Chapter Eighteen #2
Elizabeth watched, and the anger she had carried from her father’s library began to shift into something colder.
Her father had dismissed her as if she were an inconvenience.
Here, her sister was being treated as if she were a prize.
Men decided. Men competed. Men justified.
And women—women were expected to accept whatever outcome was presented, grateful for any scrap of security.
No, Elizabeth thought, the word echoing like a vow. Not Jane. Not me.
She glanced down at her hands in her lap. They were steady now, but she could still feel, as if in memory, the betrayal on her own face when her father ordered her out. She could still hear his voice: Until I am assured of your future… no decision will be made.
And the worst of it was that she did not even know whether his fear of losing her was true fear, or merely a convenient cover.
Colonel Fitzwilliam’s laughter broke into her thoughts.
“Miss Bennet,” he was saying to Jane, “you must tell me whether the neighborhood truly believes Roman treasure will appear for anyone who digs long enough. I confess I admire the optimism, but I have never yet seen gold rise from mud by sheer force of will.”
“It is likely only excitement,” Jane replied gently. “People like stories.”
“Then we are all in danger,” Fitzwilliam said gravely. “For I have always been weak to stories.”
Bingley forced a laugh. “If anyone will find treasure, it will be those with perseverance. Those willing to work.”
Fitzwilliam’s brows rose. “Ah. Then we must all dread Miss Bennet’s success, for she is the very model of perseverance.”
Jane’s cheeks colored faintly. Elizabeth saw the slight discomfort in her eyes.
Bingley’s smile tightened again.
Before Elizabeth could decide whether to intervene with a pointed remark of her own, the parlor door opened.
Mr. Bennet entered.
He looked composed—almost too composed—his hair neatly arranged, his coat properly buttoned. Yet Elizabeth, who had known him all her life, saw the tightness around his mouth, the careful set of his shoulders, the way his gaze flicked briefly—too briefly—toward her before settling into neutrality.
Mrs. Bennet’s face brightened at once. “Mr. Bennet! Mr. Bennet, you are at last among us. We have had the greatest pleasure—”
Mr. Bennet lifted a hand, and the gesture stilled her, if only because she was astonished to be interrupted.
“My dear,” he said, voice even, “I will not keep you in suspense.” His gaze swept the room, pausing on the gentlemen.
“Mr. Darcy has done me the honor of requesting my permission to enter into a courtship with our Elizabeth. I have granted it.”
For a moment, the parlor was utterly still.
Elizabeth’s breath caught—not in surprise, for she had known it was coming, but in the strange collision of joy and irritation that followed.
Joy, because Darcy wanted her—wanted her publicly, properly.
Irritation, because her father’s voice carried the weight of a casual remark, not the solemn act of entrusting his daughter’s future to a man of principle.
Then Mrs. Bennet erupted. “A courtship!” she cried, half rising from her seat.
“A courtship! Oh! How excessively delightful—how perfectly delightful!” She clasped her hands together, seeming ready all at once to pray, laugh, and faint.
“Mr. Darcy, you are the finest man in England; I am sure of it. My Lizzy! My dear, dear Lizzy—did you hear? A courtship! I declare I shall be the happiest mother alive!”
Mary looked as though she wished to remind everyone that courtship was not the same as engagement. Jane’s eyes widened, then softened into a smile—genuine, warm, proud.
Mr. Bingley’s expression—briefly—was a study in startled recalculation.
His gaze flickered from Elizabeth to Darcy and back again, as if he had not considered the possibility that Darcy might be serious.
Then his smile returned, a fraction too bright.
“I offer my felicitations,” he said, but his voice held strain.
Colonel Fitzwilliam, however, looked delighted. He rose, bowing first to Mr. Bennet and then to Elizabeth. “My congratulations, Miss Elizabeth,” he said with easy sincerity. “I confess myself relieved. I should hate to think my cousin would dither about until winter.”
Mr. Darcy’s gaze met Elizabeth’s from across the room where he stood with his cousin and Mr. Bennet. In that instant, the room fell away—the chatter, the shock, her mother’s effusions, her father’s rigid composure. Darcy’s gaze held nothing but quiet certainty and something softer beneath it.
Elizabeth felt her cheeks warm, not from embarrassment but from the simple, startling fact of being chosen.
She rose, manners carrying her through. “Thank you,” she said, her voice steadier than she felt.
Mrs. Bennet resumed speaking, already planning tea, future visits, and speculating on the way the neighborhood would tremble with envy. Yet Elizabeth barely heard her.
Jane crossed the room and touched Elizabeth’s hand briefly, a silent question: Are you well?
Elizabeth squeezed back once, hard, an equally silent answer: Not entirely.
But I will be. The pleasure of her arrangement with Mr. Darcy did much to settle her frustrations with her father.
She smiled as he approached, having left his cousin to entertain Mr. Bennet.
Resolving to pay her suitor every attention and ponder other trials later, she turned her full focus to Mr. Darcy.
Later—when tea had been refreshed and Mrs. Bennet had finally paused to breathe, when Bingley and Fitzwilliam had resumed their careful jostling for Jane’s attention with an added layer of caution—Jane leaned close to Elizabeth and murmured, “Are you happy?”
Elizabeth looked at her sister—sweet, steady Jane, who had always tried to make peace between the world and those she loved.
She had not named it—had scarcely allowed herself to examine it—but something in her had already settled in his favor.
Her regard had taken root before she had thought to guard against it.
Her esteem moved rapidly from admiration toward love, and she relished the feelings stirring within her.
“I am,” Elizabeth whispered back. And then, because she could not lie to Jane, not wholly: “And I am annoyed.”
Jane’s fingers tightened around hers. “With Mr. Darcy?”
“No,” Elizabeth admitted, and her gaze drifted, helplessly, to where Darcy stood speaking with her father, his posture respectful, his expression intent. “Not with him.”
Jane studied her for a moment longer, then nodded as if she understood without being told. Jane often did, though she could not know the extent of Elizabeth’s frustration with their father.
Elizabeth drew in a slow breath and lifted her chin.
Her father had made his announcement. Her mother rejoiced. The neighborhood would learn soon enough, and tongues would wag with pleasure. Darcy had stepped forward, publicly, properly, with intentions that seemed honorable in every respect.
Beneath it all—beneath the bright surface of courtship and competition and social triumph—the weight of hidden gold still pressed against Elizabeth’s conscience like a stone.
She smiled anyway because she must.
Mr. Bingley, buoyed by the general excitement and Mrs. Bennet’s unrestrained delight, appeared determined to press every advantage the moment afforded him.
“Well,” he said, clapping his hands together as though the matter were settled, “since we are all in such agreeable spirits—and since the weather persists in behaving more like April than November—I propose an outing.” He grinned around the room, his enthusiasm unchecked.
“A picnic luncheon, perhaps. We might make a morning of it. There is no reason enjoyment should be confined to drawing rooms.”
Mrs. Bennet brightened immediately. “A picnic! How charming. One so rarely enjoys fresh air at this time of year. And with such excellent company—”
“And,” Bingley added, eyes alight, “we might as well combine pleasure with curiosity. A bit of treasure hunting, perhaps. The whole county is already half-mad with it. Why should we not see for ourselves whether the Romans were kind enough to leave us anything more than gossip?”
Elizabeth felt a faint tightening in her chest. Of course, he would suggest it. The idea had been circulating like a spark seeking dry tinder, and Mr. Bingley—impulsive, eager, and increasingly reckless—was precisely the sort to fan it into flame.
Colonel Fitzwilliam, however, did not immediately agree or object. He leaned back in his chair, one ankle crossed over the other, his expression thoughtful rather than animated. “Treasure hunting,” he repeated. “That brings to mind a story my brother once told me.”
Mr. Bingley’s interest sharpened. “Your brother?”
“Yes,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said easily. “We were boys at the time—still at school. He had been sent to stay with a friend whose family owned land near the remains of a Roman road. One afternoon, while the men were mending a fence, my brother and the steward’s son began digging in the embankment, convinced that soldiers must have passed that way centuries earlier. ”
Elizabeth watched Colonel Fitzwilliam closely. His tone was conversational, almost casual, but there was a deliberate calm to it that suggested the story was not told merely for amusement.
“They unearthed a small pot,” he continued.
“Cracked, rather unremarkable at first glance. Inside were coins—mostly bronze, some silver, and, tucked at the bottom, three gold aurei. There was also a little hair comb, worked bone or ivory, very delicate. My brother was convinced it belonged to a Roman lady who had paused to adjust her hair and dropped her treasure in the grass.”
Jane smiled faintly at that, though her hands twisted together in her lap.
“And what became of it?” Mr. Bingley asked impatiently.