Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Bingley plunged straight into the crowd the instant they crossed the threshold. “Look at them, Darcy—half the county turned out. Meryton thrives on gossip and speculation. We have given them both.”
Darcy followed because there was no place to stand without blocking someone’s way.
Bingley was already clasping hands and offering cheerful bows, exclaiming over people Darcy had never seen in his life.
Names flew past him with no faces attached—Long, Goulding, Purvis—each greeted as if Bingley had known them for years.
A woman in a plum-coloured gown dipped in a curtsy, and Bingley returned it warmly. “Good evening, Mrs Long. Yes, yes, I have brought my friend with me. Darcy, this is Mrs Long.”
Darcy inclined his head. Mrs Long seized the opening at once.
“Such a pleasure! I declare we have heard so much about you. I have two nieces here this evening, Mr Darcy,” she said, lifting her hand toward a pair of young ladies lingering near the punch table. “Both accomplished, both eager for dancing. You shall meet them, I am sure.”
Bingley beamed. “Mrs Long hosts the most charming gatherings. Her nieces are quite the favourites.”
She gave another quick curtsy—nothing like departure, everything like anticipation. “You are welcome among us, sir, most welcome, indeed! Hertfordshire is always improved by new faces.”
Bingley moved on before Darcy could summon a polite reply, and Mrs Long drifted after them with purposeful slowness, clearly waiting for a better moment to resume the introduction.
Darcy surged ahead, if only to avoid becoming the centre of a small circle at once.
Bingley caught him by the elbow. “You will like it here. They are eager to know us. At least—to know you. You will be besieged in a moment. Best to meet it head-on.”
Darcy doubted that, but he closed the distance anyway.
Bingley stopped to greet another neighbour, and Darcy’s attention slipped past the crush of unfamiliar faces. Someone called out a name—“Lizzy”—and the group of young women near the far wall broke apart for a moment.
Darcy meant only to glance at the commotion. Instead, his vision narrowed.
A young woman stepped into view with a riot of dark curls pinned into a haphazard display.
She was speaking to a girl who bounced at her side, and her voice carried just enough to reach him without forming clear words.
Something about the way she stood—balanced, alert, ready—caught at him before he could explain why.
He had seen countless young women in countless rooms. None had ever struck him like this: not with admiration, nor surprise, but with a jolt so abrupt it made the air wad up in his throat, as if someone had suddenly grabbed his cravat.
Another instant and it seemed like a nauseous fever had brushed up the back of his neck and over his crown.
He drew a slower breath, annoyed by the sensation. It was nothing. The room was warm, the day long, his thoughts still largely back in Derbyshire. His body was merely reminding him that he had not eaten since midday.
Still, his gaze returned to her before he permitted it.
The young woman turned at that moment. Her eyes—dark, joyful, unflinching—caught his without the slightest hesitation. She looked at him as if she were assessing a stranger in a crowd, nothing more.
Yet some inner part of him lurched, as if his balance had shifted a hair too far forward.
He looked away at once.
Bingley called across the room to some acquaintance. “Sir William! There you are! I hope you will introduce us all.”
A man with animated limbs and courtly enthusiasm hurried forward. He bowed to Bingley, attempted a bow to Darcy while still finishing the first, and then swept toward the same pair of young women Darcy had just been studying.
“Miss Bennet! Miss Elizabeth!” Sir William exclaimed. “Fortune smiles. You must—yes, indeed—you must meet our new neighbours.”
Darcy had no time to compose a polite expression. Sir William had already placed the two ladies before him as if arranging pieces on a chessboard.
The shorter one—Elizabeth—studied him rather openly.
Up close, she was even more arresting, though not in the glossy, ornamental way Miss Bingley prized.
Her face held a quickness, a readiness, the same charged poise he had noticed across the room.
She met his eyes without the slightest trace of modesty, but there was nothing brash in her look.
Darcy felt the odd fever-surge again, sharper this time, as though his pulse had skipped in the wrong direction. He tamped down his breathing, refusing to acknowledge it.
“Mr Darcy,” she said.
He returned her greeting with a bow. “Miss Elizabeth.”
She offered her hand with the ease expected in such an introduction. He reached to acknowledge it, but just as his fingers met hers, she gasped and withdrew—so swiftly and with such apparent intention that the gesture settled between them like a closed door.
He could not pretend he had imagined it. She disguised the motion at once by smoothing the edge of her sleeve—an adjustment without purpose, save to conceal the first.
What could have occasioned that? It might have been nothing more than a misjudged angle, or some sudden twinge of pain—her sleeve had shifted as if she concealed an awkwardness there.
Or perhaps she disliked the formality of such greetings.
Some young ladies cultivated little gestures of mystery in public rooms; he had seen that often enough.
Yet the movement had lacked any trace of coquetry. If anything, she seemed intent on denying notice, not inviting it.
Or perhaps the fault lay with him. His height often put people off, and his reserve was seldom misread kindly.
He dismissed each idea as quickly as it came. None satisfied. None aligned with the directness he had seen in her gaze from across the room. He bowed again, falling back on courtesy because it required no interpretation. “A pleasure.”
She dipped faintly. “Likewise, Mr Darcy.”
A sudden cry of “Mind the line!” rose behind them, followed by the unmistakable shuffle of feet losing their place. Before Darcy could turn, a pair of dancers veered off the figure and brushed hard against Miss Elizabeth’s back.
She tipped a fraction, and he reached without thinking to draw her away from calamity. His hand met her wrist—lightly, only enough to keep her from stumbling—but at the instant of contact she gasped, then jerked as if burned. The movement snapped through her arm so quickly that he let go at once.
Miss Bennet gave a little cry of alarm. “Lizzy, what is it?”
“I am well,” Miss Elizabeth said, though her breath caught on the word.
Darcy stood still, more startled than either of them. He had touched hundreds of hands in polite society, never provoking such a reaction. Had he injured her? Had he grasped too firmly? He replayed the moment in his mind and could find no fault except the simple fact of his hand on her arm.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I meant only to keep you from falling.”
She did not look at him directly. “The dancers gave more of a push than I anticipated. Pray, think nothing of it.”
Bingley laughed. “These rooms do grow lively, do they not? I fear they were built for quieter generations.”
Darcy glanced at Miss Elizabeth. Her composure had returned, but a faint line remained about her mouth. “You need not remain in the midst of it, Miss Elizabeth,” he said. “The hall is crowded. If the movement is troublesome—”
She studied him briefly, the smallest tilt of her head. “I was only surprised, sir. Nothing more.”
He inclined his own head. “Then I misunderstood.”
“So it seems.”
Elizabeth would have given much to disappear for five minutes—just long enough to cool her cheeks and reorder her thoughts—but the crowd surged directly toward the punch table, carrying her with it. Jane kept close, her arm warm against Elizabeth’s.
“Lizzy, you gave such a start.”
“I tripped. Or someone trod on my gown. Or the floorboards creaked—really, someone ought to see to them before the next Assembly, or we will all fall through one day.” Elizabeth reached for the ladle before Jane could wonder her further.
She could feel that traitorous pulse still fluttering in her wrist.
Mama descended upon them at once. “Girls! There you are. I have been trying to reach you for an age! Mrs Long would not release me, though I told her I must see how Jane fared with Mr Bingley. Oh, Jane! You looked delightful together. Quite delightful. And Lizzy—” she turned abruptly, breathless— “Lizzy, I saw you speaking to his friend. What did you think of Mr Darcy? Is he as fine as they say? Does he dance? Did he—oh! Kitty, move aside and let your sister breathe.”
Jane coloured but smiled. “Mr Bingley was very amiable, Mama.”
“Amiable? He was enraptured,” Mama declared, turning in triumph from one daughter to the other. “Even from across the room, we could see it. And Lizzy—my dearest girl—you spoke to his friend. Mr Darcy. Tell me everything.”
Elizabeth lifted her cup, hoping to hide behind it. Jane, whose composure never deserted her at such moments, answered instead.
“Mr Bingley introduced him very handsomely. Mr Darcy seemed a gentleman of excellent manners.”
Mama clasped her hands. “That is precisely what I hoped to hear! Imagine it—both of you making such impressions. Oh, this is the best evening—”
“Well, Lizzy made some impression on Mr Darcy,” Kitty blurted. “Though not the one she hoped, I am sure.”
Mama froze, half-beam, half-gasp. “What sort of impression?”
“The sort where she was fighting with him,” Kitty said, clearly delighted to have the superior tale.
Mama let out a soft shriek. “Fighting? Lizzy!”
“I beg your pardon?” Elizabeth nearly sloshed the punch.
“Oh yes,” Kitty said. “Aunt Philips said you flashed at him. And Mrs Goulding said she saw him look most offended. And Lydia says—”
“I do not wish to hear what Lydia says.”
“She says you nearly leapt out of your skin.”