Page 17 of Mr Darcy Bets on Love

"If you like."

"And the last?"

She missed a step. She actually missed a step, in front of the whole of Hertfordshire, and he steadied her without seeming to, and they went on.

The last set. A gentleman might dance twice with a lady and nobody would think very much of it. Three times, and one of them the last of the night, was a declaration. Everyone in the room would understand it. Her mother would understand it. Miss Bingley would understand it. She looked up at his face and saw that he knew all that, and that he was asking anyway, and that he was waiting for her answer with his whole heart in his eyes.

"Yes," said Elizabeth. "The last as well."

He did not smile, quite. But when the set ended and he bowed to her, his hand was not steady, and neither was hers.

#

The ring had arrived at four o'clock that afternoon, carried from London by his solicitor's own clerk, who had been instructed to put it into no hands but Mr Darcy's. Darcy had signed for it, tipped the man a guinea, and gone upstairs and opened the little red morocco case and sat looking at it for a quarter of an hour.

It was a small sapphire, the deep blue of a summer night, set round with seed pearls. His father had given it to his mother on the day she accepted him. She had worn it every day of her married life, and taken it off only at the end, when her fingers grew too thin to hold it. She had pressed it into her son's palm, and said, for the girl you love. Not the one they choose for you. The one you love.

He had been eighteen. He had not understood then what she meant. He understood now.

It was in his waistcoat pocket. He had checked it eleven times since the ball began. He knew this because he had counted, in a despairing sort of way, the way a man counts his own heartbeats when he cannot sleep.

"You will wear a hole in that waistcoat," said Bingley, appearing at his elbow with a glass of punch in each hand and an expression of blissful idiocy. "Here. Drink this. You look as though you are about to be hanged."

"Thank you."

"I have asked her," said Bingley.

Darcy turned, and stared. Bingley's face was glowing like a lamp.

"In the orangery, an hour ago. I was going to wait until tomorrow and ask her father first, very properly, as you would. And then she smiled at me over a plate of white soup and I could not wait another minute. She said yes." He laughed aloud, and several heads turned. "She said yes, Darcy. I am the happiest man in England."

"For another half hour, perhaps," said Darcy, and then, seeing his friend's face, gripped his hand hard. "I am glad, Charles. Truly. She is the best woman in the world, save one."

Bingley's eyebrows went up. His eyes went to Darcy's waistcoat pocket, and then across the room to where Elizabeth stood laughing with Charlotte Lucas, and then back.

"Oh," he said. "Oh. The conservatory is empty. I have had the lamps put out, all but two. Nobody goes there after supper." He grinned. "I am told the moonlight is very fine."

The supper set came. Darcy led Elizabeth into the dining room, and discovered that he was to be tested.

Mrs Bennet was seated three places away. She had heard about Jane. The whole table had heard about Jane, because Mrs Bennet was telling them, in a voice that carried to the kitchens. Mr Bingley was so rich, so amiable, five thousand a year at least, a house in town, and Netherfield only three miles off. Jane would be so well settled. And of course such a match would throw her other girls in the way of other rich men.

At the far end of the table, Miss Bingley smiled like a cat.

Darcy felt Elizabeth go rigid beside him. He did not need to look at her to know that her cheeks were scarlet and that she was wishing the floor would open. He did look, and she was staring at her plate with the fixed brightness of someone determined not to cry in public.

He had, a month ago, made a list of objections in his head. Mrs Bennet had been at the top of it.

He found now that he did not care in the least.

"Mrs Bennet," he said, in a voice pitched to carry exactly as far as hers did. The table fell silent. Mrs Bennet stopped, fork in air, and looked at him with alarm. "May I say that I have seldom seen a mother so happy for her daughter. It does you great credit. And you are quite right: Miss Bennet is marrying one of the best men I know." He raised his glass towards Bingley, who was gazing at Jane down the table and noticed nothing. "I hope he knows his good fortune."

Mrs Bennet went pink with delight. The table, relieved, took up the toast. The conversation moved on to other things. Miss Bingley's smile slipped.

Under the tablecloth, where nobody could see, Elizabeth's hand found his. Her fingers were cold and shaking. He turned his own hand over and held hers, and felt her grip tighten, hard, almost painfully.

"Thank you," she breathed, not looking at him.

"For what? I was only agreeing with your mother. I expect to do it a great deal in future."