Page 20 of The Slipper Scandal
A splash of wine arced through the air and landed, with tragic precision, directly on the front of Mr. Darcy’s trousers.
Mr. Darcy looked down, then back at her with an expression of shock so profound it would have been comedic had it not been for the very real predicament Mr. Darcy now found himself in.
He had a napkin on his lap, of course, but somehow the wine had entirely missed it. Mr. Darcy surreptitiously moved the cloth up to cover the stain and perhaps sop up some of the excess.
Elizabeth stifled the laugh that was fighting to escape and glanced around them. Everyone else was eating or conversing. Probably ignoring her on principle after her remarks about the war. Only the three of them seemed to have noticed the accident.
“It is all right, Simms,” Elizabeth said very quietly to the footman, who stood frozen in horror. “Do not tarry.”
Simms immediately moved on to the next guest.
Mr. Darcy leaned towards her, voice low and seething. “Do you know what this will look like?”
She did. She really, truly did. But there was still time for his trousers to dry, and because they were black it was not as though the wine would result in averynoticeable stain. She said as much.
“Trust me, the men will notice, and then I shall never hear the end of it.”
Itwasher fault, startling poor Simms as she had. She supposed . . . “I will fix it,” Elizabeth whispered back. The next course was arriving, and she knew it well. One of Mr. Abernathy’s favourites, trout with a béchamel sauce.
“Fix it?” he hissed. “Short of divine intervention—”
As the next footman, Johnson this time, leaned to set down Mr. Darcy’s plate of trout in a delicate béchamel, tipping it slightly to one side as was proper so that he might see what he was to eat, Elizabeth turned as quickly as she had before. Her shoulder brushed the man’s arm just enough to jostle the plate.
The plate stayed in Johnson’s hands. The trout did not.
The slippery fillet slid off the porcelain and landed squarely on Mr. Darcy’s chest, accompanied by a soft splash and a rather generous helping of the cream sauce. It slid down his waistcoat and into his lap, a sprig of parsley left behind waving like a flag of surrender.
Elizabeth swallowed hard. So did Johnson.
Across the table, someone gasped. Someone else stifled a laugh. Mr. Darcy stared downward with a ponderous frown.Cream sauce dribbled elegantly off his buttons. A sliver of fish clung stubbornly to his waistcoat.
Lady Maria gasped.
Mr. Langford muttered something unprintable.
Mr. Darcy was utterly, absolutely still.
“Oh no! I am so sorry, Mr. Darcy! Johnson, this is all my fault!” Elizabeth cried, voice ringing with theatrical dismay as she held out her napkin to her betrothed. “I am mortified!”
Mrs. Abernathy launched into a flurry of reassurances. Arabella was barely stifling her laughter, covering her mouth with her napkin until she could regain her composure.
Mr. Darcy’s ears turned scarlet, which rendered him rather . . . adorable. Elizabeth pushed the thought away.
“Miss Bennet,” he ground out, “it is of little matter. It was an accident.”
“But I am so very sorry, sir. I have ruined your trousers.” And Elizabeth was in truth alittlesorry. She tried to show him as much with an apologetic look.
Mr. Darcy's jaw clenched. He was embarrassed, but now no one would notice the wet mark in a suggestive spot that had started it all. They would only remember Elizabeth Bennet knocking an entire plate of food into her intended’s lap. They would not recall him so much as her loud remorse and napkin-flailing dramatics.
Her mission was accomplished.
Before Elizabeth could so much as hand Mr. Darcy a second napkin, a small battalion of servants descended, their convergence made more urgent, no doubt, by Mrs. Abernathy’s fluttering fan and Lady Maria’s ongoing distress. The butler himself murmured something discreet about a retiring room, and Mr. Darcy, now adorned with wine, trout, béchamel, and the last shreds of his pride, rose with impressive composure. He gave Elizabeth a long, unreadable look, and then allowed himself to be escorted from the dining room.
As the doors closed behind Mr. Darcy and his entourage, the dining room fell into a pause.
It was not the silence of shock or concern. It was the silence of amusement.
A few forks moved. A glass clinked. Somewhere down the table, Lady Maria cleared her throat very softly and resumed cutting her fish with particular elegance, as if to prove she wasnotthinking about the fact that Mr. Darcy had just exited the dining room with trout and béchamel slowly sliding down his person.
