladyship is welcome to speak freely. Whatever concerns you may address them before my family and our friends. We have very few secrets here, and even fewer privacy screens.”

“I do not consider this a matter for general consumption.”

“Then I am sorry to disappoint you, but I do not conduct private interrogations at the command of visitors who arrive unannounced.”

Lady Catherine’s nostrils flared. “You will not address me in that impertinent manner, Miss Bennet. I am not accustomed to being addressed with such⁠—”

“Wit?” Elizabeth suggested, tilting her head with an air of earnest helpfulness. “Directness? A failure to grovel appropriately? My deepest apologies. Longbourn has been somewhat deficient in its genuflections lately. We have had more pressing concerns.”

“Elizabeth,” Mrs. Bennet whispered, her face ashen while Lydia and Kitty predictably giggled with great delight and were immediately shooed to the staircase.

“It is quite all right, Mamma. Her ladyship has plainly come all this way to deliver a thunderbolt, and it would be cruel to deny her an audience.”

“Then hear me,” Lady Catherine pronounced, her face mottled with imperial fury. “What I have to communicate will bring you to your senses, provided you possess any.”

“And I shall hang upon every word, if only to secure sufficient material to entertain the parish for a fortnight.” Elizabeth languidly reclined against the settee, while Lady Catherine advanced to the chair nearest the fire, arranging her heavy silks with the majestic air of a monarch bestowing a rare favor upon the upholstery.

“Very well. I shall be direct. A report of a most alarming nature reached me a few days ago. A mutual friend writes that you have been making claims upon my nephew’s affections and that an engagement between you and Mr. Darcy is understood throughout the neighborhood. I trust this is a grotesque fabrication.”

“I doubt, your ladyship, you truly have any friend of mine as mutual, but if so, did this dear soul impart any other valuable intelligence?”

“Answer my question, Miss Bennet.”

“I was not aware you had asked one. I heard a statement—that you trust to be a falsehood. I cannot answer for what you trust, Lady Catherine. I can only answer for what is true.”

Lady Catherine’s hands tightened on her muff. “Then account for this. Are you, or are you not, engaged to my nephew?”

“Ah, a double-edged question to which an answer is deserved. I do have the honor of being promised to Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley. Perchance the gentleman in question might be your nephew?”

A collective gasp rippled through the drawing room: hands flew to mouths, fans fluttered to chests, glances darted, and Lady Catherine rose from her chair with the majesty of a dragon roused from a particularly long nap, her neck elongating in silent menace, her nostrils trembling as though preparing to emit brimstone.

“This abomination is not to be borne.” Her ladyship’s voice dropped to a hiss intended, Elizabeth suspected, to terrify. It merely grated. “Miss Bennet, do you comprehend who you propose to align yourself with? The Darcys of Pemberley are among the first families of England. Their lineage is beyond reproach. Their connections, their fortune, their position in society—all demand an alliance of corresponding magnitude. You are the daughter of a gentleman of modest estate, with an uncle in trade and a mother whose behavior at public assemblies has been the subject of general remark. You have no fortune, no connections of consequence, and no claim to the position you presume to occupy.”

“You have described my situation with admirable thoroughness,” Elizabeth said, smoothing her skirts with deliberate unconcern. “I commend your preparation.”

Mrs. Bennet made a strangled sound. Jane’s embroidery needle paused mid-stitch, and Sir William appeared to be attempting to make himself physically smaller, a venture in which his girth did not cooperate.