TWENTY
Lucas Lodge
Elizabeth
Thirteen days without so much as a word from Mr. Darcy ought not to have mattered nearly so much as Elizabeth found that it did.
Mr. Bingley had called at Longbourn no fewer than four times since their return from Netherfield, yet never once had his friend accompanied him.
With every visit, Elizabeth discovered herself listening for the sound of another carriage door, another set of footsteps behind Bingley’s own, only to feel the small and unreasonable disappointment anew each time he arrived alone.
She disliked herself for it a little.
After all, Mr. Darcy had made no promise to visit Longbourn. Indeed, he scarcely appeared the sort of gentleman who visited anyone unnecessarily. Whatever understanding had existed between them at Netherfield had likely signified far less to him than her foolish imagination had since assigned it.
And yet...
She could not entirely persuade herself that those conversations had meant nothing. There had been too much honesty in them, too much ease. Whatever else existed between them, she had believed, perhaps vainly, that some species of friendship had begun to form.
The Lucas ball therefore became, against her better judgement, the object of far more anticipation than she cared to admit.
Now, seated beside Jane beneath the crowded warmth of the assembly rooms, Elizabeth found her attention wandering repeatedly toward the entrance whenever footsteps or voices sounded near the door.
The Netherfield party was late.
Near the far wall, Mr. Bennet stood in conversation with Sir William Lucas, his expression carrying the particular look of dry endurance he reserved for social obligations undertaken solely from longstanding affection.
His regard for Sir William was perhaps the only reason he had agreed to attend the ball at all.
The first set had nearly formed. Gentlemen were already crossing the room in search of partners whilst the musicians adjusted their instruments with impatient little flourishes.
“What a shame.” Lydia appeared beside them with Kitty close behind, one hand planted dramatically upon her hip.
“What is the matter?” Jane asked.
“Mr. Denny says Mr. Wickham is not coming after all,” Lydia declared with visible outrage. “He was taken ill yesterday evening. Some sort of stomach complaint.”
Kitty sighed mournfully. “We had both expected him for the first set.”
Lydia launched immediately into an account of the wager they had made regarding which of them Mr. Wickham might ask to dance first, though Elizabeth paid only partial attention.
Her thoughts lingered instead upon the unfortunate alteration in circumstance.
Should Mr. Darcy attend the ball after all, there would now be no opportunity to observe how he and Wickham behaved in one another’s company.
She had privately hoped such a meeting might reveal something of the truth between them.
A gentleman approached before the thought could continue further.
“Miss Bennet.” Mr. Goulding bowed politely before Elizabeth. “May I have the honour of the first set?”
Elizabeth accepted with a smile suitable to the occasion, though not perhaps equal to the distraction occupying her thoughts.
Nearby, Jane gently declined another invitation with quiet confidence Elizabeth understood immediately. Mr. Bingley had secured the first set with her during his last visit to Longbourn, and Jane, though calm as ever, had spent much of the evening looking toward the entrance herself.
The musicians began at last.
Elizabeth had scarcely taken her place opposite Mr. Goulding when a stir arose near the doorway behind the forming sets. Conversation shifted visibly through the room in small waves of movement and turning heads.
She looked instinctively toward the entrance.
The Netherfield party had arrived.
Mr. Bingley entered first beside his sisters and Mr. Hurst, apologising at once in lowered tones to Sir William, whose delight at their appearance seemed wholly untouched by their lateness.
And behind them came Darcy.
Elizabeth’s breath caught before she could prevent it.
Marsh guided the bath chair steadily through the doorway whilst Darcy’s attention, almost immediately and with unsettling certainty, found hers across the room.
No smile altered his expression. No visible emotion at all.
Only concentration.
As though, amidst an entire ballroom, he had looked for her first.
The dance began before Elizabeth fully recovered herself. She missed the opening figure entirely and was forced to rely upon Mr. Goulding’s good sense to regain her proper place. Mortified by her own distraction, she fixed her attention firmly upon the set before her for several moments afterward.
Yet despite herself, her gaze continued returning toward the doorway whenever opportunity allowed.
At one turn through the figure, she lost sight of Darcy entirely.
At the next, she found him again.
Only now Mr. Bennet stood beside Darcy’s chair in apparent conversation.
Elizabeth very nearly missed her step a second time.
* * *
Darcy
Bingley had invited Darcy to Longbourn twice during the first week following the Bennet sisters’ departure and once again several days later.
Each invitation had been declined. At first politely, then with enough abruptness that Bingley, perceptive enough where his friend was concerned, ceased asking altogether.
Darcy could hardly blame him.
What explanation was he to offer? That he avoided Longbourn precisely because he wished to go there? That the ease he had found in Elizabeth Bennet’s company had unsettled him more profoundly than any social acquaintance ought?
Worse still was the uncomfortable sense of disloyalty accompanying it all.
For two years, every moment of genuine enjoyment had carried with it the unpleasant feeling that he was somehow betraying Clara’s memory merely by continuing to live beyond her.
To discover pleasure in conversation again, to anticipate another person’s company, to think of someone and feel his spirits improve rather than worsen.
.. all of it had seemed dangerously close to infidelity at first.
He had held onto the feeling stubbornly.
Yet somewhere amidst thirteen days of relentless thought, Darcy had arrived, however reluctantly, at a single concession.
Clara was gone. That truth had not changed.
But perhaps — perhaps — loving her memory did not require him to pretend that Miss Elizabeth Bennet was not worth considerably more of his attention than he had yet permitted himself to give.
He could not imagine Clara demanding such a sentence. He was less certain he did not deserve it.
The thought had unsettled him almost as much as Elizabeth Bennet herself.
Because Elizabeth, without appearing aware of it, had become the first person in two years to speak with him as though the chair existed only as circumstance and not definition.
She argued with him, laughed at him, questioned him, and listened to him with a steadiness entirely untouched by either pity or careful avoidance.
Around her, he occasionally forgot himself enough to answer naturally before remembering what he had become.
That alone rendered her dangerous.
The consequence of all this reflection was that, by the afternoon before the Lucas ball, he had become so weary of resisting the desire to see her again that he informed Bingley, with studied carelessness, that perhaps the assembly need not be entirely intolerable after all.
Bingley’s satisfaction had been immediate and exceedingly annoying.
Now, however, seated near the entrance of the crowded assembly rooms whilst Marsh guided the chair carefully through the arriving guests, Darcy questioned the wisdom of the decision almost at once.
Because Elizabeth Bennet was already looking toward the door.
The first set had not yet begun. Gentlemen were only beginning to lead their partners into place whilst conversation and movement continued restlessly throughout the room.
Elizabeth herself stood already within the forming set, one gloved hand resting lightly upon her partner’s sleeve as she turned at their entrance.
Candlelight caught softly against the deep blue silk of her gown, lending unusual brightness to the fine eyes Darcy had already found far too capable of disturbing his composure.
Her curls, imperfectly restrained as always, framed a countenance animated less by conventional beauty than by intelligence and life, though at that moment he found himself considering her decidedly handsome.
Then her eyes found him.
Something in her expression changed with such sudden warmth that Darcy forgot every carefully ordered thought he had possessed upon entering.
Surprise first. Then unmistakable pleasure.
Not politeness. Not mere social recognition.
She looked genuinely glad that he had come.
The knowledge settled somewhere reason could not immediately reach.
Darcy found himself watching her as Bingley moved at once toward Jane Bennet, all easy smiles and cheerful apologies for their lateness.
Elizabeth remained where she was amongst the dancers, though her attention returned toward him often enough that Darcy became uncomfortably aware of each occasion she looked away.
Of course she danced.
The thought arrived with quiet bitterness.
Balls existed precisely for such purposes. Young ladies attended them to dance, converse, encourage admiration, and perhaps secure attachments. Elizabeth Bennet moved easily within such a world whilst he remained outside certain portions of it.
His hand tightened briefly against the arm of the chair.
He pushed the thought away almost immediately.
Because Elizabeth looked toward him again.
And once more there remained that same brightness upon her face, entirely separate from the animation of the ballroom around her.
“You appear to have found the one position in the room with the clearest view of the set, Mr. Darcy.”
Darcy drew his attention away from Elizabeth and turned toward the voice.
Mr. Bennet stood beside the chair regarding him with dry intelligence and an expression suggesting he had observed considerably more than Darcy would have preferred.
And, inconveniently enough, he was precisely the man Darcy had hoped to see.