8. Advanced Calling #2
“The theater is a massive undertaking,” Lady Sophia replied, accepting a cup and saucer from Elizabeth. “Benjamin Wyatt is certainly making a statement with the design. One hopes the acoustics will be more favorable to the actors than to the carpenters’ pockets.”
“Indeed,” Lady Prideaux said, leaning forward between her own dainty sip. “We were at Covent Garden only last Friday. The crowd was quite… mixed. But the opera! Sir Weston found the soprano most striking, did you not, Weston?”
“She had a very loud voice, Mother,” Sir Weston offered, his first contribution to the morning’s oratory.
“Power, Weston. It is called power,” his mother corrected with a sharp smile toward Elizabeth.
“And we are all looking forward to Haymarket’s summer season.
It is so much more manageable in the heat.
Do you intend to frequent the theater this year, Miss Bennet?
Or do you find our London entertainments a bit too robust after the quiet of the country? ”
“I have always found that a crowd provides its own species of quiet,” Elizabeth replied. “One can observe so much more when everyone is busy looking at the stage.”
Lady Sophia’s eyes flickered with amusement. “Miss Elizabeth has a most discerning eye, Lady Prideaux. I suspect she will find the ‘mixed’ crowds at Covent Garden far more entertaining than the actual production.”
“Discerning? How very… useful,” Lady Prideaux murmured, though her expression suggested she found a discerning young woman about as welcome as a draught in a sickroom. “And Sir Weston is a great patron of the arts. He is particularly fond of the pantomime, are you not, dear?”
“The horses are very well-trained,” Sir Weston said. “They have a bay in the current spectacle that can march in perfect time to the drums. Very steady. He doesn’t shy away from the crowds.”
Elizabeth caught Allegra’s eye across the tea tray. Her mouth was a razor-thin line, but her eyes were positively waltzing.
“A virtue in a horse,” Elizabeth said, her voice dry. “And, I imagine, in a husband.”
Lady Prideaux let out a sharp, brittle laugh. “Is she not charming, Weston? Such a quick wit. It is a rare gift, Miss Bennet, though one must be careful not to sharpen it too often—it can be so fatiguing for the gentlemen.”
“I shall keep my whetstone out of sight, then,” Elizabeth murmured.
Lady Sophia intervened with the effortless grace of a master fencer, steering the conversation toward the Matlocks and the upcoming opera, leaving Sir Weston to subside into a state of quiet, handsome bewilderment.
When the door finally closed behind the purple silks, the room seemed to exhale.
“You survived,” Allegra whispered, leaning close as she reached for a cold lemon cake. “Though I fear Sir Weston may need a nap after such an exhausting display of oratory.”
“Is it always like this?” Elizabeth asked, her shoulders finally dropping. “Am I to be interrogated about my health and my reaction to the weather by every man with a stable and a mother?”
“It is worse,” Allegra warned, her eyes dancing.
“Sir Weston is merely the advance guard sent to test the fortifications. You are new, you are wealthy, and you are currently the most interesting ledger in the West End. In a fortnight, the street will be choked with carriages of every mother whose son has more debt than sense.”
“How reassuring.” Elizabeth fortified herself with a sip of tea that was no longer quite hot. “Then I shall have to ensure my wit is as sharp as Lady Prideaux fears.”
As if affirming her mistress, Nettle crawled out from beneath the sofa and gave a low, growling bark of approval before settling back onto Elizabeth’s foot.
“I survived seven Seasons of it; you will manage.” Something beneath Allegra’s lightness—a glimmer of past battle scars—gave the words weight. “The trick is to appear flattered while revealing absolutely nothing. I learned that from Godmama.”
“Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst,” Mrs. Alford announced, startling Elizabeth.
She carefully set her teacup on the saucer and stiffened her posture without a reminder from her mother.
Caroline Bingley swept into the drawing room in canary yellow silk—a color intended to command the sun itself.
Her warmth was as manufactured as Elizabeth remembered from Netherfield—the bright smile, the effusive greeting, and the invisible calculation behind every syllable.
Louisa Hurst followed placidly in her sister’s wake.
“Miss Elizabeth! What a delightful surprise. We heard of your extraordinary good fortune and simply had to call.” Caroline clasped Elizabeth’s hands with a pressure that suggested a lifelong intimacy she had never once practiced.
“What a charming house. So tastefully appointed. And Mayfair! How very… convenient for you.”
“Miss Bingley. Mrs. Hurst. How kind of you to call.” Elizabeth retrieved her hands. “May I introduce you to Lady Sophia Mottistone, my godmother, and Miss Allegra Courtenay?”
Caroline’s curtsy to Lady Sophia carried the extra depth she reserved for women of rank, and her glance at Allegra performed the swift, ruthless feminine assessment that appraised gown, jewels, posture, and threat level in under two seconds.
Allegra returned it with a smile so serene and so effortless that Caroline’s smile stiffened.
It was the look of a woman who was born to the room, facing a woman who had merely bought her way into it.
“Lady Sophia,” Caroline gushed as the tea service was renewed.
“We have heard so much of your exquisite taste. To think that our dear Elizabeth has been under your wing all this time! We were just saying, were we not, Louisa? That Elizabeth always had a certain… potential that the country could not quite contain.”
“Potential is such a versatile word, Miss Bingley,” Lady Sophia remarked. “One uses it for both a promising colt and a half-finished building. I find Elizabeth is neither. She is quite complete as she is.”
“Oh, indeed, and we have been so eager to renew our acquaintance.” Caroline’s laugh was like the tinkling of cheap glass. “Hertfordshire seems an age ago, does it not? How different your circumstances are now. I confess, I hardly know what to say.”
“How unusual for you, Miss Bingley,” Elizabeth said. “You have always struck me as a woman of considerable resources in conversation.”
Allegra’s gaze sharpened. “Perhaps Miss Bingley finds it difficult when faced with such dramatic surroundings. Although I find Elizabeth blends in with Mayfair as if she were born to it.”
“You are too kind,” Caroline effused, acting oblivious to the cut. “Charles was so pleased to hear of your good fortune. He has spoken of you and your family with such warmth. Such particular warmth.”
“Has he indeed. And where is Mr. Bingley at present?”
“Oh, he is in the north. Business. So tedious. But he often speaks of Hertfordshire, and of the charming society he encountered there.” Caroline’s tone held affection Elizabeth had never heard before.
“He mentions your name particularly, Miss Elizabeth. I believe he found your conversation most stimulating.”
Elizabeth sipped her tea and saw straight through Caroline’s ploy.
She was dangling Charles as bait—implying his interest in her, not Jane—either to ingratiate herself into Elizabeth’s new circle or to steer Elizabeth away from a certain other gentleman whose ten thousand a year Caroline still coveted.
“I am surprised to hear he is so occupied with trade,” Lady Sophia remarked, her voice cutting through the room with the effortless authority of a duke’s daughter.
“I was under the impression Mr. Bingley was looking for an estate of his own. Has he abandoned the desire to be a gentleman of the soil for the comforts of the counting-house?”
Caroline blinked, caught between her desire to boast of wealth and her need to appear aristocratic. “Oh, no, Lady Sophia. It is merely… a sojourn at a friend’s country estate. He is always happy in the country, calling often on Miss Bennet’s family at Longbourn.”
“Mr. Bingley was all kindness to our entire family,” Elizabeth said. “We remember his attentions with great fondness. Tell me, Miss Bingley, does he know you are calling on me today?”
The question was a blade, and Elizabeth did not bother to disguise it. Caroline’s smile held, but her fingers tightened on her teacup.
“I did not think it necessary to consult Charles on the matter of a social call.”
“No, I imagine not.” Elizabeth smiled over her teacup. “Does he intend to return to London for the Season?”
“I… that is, I believe he has not decided.”
“So late in the Season?” Allegra raised an elegant eyebrow. “Has he taken a house, or does he remain at his club when he is in town?”
Caroline stared at Elizabeth with the expression of a woman who had come to offer condescending friendship and found herself instead pinned like a butterfly in a display case.
Louisa shifted on the settee. Lady Sophia sipped her tea.
And Allegra watched with fascinated attention, enjoying the handling of an upstart daughter of trade so thoroughly.
“He stays at Hargrove’s when in London,” Caroline conceded. “But I am sure Charles would be most distressed to hear his living arrangements are under such scrutiny.”
“Distress is such a tiresome emotion,” Allegra said, reaching for a lemon cake with the air of one who had just finished a very entertaining play. “Let us hope he finds his way to London soon. Elizabeth will need someone to discuss the ‘north’ with, since the rest of us find it so very… far away.”
The drawing room door opened without announcement.
“Lizzy, have you seen my… oh.”
Jane appeared in the doorway, a volume of poetry clutched to her chest. Her golden hair was pinned simply, her morning dress the plainest of the three she owned, yet she radiated a light that made Caroline’s canary yellow silk look quite tawdry.
As she registered the occupants of the room, shock and quiet devastation crossed her face so quickly that only a sister’s eye could have traced the full extent of the wreckage.
“Miss Bennet,” Caroline said, and her voice had acquired a brittle brightness. “How lovely to see you again.”
“Miss Bingley.” Jane entered the room and took a seat beside Elizabeth, her smile warm and posture perfect. “Mrs. Hurst. What a pleasant surprise.”
“We were just speaking of Charles,” Caroline said. “He is in the north, as I was telling Miss Elizabeth. He is quite occupied and…”
“I hope he is well,” Jane said.
Succinct, perfectly delivered. Warm, but not too warm; polite, but not cold.
Elizabeth wanted to applaud. Jane had spent a month in London in the dead of winter, waiting for Bingley to call.
He never did. Jane had carried that heartbreak home without a word of complaint, and now here was Caroline, praising her brother’s warmth in Elizabeth’s own drawing room.
“Quite well,” Caroline said. “Quite well indeed.”
The visit lasted five more minutes, during which Caroline produced no further intelligence about Charles, attempted hollow compliments about the house, and departed with Louisa in a rustle of canary silk.
The front door closed with a definitive click. Elizabeth listened to the rattle of the carriage wheels over the cobblestones until the sound was swallowed by the bustle of the square, then took a deep breath.
She turned to her sister, an unasked question in her eyes. Jane met her gaze with a calm that was almost heartbreaking. “I am perfectly well, Lizzy. Though I believe she looks thinner than I remember.”
“I believe you are right.”
“I shall go upstairs and read.” Jane rose, collected her volume of poetry from the table, and tucked a strand of golden hair behind her ear.
She left the drawing room with her shoulders straight and her chin level. Elizabeth watched her go and did not follow, because Jane’s dignity required space.
“Your sister,” Allegra said, after a silence, “is extraordinary.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said, her voice thick with a mixture of pride and fury. “She is.”
Lady Sophia set down her teacup, the porcelain chiming softly. “Miss Bingley’s brother. He admired Jane in Hertfordshire?”
“He more than admired her. He called for her almost daily and danced with her often. But he disappeared overnight without a word, and his sisters wrote to inform Jane that the family had no plans to return.” Elizabeth’s hands closed tightly around the arms of her chair. “Jane does not speak of it.”
“That is useful to know.”Lady Sophia picked up the Bingley sisters’ card from the salver, studied it, and placed it at the bottom of the stack.
“Well,” Allegra said, rising and pulling on her gloves with the brisk energy of a woman who had just witnessed a full morning’s drama and was not remotely daunted.
“Tomorrow at ten, then. We shall start with Madame Delacroix on Bruton Street. She is a genius with muslin and silks and will not make you stand for hours. Then Bond Street for the essentials, and then Gerrard’s, because no shopping expedition is complete without ices.
I shall want to hear everything about Hertfordshire that Godmama has not already told me, which I suspect is a great deal. ”
She kissed Lady Sophia’s cheek, scratched Nettle behind her torn ear—the terrier’s tail wagged with more conviction than it had an hour ago—and departed with the easy stride of a woman who belonged in this world and moved through it without effort.
The drawing room settled into quiet, and Nettle dropped her leather ball at Elizabeth’s feet.
Elizabeth picked it up. The leather was warm, cracked, and familiar, the one object in this house that had come with her from Hertfordshire and required nothing but to be thrown.
She threw it down the corridor, and Nettle streaked after it, the sound of small paws filling the house like a heartbeat.
Soon enough, Darcy would be back, all ledgers and low, precise voice, sitting across from her with that maddening composure.
She would pretend not to notice the strength in his hands, or the way he had looked in the garden, or that half-smile—unexpected, unscripted, and still echoing in her mind.
But she doubted she could keep the pretense for long, not if he continued his dutiful trustee offensive.