Chapter Six
Darcy was mortified, and being stuffed into Bingley's overheated carriage with four other people was doing nothing for his mood.
All he wanted to do was sit quietly and attempt to clear the events of the evening from his mind.
But Hurst and his wife chattered endlessly about the merits of the white soup while Bingley waxed lyrical about the attributes of Miss Jane Bennet, his latest angel.
He clamped his lips firmly together and fought the urge to roar at them all to be quiet.
He looked resolutely out the window but could tell Miss Bingley’s eyes were upon him, sharp and assessing like a hawk watching a mouse. It made his skin crawl.
He had known when Bingley introduced them two years ago that his friend had hopes of a match.
He never said so directly, but the man had spent so long talking about his blasted sister that Darcy knew it must be so.
His father had tasked him with seeing her married to a gentleman and he took the responsibility very seriously.
But when Darcy and Miss Bingley were introduced, he knew right away she was the last woman in the world he could ever marry.
She was vain, grasping and dressed like a self-important parrot.
After that meeting, Bingley had sighed deeply and never spoken much of her again.
Even so, the blasted woman seemed to wheedle her way into every invitation he extended to his friend alone.
He closed his eyes and rested his head against the squabs, but Elizabeth Bennet was waiting for him there too.
He saw the humiliation sweep across her face when she realised others had heard him, followed almost at once by the way she drew herself up and came towards him.
Most women would have retreated. Miss Elizabeth had advanced fearlessly, her dark eyes blazing and the colour high in her cheeks, more beautiful in her anger than she had been when he first noticed her laughing across the ballroom.
He remembered the green of her gown against her sunkissed, lightly freckled skin, the curl that danced along her collarbone and her wide, full mouth as she informed him that ordinary civility was apparently beneath him.
He groaned unconsciously, how had a country miss at a rural assembly hall undone him in a way that none of the so-called diamonds of the ton ever had?
He was always scrupulously civil, but detached—anxious not to create expectations.
Today, he had acted like a lovestruck fool and been hideously rude to boot.
"Still feeling the sting of Miss Elizabeth's words, eh, Darcy?
" Bingley said. "Well, so you should. I cannot fathom what possessed you.
You had only to dance with her or decline politely.
Even saying nothing at all would be preferable.
At least then I could have claimed you were a bit soft in the head. "
Darcy kept his eyes fixed upon the black glass of the window. "I have already admitted that my remark was inexcusable," he said stiffly.
"Yes, but why on earth make it in the first place?"
"I spoke without thinking."
Bingley gave him a long, disbelieving look. "Darcy, I have known you for years and have never once seen you speak without first considering every possible consequence. You think too much, if anything. Which is why I cannot understand how you came to say something so spectacularly foolish."
Across from him, Caroline leaned forward and rapped him sharply on the thigh with her closed fan. Darcy flinched and turned towards her, immediately regretting it. She had been unusually quiet since they left Meryton, which he knew could not last.
"You were quite right, of course," she said.
Darcy regarded her warily. "About what?"
"Miss Eliza." Caroline settled back against the cushions and opened her fan, apparently absorbed by the painted flowers upon it. "Tolerable is precisely the word. Her mouth is far too wide for classical beauty, though I suppose some gentlemen may prefer such a look."
Darcy felt his jaw tighten. He knew better than to answer, but silence did nothing to discourage Caroline. It merely gave her more room to spew her nonsense.
"Her eyes are very ordinary too," she continued. "Dark, certainly, but there must have been fifty pairs much like them in the room. Although I did hear someone describe them as fine."
"They are exceptionally fine," Darcy said before good sense could intervene. "There is an intelligence in them that makes their colour almost immaterial."
Caroline's fan slowed. "How fortunate. I had mistaken that intelligence for impertinence, particularly when she crossed the room to scold you."
"She had every right to be angry. Her manner was remarkably controlled, considering the provocation."
"Controlled?" Caroline repeated, glancing at him over the edge of her fan. "I thought her quite flushed."
"Anyone would have been humiliated to discover such a remark had been overheard." Darcy shifted against the squabs, irritated by the memory of that colour rising beneath Elizabeth's freckles. "It did not make her less attractive."
"No, I suppose not. The freckles had already prevented any danger of a flawless complexion."
Darcy stared at her. "Her complexion is warm and healthy. There is nothing unattractive about it."
Mrs Hurst made a small sound beside her husband and turned it hastily into a cough. Bingley, who had been staring dreamily through the window, now looked between Darcy and his sister with growing interest.
Caroline gave a faint sniff and flicked her fan more briskly. "I am sure you are right. Her figure, at least, was unremarkable."
"She is light and pleasing, and she moves with uncommon grace."
The words were out before he realised how thoroughly he had betrayed himself. Bingley's mouth spread into a grin, while Caroline drew herself up as though Darcy had become tiresome.
"Really, Mr Darcy, there is no need to become so defensive. I was only agreeing with your own assessment. As though the great Mr Darcy of Pemberley would care to become acquainted with a girl of no great beauty or breeding."
She turned her face away, fanning herself with rather more force than the temperature required.
Darcy looked back towards the window, annoyed with her, with himself and with the entire evening.
In the dark reflection of the glass, however, he thought he saw the corner of Miss Bingley's mouth lift behind her fan.