Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
NOT TO BE DISMISSED
Darcy
I tugged at my cuffs, checking the buttons on my waistcoat and hurried down the corridor toward the dining room.
Bingley and I had spent the afternoon examining the estate’s drainage, a situation that had revealed itself to be far more dire than the steward’s report had suggested.
The morning’s unpleasantness with Miss Elizabeth dug like a misplaced hatpin on the back of a settee—its presence felt but its exact location frustratingly elusive.
The morning’s unpleasantness I had not thought about. Not once. Miss Elizabeth Bennet had disrespected my sister, and she had been justly dismissed.
The young lady had likely vacated Netherfield altogether after a bout of weeping and throwing dresses into trunks. The luxury of examining silted channels, testing soil permeability, and grousing about the previous tenant’s neglect had insulated me from the inevitable storm of feminine theatrics.
My duties done, with instructions for workmen to dig a new drainage channel, I proceeded to the dining room with the expectation of a tasty meal, a decent claret, and the somewhat stiff peace that existed before the invasion of one clever Bennet.
As the footman swung open the dining-room door, the rich aroma of roast pheasant intertwined with the subtle scent of beeswax candles enveloped me in the familiar comforts of a well-appointed home.
The room’s occupants—my sister, Bingley, Miss Bingley, and the Hursts—were all present and accounted for.
The extra place setting caught my eye, a silent testament to Bingley’s oversight in informing the staff to remove it.
I settled myself at the table, apologizing for my tardiness, and proceeded to say grace. When I looked up, Bingley unfolded his napkin, looking scrubbed and cheerful and entirely too pleased with the world for a man whose western fields were drowning.
“Capital ride today, Darcy,” he enthused. “I noticed the fields in question were bordering Longbourn. Perhaps we ought to call on Mr. Bennet and consult him on the—”
His words died on his lips because the dining-room door opened.
And in walked Elizabeth Bennet.
She was a vision in green—not the serviceable grey of the morning which had borne witness to her culinary crusade and sisterly subversion, but a deep, lustrous green that I had not seen before.
The hue suited her coloring without overshadowing her fine features.
Her hair was pinned with rather more care than this morning’s arrangement, and she carried her cat, draped over one forearm like an exceedingly self-satisfied muff.
Her expression conveyed nothing whatsoever except the mild, pleasant expectation of a woman arriving for a meal she had every right to attend.
And she did not deign to look at me.
“Good evening, Mr. Bingley. I do hope Mrs. Jolliffe has outdone herself. After this morning’s exertions, I find myself quite famished.”
The footman pulled her chair. She gracefully deposited her cat beneath the table and sat—as if she belonged here and had every expectation of being included in the household.
As if my words this morning had carried no more weight than a breeze through an open window, noted and immediately forgotten.
I did not speak. Every sentence available to me had rearranged itself into a configuration that was either inadequate, inappropriate, or dangerously revealing, and so I studied my wine glass, a perfectly serviceable vessel that did not disobey its purpose.
Caroline’s face underwent a series of cracks, fracturing from the smug satisfaction of the morning to the dawning realization that the impudent companion had refused to consider herself dismissed.
“Miss Bennet.” The frost in her voice could have preserved the pheasant indefinitely. “What an unexpected… pleasure.”
“Not at all unexpected, Miss Bingley. I live here.” Elizabeth accepted the glass of wine that Bingley had poured for her. “Or has that slipped your memory? There has been a great deal to keep track of today.”
She turned her attention and her smiles toward Bingley, who beamed back at her as if she were an adequate representation of Saint Jane Bennet herself.
“Mr. Bingley.” Her voice was warm, conversational, pitched with the easy confidence of a guest complimenting her host. “I trust your ride was productive? The weather seemed ideal for it.”
“Yes, Miss Elizabeth. Quite productive. We inspected the fields bordering Longbourn. The drainage is rather a catastrophe, but Darcy has a scheme. He always has a scheme.”
“How reassuring,” Elizabeth said. “One likes to know that such schemes are in capable hands.”
I gripped my wine glass and said nothing, because what was there to say?
I dismissed you this morning, and you are sitting in my—in Bingley’s—dining room eating pheasant as though I had not?
The sentence had no ending that did not make me sound ridiculous, and Fitzwilliam Darcy did not make a habit of sounding ridiculous at dinner tables.
That was a privilege reserved for Bingley, who was now inquiring about Elizabeth’s opinion of roasted root vegetables.
I suspect Caroline suffered more than I did. She had not touched a morsel, her lips pressed into a thin line that did not conceal her fury. She wished nothing but that Elizabeth, the thorn in her side, would be removed, and she had believed her goal achieved after the morning’s kitchen debacle.
“Miss Eliza.” Her voice was brittle. “We had assumed you would be… otherwise engaged this evening.”
“Had you?” Elizabeth turned to Caroline with a smile so serene it could have graced a Madonna in a Renaissance altarpiece.
“How kind of you to think of me. I confess I had rather a quiet afternoon. Reading, mostly. Your brother’s library is remarkably well-stocked for a house that has been so recently let. ”
“The previous tenant had literary ambitions,” Bingley supplied cheerfully. “Left behind half a library and a truly alarming number of agricultural pamphlets. Darcy has been working through them. Haven’t you, Darcy?”
Every head at the table swiveled in my direction—every head except Elizabeth’s, which remained oriented toward Bingley with the unwavering focus of a lady who had decided that the man six feet to her left did not exist and was not to be acknowledged by so much as a peripheral glance.
Since Elizabeth had not deigned to acknowledge me, neither would I comment on the library’s contents.
I swirled my wine, fingers tight on the stem, and studied my adversary with the same dispassionate scrutiny I applied to drainage proposals and stewards’ accounts. One examines the problem, and one does not admire it.
The green dress was an odd choice. The shade was deeper than fashion dictated, and the cut plainer than Caroline’s silk—no lace at the collar or ribbons at the sleeves, nothing that reached for effect.
By all rights, it should have looked provincial.
That it did not was an irregularity I attributed to the candlelight, which flattered indiscriminately and could not be held accountable.
Several of her curls had already staged an insurrection near her left temple, escaping their pins with the wilful disregard for discipline that appeared to be a defining characteristic of everything associated with Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
She tucked one behind her ear without interrupting her conversation with Bingley, a gesture so unconscious that it was clearly habitual.
I noted this alongside other observations: the way her lips pressed together before delivering a pointed remark, the angle at which she tilted her chin when she wished to appear unconcerned—about twenty degrees, I estimated, though I would need to observe her more to be certain.
When she turned toward my sister, offering me the elegant curve of her neck, my gaze traced the line unbidden, noting a small mole near the nape—another untidy imperfection that enhanced rather than detracted from her allure.
Beneath the table, something warm and furred settled against my ankle. I flinched—which I disguised as an adjustment of my napkin—and looked down to find a pair of amber eyes regarding me with the tranquil possessiveness of a creature who considered me her personal property.
I did not move my leg.
“Georgiana.” Elizabeth’s softened fractionally, the edges rounded in a way she did not seem to control. “Did you practise your Haydn this afternoon?”
“Yes,” said my sister without acknowledging her with a glance.
Silence settled across the table. Even Bingley seemed to register the change. My sister, who had thrown flour and giggled while cavorting in the kitchen, was once again the proper young lady of the highest station. Miss Elizabeth might have spoken to a doorpost.
And then, Georgiana’s neck swiveled toward me, her motion so abrupt it nearly drew Elizabeth’s eyes in my direction. Instead, she caught herself and fixed her gaze at an indeterminate point over my left shoulder.
“Brother, am I still to be civil to your companion?”
The question was devastating. Elizabeth was not my companion, but as Georgiana expected an answer, I replied, “You are to conduct yourself as a Darcy.”
My sister accepted this non-answer with a fractional nod and returned her attention to her plate.
Caroline’s sharp, affronted sneeze announced itself wetly. She pressed her handkerchief to her nose with the aggrieved fortitude of a martyr, though no one acknowledged her discomfort.
Elizabeth, however, rose from the table.
For one bewildering instant, I thought she would leave—that she had made her point, occupied her chair, consumed her dinner, and was now retreating with a semblance of dignity.
But she did not walk to the door. Instead, she went to the sideboard and fetched a covered plate I had not noticed.
Lifting the cloth, she revealed a neat arrangement of golden biscuits, round and fragrant, dusted with sugar and caraway seeds.
“Miss Darcy and I did manage to finish them before we were interrupted.” She set the plate in front of me, her arm passing so close that I caught the clean scent of lavender, a detail I noted with dispassionate professionalism and did not relish. Not one bit.
But as she placed the plate, her fingers lingered on the edge a moment longer than the gesture required, before she released it and drew her hand back to her side. “I believe they turned out rather well. Would you like to try one?”
Was she specifically addressing me? No matter.
Bingley reached for one and bit into it immediately. “Why, these are magnificent. Darcy, you must try your sister’s Shrewsbury cake. Mrs. Nicholls informs me that they are the King’s recipe.”
Every eye at the table found me. Bingley’s—expectant, unaware of the detonation he had set off with his mouth full of biscuit.
Caroline’s—sharp with calculation, willing me to refuse, and Georgiana’s—unreadable, her hands folded in her lap, watching me the way one watches a horse approach a fence, uncertain about clearing it.
And Elizabeth.
She looked at me. Directly and fully, for the first time since walking through that door in her green dress.
The impact of her unguarded gaze after an evening of studied avoidance was not unlike stepping from a warm room into a biting wind.
Her eyes were dark and bright and carried a challenge so cleanly constructed that refusing it would cost me more than accepting it.
“Mr. Darcy, would you?” she challenged, and the question was not about cakes.
I couldn’t answer, but I picked one up. It was lighter than I had anticipated, sweet with the scent of rose water and butter.
And it was… divine, obviously fit for a king.
I record this with the reluctance of a man conceding ground he had fully intended to hold.
The butter was rich, the caraway sharp, and the rose water treading the line between fragrance and flavor.
The texture crumbled and then reconstituted into something that tasted like the morning I had destroyed—flour suspended in the air, sugar creamed across her face, and my sister’s laughter ringing off the kitchen tiles.
I swallowed. Elizabeth was still watching me, and I discovered I could not look away.
“Well?” Her voice held steady, with the faintest tightening of her lips.
“The caraway is… commendable.” My voice emerged stiffer than I intended, a man reviewing a fine vintage when what he wished to say was something altogether different and considerably less safe.
A flicker of heat passed across her cheeks, and I found I disliked not knowing its cause.
“High praise indeed, Mr. Darcy. I shall inform the King’s baker that his recipe has been deemed commendable by the master of Pemberley.” Her voice was full and resonant, and I could not help comparing it to fine port.
“This is not Pemberley,” I said, for want of anything better to say. “Mr. Bingley has already consumed four, which should be all the commendation you require.”
“I believe the rosewater is excessive,” Georgiana said, biting into one. “I added more than Miss Elizabeth specified, and I was told I was being reckless.”
Bingley laughed outright. “Miss Darcy, you are a woman of formidable talents. These are superb, and I insist you make them again.”
“Then perhaps you had better ask my companion for permission.” She smiled at Bingley in a way that puzzled me. “I’m pleased that you prefer my excesses.”
“That settles it.” Bingley’s smile brightened. “I shall expect Miss Elizabeth to fill your days and anticipate all the good taste she can supply.”
Caroline emitted a sound halfway between a sneeze and a snort. And Elizabeth? Dinner having concluded civilly, for the most part, she scooped up her cat and wished the table a good evening, not sparing me a final glance.
She did not need to. The first one—the one over the Shrewsbury cakes, where I had discovered no strategy for being looked at by Elizabeth Bennet—was sufficient.