Chapter 4
Darcy
I’d had the refreshment tables moved three times.
Mrs. Thornton stood in the dining room doorway, hands clasped in front of her, wearing that polite expression behind which longtime servants hide their dismay. The tables were back against the far wall, exactly where they’d been before I first interfered.
“If I may be so bold, sir,” she said, “we have returned to the arrangement chosen this morning.”
“I know.”
“Do you wish me to have them moved again?”
I surveyed the white tablecloths, the silverware, the rows of glasses, and the trays still waiting for the pastries, fruits, and refreshments.
“No. Leave them as they are.”
Her face relaxed almost imperceptibly.
“Very well, sir.”
I made my way to the blue drawing room. The flowers were perfect. The candles, new. The musicians would tune their instruments in an hour. Georgiana would receive guests at my side, under Mrs. Annesley’s watchful eye. Everything was in order. Absolutely everything.
Except me.
Bingley found me at the window, staring out at Grosvenor Square.
“The flowers are lovely,” he said, dropping into the nearest armchair with the ease of a man who’d never known anxiety. “Everything is magnificent, Darcy. Relax.”
Relax. I was about to present Elizabeth Bennet to seventy people, half of whom had already judged her, and the other half would do so before she even opened her mouth.
People who knew what Longbourn was worth, who had tallied the paltry fortune, who had heard about the uncle in trade at Cheapside and the mother with her fragile nerves.
People whose smile is a weapon and whose silence is a verdict.
Relax.
“Bingley,” I said without turning around. “When did you stop caring what the world thought of Jane?”
He reflected. Not for long.
“I don’t believe I ever cared. The world can think what it likes. Jane is Jane.”
Yes. Jane was Jane, and Bingley was Bingley, and between them everything had the luminous simplicity of a May morning. I was Darcy. I bore a name that weighed as much as an estate. And the woman I loved was walking tonight into a world that did not want her.
I did not fear for her. Elizabeth could face anyone—I knew that.
She had stood up to Lady Catherine without flinching.
She had stood up to me, which was perhaps harder still.
No, what I feared was the price she would pay.
The smile she would force. The humiliation she would swallow without showing anything.
And the thought that by marrying her, I was the one subjecting her to this ordeal.
I returned to my chamber, where my valet waited to finish dressing me. I tied my cravat. Untied it. Let him retie it.
My fingers were not trembling. That is what I told myself as he redid the knot. My fingers were not trembling.
?
She arrived at eight o’clock, accompanied by her family.
The Gardiners’ carriage stopped before the steps, and I heard the carriage step being lowered before I saw anything.
Bingley, beside me, fell silent as soon as he recognized the equipage.
The first guests already filled the drawing room.
Georgiana was receiving at my side, Mrs. Annesley slightly behind.
Colonel Fitzwilliam was making Lady Harrington laugh.
Caroline Bingley was examining the curtains with the air of a dispossessed proprietor.
The murmur of conversations rose like a tide.
Elizabeth stepped down from the carriage.
Jane appeared behind her, then Mrs. Gardiner, Mr. Gardiner, and finally Mrs. Bennet, already busy admiring the lanterns, the steps, and the number of carriages lined up in the street.
Bingley stepped ahead of me to offer Jane his hand. His face lit up with a frankness that made Mrs. Gardiner smile. Mr. Gardiner bowed soberly; his wife placed a light hand on Elizabeth’s back, as if to remind her that she was not entering alone.
The gown was new. White silk, embroidered with silver thread at the neckline, gathered at a high waist beneath the bosom.
Simple. Not the richest at the ball, nor the most ornate.
But the way Elizabeth wore it—with that ease that owed nothing to rank, that way of moving as if the garment were merely a detail and the woman inside the only thing that mattered—transformed this simple gown into the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
No. Not the gown. Her.
I descended the steps. Offered her my arm.
Her fingers settled on my sleeve, gloved this time, light, and I felt them through the cloth as if my skin knew only this single point of contact.
She raised her eyes to me. In the lantern light, her face was open, luminous—and beneath it, the nervousness she refused to show.
“Ready?” I asked in a low voice.
“I suppose so.”
She wasn’t trying to joke or hide her nervousness, and that trust touched me more than any feigned assurance would have.
“You always have a choice,” I said.
She looked at me for a moment. Something passed through her eyes, too brief to name, too deep to ignore. Then she straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, and smiled.
“Then let's go in.”
We entered. Georgiana rushed to greet her at once, nearly forgetting her curtsy in her eagerness, then caught herself under Mrs. Annesley's benevolent gaze.
“You came,” she said with a relief she didn't think to hide.
“I'm happy to see you again,” Elizabeth replied.
Georgiana smiled, and her shoulders relaxed.
Jane joined her sister and slipped her fingers around her hand.
“I'll stay close to you,” she murmured.
Elizabeth gave her a grateful smile. Behind them, Bingley offered his arm to Mrs. Bennet while Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner greeted Georgiana with that quiet ease that owed nothing to rank.
And Elizabeth was magnificent.
I don't use the word lightly. There were women in that drawing room more beautiful than she, more richly dressed, more versed in society's ways.
Lady Harrington wore a diamond tiara. Mrs. Hartwell, née Cavendish, sported pearls the size of a quail's eye.
Caroline Bingley had adorned herself as if her life depended on it, which perhaps it did.
Elizabeth had only her eyes and her wit. It was enough. It was devastating.
I watched her enter the room, and the conversations shifted around her. Not enough to stop. Just enough for everyone to remember they had heard of Miss Elizabeth Bennet, of her modest estate, of her uncle in trade, and of Fitzwilliam Darcy's inexplicable decision.
Lady Harrington was the first to approach her.
“Miss Bennet, I'm told you play the pianoforte.”
Elizabeth inclined her head.
“A little, my lady. My sister always listens with great indulgence.”
Lady Harrington smiled.
“That's an answer I like. My daughter claims she can only play when she's inspired.”
“I'm afraid I can't claim that excuse.”
The old lady's smile drew several glances. Elizabeth appeared unaware of them. I knew better.
Colonel Fitzwilliam joined them, glass in hand.
“Darcy assures me you defend Shakespeare with uncommon ferocity.”
“We sometimes disagree about his favorite authors.”
“He wouldn't have dared.”
“He had the prudence not to.”
My cousin turned to me, amusement and approval mingling in his expression.
“You've hidden this woman from the world for months. It's almost criminal.”
“I wasn't hiding her.”
“He wanted to spare me this evening,” Elizabeth interjected. “I assured him I preferred to face it with him.”
“I wasn't certain she wished to.”
The colonel studied my face.
“Naturally.”
Elizabeth smiled. The tension in her shoulders had eased, but her fingers still gripped her glass a little too tightly.
Caroline Bingley chose that moment to approach.
“Miss Elizabeth,” she said with that studied sweetness that always heralded cruelty, “you must find Grosvenor Square very different from Meryton.”
“It is. I'm still discovering London.”
“And the more demanding customs.”
“I've noticed.”
The colonel raised his glass to his lips to hide a smile.
“London society can seem intimidating when one hasn't been prepared for it since childhood.”
“Perhaps. I prefer to listen before letting myself be intimidated.”
“How… original.”
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“It's a habit I intend to keep.”
Caroline turned her head slightly toward the group surrounding us.
“I only hope you won't miss the simplicity of Hertfordshire. A house like Pemberley demands much of its mistress.”
Elizabeth's smile never wavered.
“I know I have much to learn. But Pemberley is a home, not a test I must pass alone.”
The colonel nodded slowly. Lady Harrington gave Elizabeth an approving look. Caroline paled.
“That's not what I meant.”
“Yet that's what I understood.”
Caroline withdrew with a stiffness that all the silk of her gown couldn't disguise.
Jane was immediately at her sister's side, Bingley a few steps behind her.
“Everything all right?” she asked.
“Yes,” Elizabeth replied. “Better now.”
Mrs. Gardiner was already conversing with Lady Harrington; Mr. Gardiner listened attentively to Colonel Fitzwilliam.
Even Mrs. Bennet, stationed near the refreshments, had found a lady willing to hear about Netherfield and her two soon-to-be-married daughters.
Elizabeth's family wasn't blending into my world.
They were simply taking their place in it.
I realized I'd been holding my breath.
Elizabeth looked up at me.
“I'm fine,” she murmured.
“You don't have to pretend.”
“I'm not pretending anymore.”
There. That was Elizabeth. Not a woman who needed protecting from the world. A woman who took each blow, decided whether it merited a response, then struck back with smiling precision.
I loved her with a violence that took my breath away.
The first country dance was announced. Since the evening was given in her honor, Elizabeth was to lead it. I offered my hand. She took it. Her gloved palm pressed into mine, and the world shrank to the size of that space between our fingers.
The music began. A country dance, with figures that required separating, rejoining, crossing, brushing past, and moving away in a back-and-forth governed by centuries of propriety.
Each contact was brief, codified, acceptable.
And each contact devastated me. Her fingers in mine when the figure brought us together.