Chapter 12 #3
The colonel leaned back in satisfaction. “You see? Victory restored! Miss Bennet has routed despair itself.”
Elizabeth smiled because everyone else was smiling. But when the laughter turned elsewhere, she wished he had left her alone. She could have borne obscurity far more easily than admiration. Elizabeth gathered her next card, determined to look at nothing but the tricks before her.
And yet—Darcy. She could feel it—the heat of his gaze, steady and searching, and against her will, her eyes flicked up. For an instant, she found him watching her as he once had in Hertfordshire, intent and without visible emotion.
Heat crept into her cheeks. She bent again to her hand, arranging her cards with more care than they required, as though the play of spades and hearts might shield her from the truth that he still looked, and she still noticed.
The colonel’s groan of mock despair saved her from answering the silence.
A gust rattled the windowpanes, a low moan of wind sweeping down the chimney. Several of the company glanced toward the glass, where frost feathered in white patterns across the leaded panes. The merriment faltered a little, as though each remembered in the same moment that the storm was no jest.
One of the gentlemen muttered something about drifts blocking the north road, and a lady wondered aloud if the post could possibly arrive before Christmas.
Murmurs followed—anxieties half-played as humour, half in earnest. Elizabeth laid a card on the table, listening, the weight of the season pressing in with the storm.
“Three days at least, they say,” Lady Wilcox announced to no one in particular, fanning her cards as though she were already weary of the storm. “The drifts are rising half as high as the hedges.”
“And with the roads blocked, no post!” cried Miss Hinton. “My poor mother will think me frozen in a ditch.”
Her sister leaned close, giggling. “She will rather think you very fortunate—snowbound in such company.”
Laughter followed, though Elizabeth saw the shadow that crossed their hostess’s face. Sir Edward had promised entertainments, not a siege.
Mr. Kendrick, standing with one boot propped on the fender, lifted his voice over the hum of talk.
“We are better off than some. I passed a cottage on the turnpike where the windows had been knocked out by fallen branches. If this storm holds another week, we may envy even a drawing room as crowded as this.”
Laughter followed, Darcy’s among it. Elizabeth started at the sound—no hollow courtesy, but a brief, true laugh. It reached her across the table before she could look away.
The game quickened as more players drew in. Chairs scraped, counters clinked, and the colonel’s laughter rolled easily above the rest. Elizabeth had just laid down a card when Miss Hinton rose from her seat across the room and came to stand at Darcy’s shoulder.
“You must join us, Mr. Darcy,” she declared with a smile that left no room for refusal. “We lack a steady hand at this table, and I shall not begin a new round without one.”
Every face near the board turned. Darcy inclined his head and allowed her to draw him into the vacant chair beside her.
He took up the cards offered, his movements crisply efficient, and cut the deck at her request. The ladies around them praised his “good fortune” and teased Miss Hinton for her triumph in securing such a partner.
As the next hand was gathered, Elizabeth rose slightly, offering her seat to a gentleman who had wandered near. “You have players enough now, I think. My poor skill is hardly required.”
But Colonel Fitzwilliam was quicker. He pressed her gently back into the chair with a laugh. “Nonsense, Miss Bennet. We cannot spare you now—you are the talisman of our success. Let Darcy prove he can hold his own against so lively an opponent.”
Several voices chimed in at once, jesting that she must not abandon them in the midst of battle. Elizabeth smiled with what composure she could muster and settled again, though her heart thudded faster for knowing that Darcy still sat across the board, silent, immovable, and watching.
Elizabeth’s cheeks warmed. “I fear you will find me a very poor talisman, Colonel.”
“Not at all,” he said, dealing another hand. “Darcy, you will not gainsay me—admit she plays with spirit.”
The colonel’s eyes danced with mischief, but Elizabeth knew every gaze at the table had fixed on her. There was no retreat.
Darcy lifted his eyes at last, the cards motionless in his hand. “Miss Bennet has spirit enough without being made to prove it,” he said quietly.
The words were nothing—only what courtesy demanded—but the sound of his voice directed at her after so many brushes of silence sent a jolt through her. She laid down her card with more firmness than she intended.
“Ha! You see?” cried the colonel. “One look from you, Darcy, and she sweeps the trick.”
Elizabeth forced a laugh, though her hand trembled slightly as she gathered the next round. She could not bear to look at Darcy, yet she felt his presence acutely, the heat of him beside Miss Hinton, the weight of his silence louder than the colonel’s jokes.
Miss Hinton leaned closer to Darcy. “We shall win yet, Mr. Darcy—if Miss Bennet will not conspire against us.”
Elizabeth caught the glance thrown her way, light and playful, and answered with a smile that cost her more than she wished to show. “I am too honest to conspire, Miss Hinton. My cards are poor enough without cheating.”
The table laughed, the colonel loudest of all, but Elizabeth’s heart beat fast. Every exchange was a knife’s edge: to speak, to answer, to sit silent—it all betrayed her in some way. And Darcy, grave and still beside Miss Hinton, gave her nothing more.