Page 39 of Knowing Mr. Darcy
CHAPTER TEN
MR. DARCY RECOGNIZEDthe dress first, which was strange, because he didn’t think he spent much time noticing Caroline Bingley or what she was wearing. But he saw the dress and thought,Caroline has worn that before.I wouldn’t have thought she would wear the same dress, not when she has been seen in it within the past four months.
And then he realized it was not Caroline in the dress, but Elizabeth Bennet.
What wasshedoing here?
He was at a ball in town, a crowded one. Everyone had been abuzz with the anticipation of it, and he’d felt he must come, even though he would have been happy enough passing the evening alone, quietly, with a book by the fire.
Instead, here he was, spotting Elizabeth Bennet at this ball, of all people.
The thing he likely should have done was to point her out to Mr. Bingley, but he didn’t do that. Instead, he tore through the room, swerving around people if they got in his way, and went straight for her.
She looked up from where she was standing, all alone, in Caroline’s dress, and was startled. “How did you get there?” she said, probably because he’d just made his way across the room in seconds.
“Miss Bennet,” he said. “I see you are in town.”
“I am,” she said, smoothing her gloves.
“I did not think that your family had a house in town,” he said, far too bluntly. He should be exchanging pleasantries, inquiring after her family’s health, speaking of the weather, that sort of thing.
“They do not,” she said. “I am staying with my aunt and uncle.”
The ones in Cheapside? But they could not be here. They would not have secured an invitation.
At this moment, Caroline Bingley swept in. “Apologies, apologies. I’ve returned now.”
“You are here with Miss Bingley?” said Mr. Darcy to Elizabeth.
“She was kind enough to extend an invitation,” said Elizabeth.
“And a dress,” he said.
Elizabeth flushed, embarrassed. “Yes, it must be such a thing to be Mr. Darcy,” she said archly. “I suppose after you wear a suit, you simply tell your valet to burn it. No point in getting any more use of that.”
“My apologies,” he said, feeling wretched about it, truly wretched. “That was beneath me. I do not care about things like dresses.”
“Obviously not,” broke in Caroline. “I didn’t realize you were ever noticing anything I was wearing.”
He looked back and forth between the two women. When had they become friends? “I only meant that other things are much more important than a fragment of fabric or a bit of lace. I care about more substantial things.”
“Like moral character,” said Caroline Bingley. “A woman should be upright, shouldn’t she? She should hold firm and guard her virtue. That’s a kind of substance.”
Elizabeth barely flinched, but Mr. Darcy saw it.
It was the flinch that caught his attention, that told him the tale.
Caroline kept going. “Not that you’d know about that, considering it was the kind of substantial woman you could not manage to convince your sister to be.”
But he’d already understood. So, Elizabeth was herebecause she had ties to Mr. Wickham, who was feeding information through Elizabeth to Caroline, information that Caroline thought to gleefully use to destroy him. Right then, Caroline was smiling.
Mr. Darcy regarded her, but he couldn’t find any words to say to her. Right then, not to his credit, he had the urge to hit her. He wouldn’t, of course. He’d never raise a hand to a woman, but he thought, in that moment, that she deserved it.
She held his gaze, triumphant. “Nothing to say to that, Mr. Darcy?”
“Iamsorry, you know, Miss Bingley,” he said quietly. “I never meant to give you a false idea of my interest in you. Perhaps I did not take care when I was with you. That is my fault. I shall fully own that I have behaved badly, if that’s what you wish to hear from me. But this? What you’re doing? This is far and above whatever it was you think I did to to you. This is an overreaction.”
“I’m not doinganything, Mr. Darcy,” said Miss Bingley. “Your sister has already done it all.”
