Page 12 of The Earl’s Second Chance

Caroline coloured. “The street was so noisy.”

“Yes.”

The single syllable contained neither accusation nor rescue.

Caroline pressed on. “You must allow me to renew our intimacy. Charles will be transported.”

Jane set down her cup. “I am always pleased to receive a civil acquaintance, Miss Bingley. Intimacy, however, is not renewed by titles.”

Elizabeth nearly dropped the sugar tongs.

Caroline stayed eleven more minutes and enjoyed none of them.

Later, when the last caller had gone, Fanny sank into a chair. “I did not say one foolish thing.”

“You said several,” her husband answered from the doorway.

Her face fell.

He crossed the room and kissed her brow. “They were charming foolish things. The duchess adored you.”

“Thomas.”

“I am reforming, my dear, not dead.”

Jane looked through the window at the house opposite. Viscount Hartley was descending its steps. As if he felt her gaze, he glanced across the square.

He did not wave. He bowed.

Jane smiled long after he had gone.

CHAPTER EIGHT

A Second Insult

The Bennets’ second ball of the Season was held at Devonshire House.

Elizabeth wore midnight-blue satin and the Herfershire sapphires. Her dark curls were arranged with a simplicity that had required her maid an hour to achieve. She entered beside Jane under the announced name “Lady Elizabeth Bennet” and felt the room turn toward them.

She disliked the sensation until she remembered Meryton, where a man had looked at her and declared her merely tolerable.

Then she lifted her chin.

Mr. Darcy had returned from Pemberley that afternoon. He arrived late, already impatient with the crowd, and saw Elizabeth across the ballroom before he heard her name.

For a moment his composure vanished.

She was altered—not in feature, for he had remembered those too well, but in bearing. She laughed with a marquess’s daughter as if she belonged there. Three gentlemen waited for her dance card. Jewels he did not recognize lay at her throat.

Darcy found Bingley’s old acquaintance Mr. Alton beside him.

“Who is the dark-haired lady?” Alton asked.

“Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Hertfordshire.”

“You know her?”

“A country acquaintance.”