Of No Consequence
Darcy had taken only three steps from the floor when Wickham was there.
“Miss Elizabeth,” Wickham said, with easy warmth, as though he were asking for nothing dangerous at all. “If you are not already engaged for the next set, may I have the honour?”
Darcy stopped. Elizabeth looked briefly towards him. Not for permission. Not even for guidance. Only because the conversation they had just finished still stood between them, unfinished and alive. Then she turned back to Wickham.
“Thank you,” she said. “I am not engaged.”
Wickham smiled. Darcy felt Richard come to stand beside him.
“Well,” Richard said quietly. “There it is.”
Across the room, Wickham offered Elizabeth his arm. It was, Darcy thought, the most difficult thing he had ever done while standing perfectly still.
“Your face,” Richard said quietly.
Darcy forced it into stillness. Wickham led Elizabeth to the floor with easy confidence, as though he had never doubted he would be accepted.
Darcy turned before Wickham could catch his attention and found Georgiana near Miss Grant, hands folded, eyes lowered.
She was not watching Wickham. She was watching him.
For the first time that evening, Darcy wondered how much his sister knew. She had lived beside Wickham for nine years. Darcy had spent so long thinking of what she had endured that he had forgotten what she must have learned.
The thought unsettled him more than Wickham’s smile had done. He crossed to her before he could reconsider.
“Georgiana,” he said. “Will you dance?”
She looked up, and he saw the woman she had been, solemn and watchful at the edge of rooms too old for her. Then she gave him her hand.
“Of course, Fitzwilliam.”
They took their places as Wickham and Elizabeth moved through the first figure opposite them. Georgiana’s eyes lowered.
“He is testing her,” she said.
Darcy nearly missed the step. “He is what?”
“Testing her,” Georgiana repeated. Her voice was soft enough to vanish beneath the music. “He does not know yet whether she matters, but he thinks she may.”
Wickham was smiling at Elizabeth. Elizabeth was answering him with composed civility and eyes that missed very little.
“How long have you known?” Darcy asked.
Georgiana’s gaze did not lift. “Known what?”
It was so neatly done that, despite everything, he almost smiled.
Then she said, “You should dance with Miss Bingley again.”
“With Miss Bingley.”
“She is pleased by your attention,” Georgiana said. “Everyone can see it.”
“That is not a reason.”
“It is exactly a reason.”
The figure separated them. When they came together again, Georgiana’s face was calm, her eyes lowered, her hand light in his.
“Mr Wickham has noticed Miss Bingley,” she said. “He has noticed that she watches you. He may be persuaded to notice that you watch her.”
“Georgiana.”
“And Miss Elizabeth would dislike it very much,” she said.
Darcy stared at her. Georgiana’s eyes remained lowered.
“And I think, when Miss Elizabeth dislikes something, she steps away from it.”
The figure carried them apart before he could answer. When the set ended, Darcy returned Georgiana to Miss Grant with all the proper courtesies and none of the steadiness he would have liked to possess.
Across the room, Wickham had bowed over Elizabeth’s hand. He said something that made her smile, not warmly, not trustingly, but with polite amusement, determined to give no stranger power over her expression.
Darcy saw Wickham notice that too. Then Wickham turned. He crossed the floor with no haste at all, smiling as he came, and stopped beside Darcy as though they were merely two gentlemen exchanging observations at a ball.
“A charming young lady,” Wickham said.
Wickham’s smile deepened. “I like your Miss Elizabeth very much.”
Darcy felt the words land exactly where they were intended.
“You mistake civility for attachment,” he said. His voice was even. “Miss Elizabeth Bennet is of no consequence to me.”
For one moment Wickham only looked at him.
Only then did Darcy see Elizabeth. She stood a little beyond Wickham’s shoulder, still from the dance, her face composed in a way he now knew too well.
She had heard him. The room seemed to narrow to the space between them. He could have spoken. He could have undone it, or tried to. He could have made some other ruin in place of this one.
Instead, he turned away. Miss Bingley stood near the wall, watching carefully. She understood that something had shifted. Darcy smiled at her.
“Miss Bingley,” he said. “May I claim the next set?”
It was for her safety. He told himself that as he crossed the room, as Miss Bingley’s eyes widened and settled into satisfaction, as Wickham watched him go with a faint smile.
It was for her safety. He had told Elizabeth enough. Not all. Never all. But enough to know there was danger, enough to know August mattered, enough to know Wickham dealt in true facts arranged falsely.
Enough, he hoped, that when she thought of him later, she might understand. No. That was not true. Enough that she might stay away.
Darcy reached Miss Bingley and bowed. Behind him, he did not look to see whether Elizabeth had moved. He already knew she had.
Miss Bingley accepted him with a composure that did her credit, though triumph had brightened her eyes by the time they reached the floor.
“You honour me twice in one evening, Mr Darcy,” she said.
“It is a ball,” he said. “One must dance.”
“How very dutiful.”
The music began. Across the room, Elizabeth had returned to Miss Lucas. She was speaking. Smiling, even. A small, polished smile that made him feel as though something inside him had been cut clean through.
Miss Bingley followed his glance. “Ah,” she said softly. “I see.”
“Do you?”
“I see enough. Though I confess I am glad to see you are not entirely insensible to the dangers of the connexion.”
“The Bennets,” she said softly. “Miss Elizabeth is clever, I grant you. But that family…” She gave a small movement of her shoulders. “Jane is lovely. If she had come from almost any other family, I should have no objection to her.”
The figure separated them. When they came together again, Miss Bingley’s smile had sharpened.
“If only Charles could be made to see it.”
Darcy did not answer at once, and Miss Bingley looked pleased.
“Family,” he said at last, “is not a small consideration.”
“No,” she said. “It is not.”
“We may choose our friends,” Darcy said carefully. “We may even choose our wives, if we are fortunate. But we do not choose the families into which they bring us.”
Miss Bingley’s expression warmed with agreement.
“No,” Darcy continued, his eyes moving briefly across the room. “Nor do we choose whom our brothers and sisters marry.”
Her smile faltered, just a little. The figure carried them apart. When they came together again Miss Bingley had recovered her composure, though something in it was less certain than before.
“Mr Wickham is very charming,” she said.
“He is.”
“You do not say so as though it were a compliment.”
“I say it as though it were a fact,” Darcy said. “Which it is.”
The set ended before she answered. She curtseyed, and whatever she might have said was left behind with the music.
Darcy returned Miss Bingley to her sister and bowed with all the proper attention. She accepted it with a look that told him she had learned more than he had meant to teach her.
When he straightened, he looked first for Elizabeth. She was with Miss Lucas again. Her colour was high, her smile bright, her posture perfectly easy.
Too easy. Georgiana had been right. Elizabeth had stepped away so completely that anyone watching might have called it indifference. Anyone, perhaps, but him.
Wickham was no longer in the room. Darcy turned sharply. Georgiana stood beside him.
“He is in the card room,” she said. “Mr Hurst has taken him to make up a table.”
“How long has he been there?”
“Long enough.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No,” Georgiana said. “It is not.”
Across the room, Elizabeth was laughing at something Miss Lucas had said. The laugh was light and bright and not at all like her. Georgiana’s mouth tightened.
“He will not trouble Miss Elizabeth again tonight,” she said.
“What does that mean?”
“It means he has something else to think about.”
“Georgiana.”
She folded her hands before her. “I told him what he wished to hear.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That Miss Bingley has been very attentive to you. That everyone has observed it. That Miss Elizabeth is proud and would not forgive being slighted.” Her voice lowered. “That you would never attach yourself where you had already given offence.”
Darcy felt something cold move through him. “And he believed you?”
“I do not know,” Georgiana said. “But he enjoyed believing it.”
Across the room, Elizabeth’s laughter brightened again.
“I like her,” Georgiana said quietly.
Darcy could not answer.
“I am sorry,” Georgiana added. “That it was useful.”