Page 48 of Dear Friend

The music began before Darcy was required to answer. They moved instantly to the ball floor and for a time the figures separated them. He discovered almost immediately that dancing with Elizabeth was considerably more dangerous to his composure than watching her from across the room had been. There was an animation about her which altered continually with her thoughts, and when they came together again, the amusement still lingering in her eyes made him understand why no imagined face had ever seemed sufficient for her.

The set concluded sooner than Darcy would have wished. He offered Elizabeth his arm as they left the floor, intending to return her to her family, when he caught sight of Mr. Sotherton some distance away. The gentleman had plainly been waiting for the dance to end, for his attention was once again fixed upon Elizabeth.

Darcy felt her hand tighten slightly upon his arm.

“I believe,” she murmured, following his gaze, “that my difficulty has not been so thoroughly resolved as I hoped.”

“No.”

Elizabeth gave a quiet sigh. “I cannot allow you to rescue me a second time. Once may be attributed to good fortune. Twice would begin to look like cowardice on my part.”

Darcy glanced towards Sotherton, who had already begun moving in their direction. “Then perhaps I need not rescue you again.”

She looked up at him.

“If you permit me to remain with you for the next two dances, he will have no opportunity to trouble you.”

Elizabeth's surprise was immediate. “You would sacrifice two dances merely to preserve me from one?”

“I do not consider it a sacrifice.”

The answer came too readily. Darcy saw her brows rise and became conscious, rather belatedly, of what he had said.

Elizabeth's mouth curved. “You are very generous, Mr. Darcy, particularly when we have been acquainted for scarcely half an hour.”

“I understood you wished to discourage him.”

“I do.” Her amusement faded into something more sincere. “And I am grateful for what you are offering. Mr. Sotherton has an unfortunate talent for finding encouragement where none was intended.”

Darcy knew that already, though he could hardly say so.

“Then allow me to remain until he finds some other occupation.”

Elizabeth glanced towards Sotherton, then back at Darcy. “Very well. But I shall accept your protection only until the next two dances are concluded. After that, Mr. Sotherton and I must learn to manage one another without requiring your continued supervision.”

“I shall consider myself dismissed at the proper hour.”

That earned him another smile.

“Then we understand one another perfectly.”

Darcy doubted it.

He knew far too much about Elizabeth Bennet for a man she had met less than half an hour ago, while she knew almost nothing of him at all.

Yet as she kept her hand upon his arm and allowed him to remain beside her, Darcy found himself thinking that, for the first time since he had opened her letter at Willowbrook, she might now have the opportunity to remedy that inequality.

Chapter Seventeen

15th October 1811

Longbourn

Elizabeth

Later that evening, the Bennet ladies returned to Longbourn to find their father still awake. They gathered in the drawing room to recount the assembly to Mr. Bennet, who had spent the hours of their absence in considerably greater peace with his books.

“Our girls were the finest at the assembly tonight, Mr. Bennet, and I will not hear otherwise.” Mrs. Bennet entered ahead of her daughters and had scarcely taken her seat before beginning. “Mr. Bingley danced the first with Jane and another later in the evening. I declare, he scarcely looked anywhere else when she was near him. And Mr. Darcy! Three sets with Lizzy, Mr. Bennet. Three! He did not dance with another woman all evening.”