Page 72 of The Briar Bargain
“You were at university by then, I expect.”
Darcy knew exactly the day to which Bingley referred. Not his finest. He set down his knife and folded his arms. “Bingley, must you?”
“I must, for I was the victim.” Bingley leaned forward, his face alight with amusement. “The masters decided, in their infinite wisdom, that I should recite a memorised passage from Cicero. My Latin was notentirelyabysmal—”
“You confusedagricolawithgladiator,” Darcy said.
Miss Elizabeth’s laugh was quiet and quick—evidentlysheknew the difference between a farmer and a warrior.
Bingley smiled at her before replying, “That was stylistic interpretation.”
“You offered to plough the Roman Senate,” Darcy said drily, and Miss Elizabeth laughed again, merrily this time.
“You made me nervous!” Bingley cried, but he was enjoying himself rather too much.
Miss Bennet bit her lip. Even Mrs. Hurst smiled.
“In any case,” Bingley continued, waving off the laughter, “there I stood, red-faced, mortified, the entire class sniggering at me—”
“Because they were relieved not to be in your place,” Darcy added.
“Indeed. The master was winding up for what I expect would have been a blistering scold, and I was trying to remember whetherCaesarwas pronounced with a hardcor not—when Darcy, from the back of the hall, said something that stopped the old man cold.”
Bingley paused and tipped his head in Darcy’s direction, indicating that the next line was his to deliver.
Very well. “I remarked that the master himself had mistranslated a line in our third-form primer and that mistakes were not failures if they taught us something,” Darcy added. He sighed. “It was pedantic and impolite.”
“It washeroic,” Bingley insisted. “The master turned so purple he had to sit down. I was dismissed, and he would have made Darcy write out the first two chapters of Livy as punishment, except that he was no longer a student and therefore not subject to his discipline.”
Miss Elizabeth glanced at him. “That was very generous of you.”
“It was not disinterested. I never did like the Latin master.”
Bingley laughed. “We did not see one another again until I ran into him at a bookshop in Bond Street, oh, it must be two years ago now. We reached for the same copy of Tacitus’sAgricola, if you can believe it.”
“I allowed him to have it, for he was the more in need,” Darcy said. He paused, then added, “He mispronouncedCaesaragain.”
Miss Elizabeth turned to Bingley, greatly amused. “Did you truly?”
“Only slightly,” Bingley replied, unbothered. “But I always say one ought to be consistent, even in one's failings.”
The men all laughed, and the ladies smiled. Mrs. Hurst shook her head fondly.
“Anyway, I recognized him at once,” Mr. Bingley said. “He did not remember me, but I reminded him. And then we went to the club for a drink.” He lifted his wine.
A pause. Then Miss Elizabeth smiled, not just with her lips, but with her whole face. Darcy’s heart thrummed in his chest, and a few other parts of him took heed as well. He picked up his wineglass and took a long, slow sip.
“I believe we must all be grateful that you met again,” Miss Bennet said from her place across the table. “Or we might not all be here, dining together.”
“Well said.” Bingley raised his glass high. “Tofriends, old and new.”
His friend was skirting very close to the edge of Darcy’s patience.
The conversation continued with a liveliness that seemed to surprise everyone except Bingley, who appeared delighted by the turn events had taken. Miss Bennet contributed gentle observations that drew increasingly warm responses from their host, while Elizabeth's wit sparked exchanges that left Darcy feeling oddly exhilarated. Even Hurst roused himself to occasional commentary, particularly when the discussion touched upon the superior quality of Bingley's wine cellar.
In the middle of a conversation about the largest trout Hurst had ever caught—at Pemberley, as it happened—Miss Bingley re-entered the room.
She was now clad in a light-coloured gown trimmed in red and silver embroidery with a cluster of pearls around her neck and a diamond hairpin at her temple that he was certain had not been there before. He stood.
