Chapter 4
“Good God!” Darcy muttered to himself under his breath as he watched the couples on the dance floor.
He had been truly astonished to hear his old friend John Tellington, Earl of Grantchester, introduce Miss Bennet as his bride-to-be.
At first, he thought it might have been some kind of strange practical joke of the kind that Keeble might play, and Bingley might be amused by.
Darcy himself found such things incomprehensible at the best of times.
When it became apparent that the engagement was very much real, Darcy had not been able to hide his concern. He had neither taste nor talent for dissimulation and had not even thought to attempt it tonight.
Out on the dance floor now, Grantchester was dancing a merry hornpipe with Jane Bennet, a young woman whose innocence of feature only increased Darcy’s disapproving feelings.
While older than his own sister, Jane Bennet had some of the same air of innate naivety as Georgiana, or even Charles Bingley, and the same willingness to believe the best of everyone.
“No, turn to the right, Keeble!” laughed Grantchester, his eyes dancing with fun as Lord Keeble turned the wrong way and almost collided with him. “Not again, man!”
“Well, you try dancing with two ladies at once and see how you get on!” retorted Keeble, who was indeed attempting to dance with two of the younger Bennet girls together. “You have a fiancé, and I have only trouble on my hands.”
“Maybe you should get a fiancé too,” Grantchester suggested with a raised eyebrow.
“Maybe I should,” Keeble agreed affably. “If you can, why not?”
Miss Bennet danced gracefully but did not seem to enter into the gentlemen’s joking or her young sisters’ giggling, or even to be aware of these things. Her white muslin dress swished and swirled like the wings of a bird, flying through the dance but not quite part of it.
The young lady’s grace, decorum, and reserve were personal virtues that Darcy had first noticed in London, although he had paid little real attention to her before now.
There had been no reason to do so. Many young ladies came briefly to London during the Season, and then vanished from sight again.
Nor were the Bennets in Darcy’s social circle, or connected to Derbyshire.
Now, however, Darcy felt obligated to take an interest in the fortunes of Jane Bennet.
His already unhappy mood grew blacker the longer he watched her.
This absurd engagement must be very new, and the pair had only met this summer, as far as Darcy knew.
Did his friend’s fiancé really know the man she was to marry? It seemed unlikely.
With brooding eyes, Darcy’s gaze followed Grantchester and Jane Bennet as the dancing ended and the pair walked away toward the supper room. Ought Darcy to intervene directly, whether by speaking to his friend or speaking to Miss Bennet’s father?
The latter would be impossible without revealing secrets that were not Darcy’s to reveal. If the engagement did not end naturally, Darcy supposed he would therefore have to speak to Grantchester. It was not a conversation he relished, but one his conscience demanded.
“Perhaps you were right, Darcy, and we should not have come here,” said Charles Bingley with a sigh, appearing at Darcy’s shoulder after two dances with the young lady Darcy remembered to be Elizabeth Bennet.
Miss Elizabeth Bennet was the only person on the dance floor to have met Darcy’s eye while he was watching Grantchester and Miss Bennet.
She had not done so with any amiability, and certainly no flirtatiousness.
If anything, her look had been fierce and almost hostile.
Darcy suspected Elizabeth was not of the same gentle tribe as Jane Bennet, Georgiana, and Charles Bingley.
“We may leave as soon as you and your sisters like, Bingley.” Darcy answered shortly, his attention still on the chestnut head of Lord Grantchester and the loosely pinned blonde locks of Miss Bennet beside him, the two figures now passing through an archway and out of sight. “I have no desire to stay longer.”
“How lucky Grantchester is to have captured the heart of such an angel!” Bingley murmured longingly as he followed Darcy’s line of sight. “Do you not think Miss Jane Bennet the prettiest girl at the Meryton assembly rooms tonight?”
“Yes, she is,” Darcy answered honestly, but with little emotion. “Doubtless most men here would judge the same.”
“Including Grantchester,” Bingley remarked with a small grimace.
Now that Grantchester was gone from sight, Darcy looked at Bingley properly. His friend seemed deflated and despondent, drained of the enthusiasm for the gathering that had animated him so positively over the last few days.
“You seem tired, Bingley,” Darcy observed. “Let us not stay out too late tonight.”
“Oh, forget tiredness. You might have shown more civility when Grantchester announced their engagement, you know, Darcy,” Bingley burst out suddenly. “It must have wounded Miss Bennet to receive so little recognition from her fiancé’s good friend, although she is too well-mannered to show it.”
“More civility?” Darcy repeated, trying to make sense of what his friend was saying.
Had he offended Bingley in some way?
“Yes, Darcy. It would not hurt you to have shown a little more civility, even if you were as surprised as the rest of us. Miss Elizabeth Bennet was certainly offended on her sister’s behalf, and I dare say the rest of the family was, too.”
Ah, so that explained the hostile glances from Bingley’s dance partner… In his mind’s eye, Darcy again saw Elizabeth Bennet, chestnut-brown curls around her face and hazel eyes flashing fire at Darcy, while she danced nimbly with Bingley.
“It was not my intention to be uncivil, and I am sorry if Miss Bennet or anyone else in her family found me so,” Darcy assured his friend. “It would not have been honest for me to hide my shock from Grantchester.”
“Must you really always be so forthright, even to the point of rudeness?”
At that, Darcy glared at Bingley, not liking to have his personal behaviour challenged in such a way even by his good friends, especially in a case where they had such an incomplete understanding of the issues at play.
Even knowing that Bingley was likely taking his disappointment over the beautiful Miss Bennet out on Darcy could not excuse him.
“Bingley, I hold my principles and sense of right and wrong dearer than the oversensitive feelings of Miss Elizabeth Bennet or anyone else I have never met before and would happily never meet again.”
As soon as Darcy had snapped these rather self-important words to his friend, he became aware that Elizabeth Bennet herself was not far away, although hopefully occupied in her conversation with another young woman to whom they had been introduced earlier, daughter of some other prominent local family.
How much had they overheard? Asking himself this question, Darcy did feel a twinge of regret, if not guilt. He was not a vicious man, only tired and overcome by greater concerns than pleasing young ladies at a dance.
“You really are the limit, Darcy,” Bingley told him, also now spotting the young ladies and wincing for Darcy’s further offence. “Come, let us go and find my sisters and Hurst before you can do any more damage.”
As they passed Miss Elizabeth Bennet and her friend, both smiled and curtsied to Charles Bingley.
Elizabeth Bennet then rose very quickly, her now-cool eyes briefly meeting Darcy’s again, as if to make sure that he knew that none of her small civility had been for him.
Yes, she had definitely overheard him, and liked him no better for it.
Darcy nodded his respects to both ladies and then kept pace with Bingley in walking away. He had better be right about valuing principles above Elizabeth Bennet’s feelings. In the first place, it would be inexcusable to do otherwise.
In the second, Darcy suspected he had already made an indelible impression, and by no means a positive one.