Chapter Fifteen
Mrs Purvis’ drawing room was warm with firelight and candles, the air faintly scented with beeswax and something sweet from the sideboard. The curtains had been drawn against the evening, and the room held a soft brightness that reflected onto the occupants faces with a determined cheerfulness.
Two card tables stood near the hearth. At the nearer one, Mrs Purvis arranged the players with quiet authority.
"Mr Bingley—here, if you please. Miss Bennet. Mr Darcy. Miss Elizabeth." She glanced to the side. "Mr Fletcher will make the final pair with…ah, yes, Miss Reed, you will sit in."
Mr Fletcher, a florid man of middle years with an easy manner, took his seat readily. Miss Reed, dressed in an abundance of lace and carrying herself with the authority of long spinsterhood, joined them without comment.
Elizabeth found herself seated very close to Darcy, near enough that she was conscious of him before he so much as moved.
Miss Darcy did not join a table. She had declined Mrs Purvis’s invitation with a quiet apology, taking instead a seat near Mrs Bennet and Mrs Makepeace. They were settled just beyond the table, positioned in such a way that nothing of consequence could pass unnoticed.
The cards were dealt.
"I ought to warn you," Bingley said, gathering his hand with visible satisfaction, "that I play with great enthusiasm and very little skill."
"An admirable honesty," said Mr Fletcher. "I shall endeavour to match you in one, if not the other."
Jane smiled. "I think we shall all manage very well."
Darcy did not trouble himself to reply.
Elizabeth arranged her cards, telling herself she was attending to the game, though she was uncomfortably aware of the steadiness with which he held himself beside her.
The first few tricks passed without incident. Bingley led boldly, Jane corrected him with gentle precision, and the rest followed as they might.
Elizabeth, after a moment’s consideration, did not.
"You are throwing that away," Darcy murmured, not looking at her.
"I am playing it," she returned, just as quietly.
"You are sacrificing the hand."
"I am playing in my own way."
"That is not the object."
"It is mine."
She moved to lay the card down, and his hand came forward as if to still hers, not enough to draw the attention of the room, but enough to draw her notice before she could complete the motion.
"Do not," he said.
Elizabeth turned her head then, her eyes resting on his face with a composure she did not feel.
"Sir, you are interfering."
"I am preventing a mistake."
"I do not require prevention."
"You do."
There was something in the certainty of it that might have unsettled her, had she not been equally determined.
She played the card. It was, as he had predicted, the wrong one.
"Ah," said Mr Fletcher, with mild interest, "a bold choice."
"A mistaken one," Darcy replied.
"You may yet be wrong," Elizabeth said, though she knew very well he was not.
"I am not."
"You are insufferable," she said in an undertone.
"Frequently."
They lost the hand.
Bingley leaned back with a small laugh. "Marvellous. That was decisive, if not entirely clear to me."
"It was perfectly clear," said Mr Fletcher chuckling. "Miss Elizabeth prefers boldness to caution."
"I prefer not to be dictated to," Elizabeth said.
Darcy did not answer, but she felt a shift in him. A bristle of annoyance that moved through his stiff frame.
The next hand began more quietly. For a few rounds she played with perfect correctness, as though to prove a point she had already abandoned, and then, just as deliberately, she did not.
He saw it at once. "Do not," he said again, lower now.
"You have no authority here."
"I have reason, madam."
She reached forward. This time he did not check her. He took her hand. It was not a light correction, nor a passing contact that might be overlooked. His fingers closed over hers and held, arresting the movement entirely before the card could be played.
The warmth of it was immediate, and Elizabeth felt her breath catch before she could prevent it.
"Mr Darcy," she said under her breath, with more effort than she liked, "you are quite forgetting where we are. You must release me."
He did not, looking at their joined hands with an intensity that Elizabeth did not want to think about too deeply. The moment stretched long enough for the room to pay attention.
Mr Fletcher’s attention faltered, his regular chuckle replaced with a hesitant cough. Miss Reed’s fan paused mid-motion. Bingley, who had been speaking, broke off abruptly. Even Jane’s hand stilled over her cards.
From her seat beside Mrs Bennet, Georgiana had gone very still. Her fan lifted, almost as though to conceal her expression, though not before the smallest, startled smile had touched her mouth.
Then Mrs Bennet spoke with a crisp evenness that Elizabeth barely recognised. "Mr Darcy. You will not detain my daughter’s hand at a public table."
He released it at once, inclining his head to Mrs Bennet, a severe expression on his closed face.
A brief pause, and then, with the same composure, "And Lizzy—you will not permit it."
Elizabeth stared at her. "I am doing nothing—"
Mrs Bennet met her gaze directly. "You are doing exactly what is being seen," she added in an undertone
Elizabeth felt the heat rise to her neck, sudden and unwelcome.
She realised that at no point in the evening had her mother fluttered or exclaimed.
She had not pushed her daughters into the path of the eligible men in the room.
She had been in good humour, chatting and gossiping with the other women, but she had behaved well within the confines of good behaviour.
It was an accolade that Elizabeth could not claim for herself that evening.
Mrs Bennet turned away again as though the matter required no further attention.
Mr Fletcher cleared his throat. "Shall we proceed?"
"Yes," Jane said gently.
The game resumed.
Elizabeth kept her eyes on her cards. Darcy did not touch her again.
He misplayed the next hand.