Page 30 of Mr. Darcy’s Fiery Passion

She looked up then. She looked past Mr. Collins's shoulder, through the open door, into the hall. She looked straight at Darcy.

One eyebrow went up, very slightly. It was the look she had given him over Miss Bingley's Marmion. Come and hear this, it said. You will not believe what he is leaving out.

Under the joke lay a question. She was asking him about last night.

The look went through him. He felt her mouth again, and her fists in his shirt. For an instant he was back in the library with her against the bookcase. Heat climbed his neck above Parrish's tight cravat.

Mr. Collins turned another page. It was a page she had turned for him in the small hours. Darcy wanted to snatch the book out of the man's hands.

He wanted to go in. He wanted to lean in the doorway and meet her eyes over Mr. Collins's head. He wanted to laugh with her about the sofa.

That was why he could not.

He walked on. He walked quickly, before his heart could decide otherwise.

He found Bingley in the drawing room, at the window, looking at nothing. Or rather, looking at the parlor door across the hall, and waiting for Jane to come out of it.

"Darcy!" Bingley turned. "You are down. Parrish has made you respectable again, I see."

"He has made me a great deal too respectable." Darcy put a finger to his cravat and gave up. "What are you looking at?"

"Nothing."

"Bingley."

Bingley flushed to the roots of his hair. "Very well. I am looking at Miss Bennet. Or I am waiting to look at her. It comes to the same thing."

Darcy said nothing. He went to the window and stood beside his friend.

He had meant to have doubts about Miss Bennet. He had had them, at the assembly and after. She smiled at everyone. She smiled at Bingley no more than at Sir William Lucas. And her mother had spent the whole assembly telling Lady Lucas the match was as good as made.

He had watched her for a fortnight since. He had watched her carry trays to her sister's room, and sit up with her, and cut her meat. He had watched her go pink when Bingley came into a room, and grow quiet when he left it. It was not in her nature to show much. But she was not indifferent.

He knew a little now about wanting a person and hiding it. He was hardly in a position to judge her for it.

"I mean to speak to Mr. Bennet," Bingley said in a rush. "Soon. After the ball, perhaps. I know what you will say."

"Do you?"

"You will say I have known her five weeks. You will say her connections are low, and her mother..." Bingley waved a hand at the door. "Her mother is her mother. And that I fall in love every quarter."

"You should speak to him," said Darcy.

Bingley stared at him. "You are not going to tell me to wait?"

"No."

"You are not going to tell me she is indifferent?"

"She is not indifferent." Darcy looked out at the gray lawn. "Speak to her father, Bingley. Do not wait."

Bingley went on staring. Then he seized Darcy by both shoulders, remembered the burns, and let go again at once. "I beg your pardon! Darcy, I... Thank you. I did not expect it. Upon my word, I did not."

Neither had Darcy. He was not sure where it had come from. He only knew he wanted no part of advising a man to want less. Not today.

It was a little after one when he came out into the hall again.

Elizabeth was crossing it, and Mr. Collins was following her.