Page 61 of Colour My World
“And you, Eliza? Are you recovered from the evening’s adventure?”
“Adventure, you say?”
Lady Lucas huffed. “A man who cannot conceal his disdain ought not to attend an assembly at all!”
Mrs Bennet straightened in her chair. “And to insult Elizabeth so publicly. It was not simply rudeness. It was deliberate, cruel snub.”
Charlotte had remained silent, her expression thoughtful. She set down her teacup. “I do not believe it was deliberate.”
Elizabeth studied Charlotte closely. Herairewas calm, edged with certainty. She meant it.
Lady Lucas scoffed. “Not deliberate? My dear, he walked away as though he had been struck. If that is not a deliberate cut, what is?”
“I saw no disdain in his face,” Charlotte replied steadily. “Only…shock.”
Mrs Bennet waved a dismissive hand. “At what? That a lady dared to stand before him? He ought to be grateful Lizzy even glanced his way!”
“I believe he was shocked by what he saw in her.”
She believed it. Elizabeth could feel it. But if she was right, what then?What is worse: That Mr Darcy meant to insult me or that he genuinely had not?
Charlotte continued speaking. “My father spoke with Mr Bingley this morning. He swore he had never seen his friend in such a state. If we are to believe his judgement, that Mr Darcy is a man of caution, patience, and reserve, then such a reaction was entirely unlike him.”
Mrs Bennet’saireburned bright amber, tinged with streaks oforange. Lady Lucas’s had a muted green tint.She does not want to believe Charlotte.
Charlotte’s, however, remained unchanged.She is firm in her belief.
Jane’s teacup rattled upon the saucer. “Mr Bingley seems to have a genuine regard for him.”
“To borrow from the Bard,” Elizabeth quoted, “There is no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.”
Charlotte smiled. “And I recall that ‘a deed without a name’ can may still leave its mark.”
Lady Lucas nodded emphatically. “Indeed! And what vanity he must have to insult a lady and remove himself as though he were the one wronged.”
Elizabeth kept her counsel. Aires shifted with every opinion, certainty in some, doubt in others. Charlotte’s held firm. She spoke not from affection but from something steadier. Reason, perhaps. Jane wished to believe in Mr Darcy's goodness, as she did of everyone.
Voices rose and fell, but she heard none of it.
She turned to the window and stared until her reflection crystallised. Of her eyes, it was the green that pulled for attention.Was that what he saw?
She had seen men startled before: pausing mid-sentence, stumbling over an introduction, glancing twice and then politely away. One gentleman had once addressed her bonnet for the length of an entire conversation.
None had ever fled.
If it was not arrogance or cruelty, then what had it been?
Chapter 21
Netherfield Park
Darcy stood at the grand window of Netherfield’s drawing room and watched the morning sun crest the horizon. His untouched coffee had long gone cold. The house was quiet except for the occasional wood creak and the distant sound of horses being led from the stables. His mind was anything but quiet.
He had spent the night chasing reason, turning over every possibility, yet none satisfied. His mind rebelled against the only answer his heart seemed to accept.
It was her.The vision his mother had spoken of—the one she had bid him to find.
The girl with hair like a Derbyshire autumn. Eyes painted in twin shades—earth and leaf. No childish dream. No fevered hope.
