by Jessie Lewis
“Here is your chance to judge,” Matlock said, signalling the Darcys’ arrival with a nod.
They all ceased arguing and turned to observe the approaching couple. Fitzwilliam mouthed a silent oath. He had ever considered Elizabeth handsome, but this evening, in a gown unlike any he had seen her wear before, her hair arranged exquisitely and in her countenance something…different, she was resplendent.
“What the devil has he done to her?” he murmured.
“Naught I would not have done had I got to her first! Bloody hell!” Ashby whispered back.
***
Never had Jane seen such opulence. Lord and Lady Ashby’s ballroom looked like a tableau from a staging of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The quiet purr of refined music suffused the chamber, and sumptuously adorned guests made elegant the art of flirtation. A far cry from Meryton’s crude and disorderly assemblies, it filled her with pride to behold the world into which she had arrived.
Into that world then obtruded her sister, appearing on a crest of silence succeeded by a wave of urgent whispers, bringing an abrupt end to her complacency.
Despite the first three days of her marriage having turned out to be extremely agreeable and Bingley nary raising an eyebrow at her dismissal of the maid, Jane yet dreaded seeing any symptom of regard when he was reunited with Elizabeth. To her chagrin, her sister arrived looking astonishingly well, in a gown and jewels that would have seen Mrs. Bennet calling for her smelling salts. Jane continued to watch until the Darcys had spoken to their relations and moved to the refreshment table, only then daring to look at Bingley to judge how he had been affected. Alas, the dimness of the ballroom’s periphery made his features indistinct, and she was unable to determine aught but the unwavering direction of his gaze.
***
“You look exceedingly well, Jane,” Mr. Darcy said, turning from the refreshment table to hand her a glass of wine.
“Thank you,” she replied, as pleased by Bingley’s silence on the matter of Elizabeth’s appearance as by Mr. Darcy’s compliment on hers.
“May I have the honour of dancing with you this evening?”
“Of course. I should be delighted.”
“You have anticipated me, Darcy,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, arriving to join them. “Might I, too, claim a dance, Mrs. Bingley?”
“Why, yes, of course.”
“It is my ball,” Lord Ashby announced, appearing with his wife beside the colonel. “I shall have my share of the dancing.” Then, quite mistaking where the conversation had been tending, he turned to Elizabeth and asked her for the next set. Jane did not miss the manner in which Lady Ashby glowered at him. She quite sympathised.
“The next is mine, Ashby,” Mr. Darcy said, quietly but firmly.
“You have had this stunning creature all to yourself for three days, man. I think you could be a little more generous.”
“The next is mine,” Mr. Darcy repeated.
“Then I shall have them play a jig!”
“I should be happy to dance a different set with you,” Elizabeth said.
“’Tis my turn after Darcy’s, though,” the colonel said, grinning.
“I beg to differ, old boy,” Bingley objected. “’Tis mine!”
“Either way, Ashby, you will have to wait your turn.”
The four men continued to argue over who would next dance with Elizabeth while she grinned brazenly between them, basking unashamedly in the attention.
Lady Ashby glared with alarming venom at them all. “Really, Ashby,” she said coldly. “There are many single ladies in attendance yet to bring off a coup as great as Mrs. Darcy’s, who do not have a wealthy husband with whom to dance. You cannot believe she is so deficient in good breeding that she would slight every one of them by stealing all the dances.”
Elizabeth bore the remark with civility though Jane did not think for one moment that her sister would pay the reproach any heed.
***
Darcy paid only the vaguest attention to the conversation, unable to think on aught but that, surely to God, Elizabeth’s dress had been designed to bring men to their knees. It celebrated every curve, accentuated her slender waist, and drew his eye again and again to the generous swell of her bosom—and he was damned if he could refrain from envisaging how its gauzy layers had pooled about her hips as he loved her not an hour ago.
The woman had ruined him! After but three days of marriage, he could no longer hold a rational conversation for want of a thought in his head that did not centre upon loving her. Hearing the music start, he made his excuses and led her to join the line, never in his life so desirous of dancing or so enamoured of his partner.
***
“Say what else you will, Philippa, you cannot deny her dress is exquisite.”
“Yes,” Lady Ashby said with a strained smile. “Thank you for bringing it to our attention again, Daphne.”
“Be not jealous of our praise,” said another of the little coterie of ladies, a Miss Valerie Floyd. “A fine dress is a fine dress, regardless of who wears it. Do you know where she had it made?”
“I have no idea. Do you know?” Lady Ashby enquired, glancing at Jane.
Miss Floyd turned to her also. “Does this lady know Mrs. Darcy?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Valerie, this is Mrs. Darcy’s sister. Do keep up.”
“We were introduced earlier, madam,” Jane said quietly. “I am Mrs. Bingley.”
“Oh, well you never said you were Mrs. Darcy’s sister. I should have remembered that. But, now that I know who you are, you simply must tell me how your sister met Mr. Darcy. I have heard such varying reports that I know not what to believe, and I cannot stand to be in ignorance of such things.”
“Why, yes, of course,” Jane replied. “My husband leases an estate near my father’s and—”
“Your father has an estate?”
“Yes. Longbourn.”
“Then Mrs. Darcy is a gentleman’s daughter?”
“Yes. We both are.”
“Well, that is quite the revelation. I was led to believe her family was in trade!”
Undesirous of inviting derision, Jane made no mention of her aunts or uncles. Lady Ashby was either unaware of Elizabeth’s connections or similarly disinclined to divulge them, for she also said naught. “Um…well, in any event, Mr. Darcy stayed with my husband last autumn. We all met at an assembly in the local town.”
“An assembly?” Miss Floyd cried, her expression an unflattering mix of amusement and disgust. “Oh, that is wonderful! Philippa, had you any idea Mr. Darcy was so liberal?”
“None at all.”
“I am not surprised to hear he took a fancy to her at a dance, though,” said Lady Daphne, “for she treads uncommonly well. Did you see their dance, Philippa?”
“Everybody saw it, Daphne, because everybody was watching,” Lady Ashby replied indignantly.
“Let it not make you uneasy. People are only intrigued.”
“If the Darcys wish to intrigue people, let them hold their own ball for the purpose!”
“I doubt they have time to arrange one this late in the Season. Oh, but I should like to go to a ball at Pemberley. Do you think they will hold one there before next spring?”
Jane held her tongue as the ladies’ curiosity flowed long—as did Lady Ashby, who stared vindictively in Elizabeth’s direction.
“Ugh! See how brazenly she makes love to them all!” her ladyship muttered to no one in particular.
Jane looked and saw, with no great surprise, that Bingley had been waylaid amongst the throng of gentlemen surrounding Elizabeth. His desertion prompted a painful surge of resentment. “My sister wields her charms liberally and indiscriminately.”
Lady Ashby looked at her sharply. “Well, would that she not wiel
d them at my ball!”
Elizabeth and Bingley both laughed loudly at some shared joke.
“She is well versed in stealing thunder,” Jane mumbled.
“I pity you, Mrs. Bingley. I have been her cousin for less than a week, and already I am grown weary of her brilliancy. You have borne being shone down by her for a lifetime.” With a disdainful snort, she turned her back on both Elizabeth and the gaggle of women yet engrossed in discussing her. “Fie! Let us cheer ourselves by examining those parts of her that do not shine so brightly.”
Overcome with a violent sense of vindication, Jane did naught to discourage Lady Ashby from cataloguing Elizabeth’s faults. Her form lacked symmetry. Her smile revealed too many teeth. Her voice was too deep, her wit too keen, and in her manner was such shameful coquetry as would surely invite disaster.
“Her manners have already invited disaster,” Jane admitted. “Only a few days ago, Mr. Darcy was obliged to rescue her from the clutches of a man who claimed she had willingly received his addresses.”
“Is that so? Do tell me who.”
“His name is Mr. Greyson.”
Lady Ashby beamed. Encouraged to have finally pleased someone this evening, Jane continued. “And earlier this year she was knocked insensible by an officer with whom she had previously been on very friendly terms after they quarrelled in the street.”
“Well, well,” her ladyship replied. “How delicious! I am indeed vastly cheered.” She peered closely at Jane for a moment, apparently deep in thought, then abruptly delivered a most welcome elixir to her bedevilled spirits. “You must call me Philippa, Jane. I should dearly like us to be friends.”
***
Matlock took one look at his supper companions and sent a man to fetch him another glass of punch, of a mind that his fortitude required fortifying. He was imprisoned between his sister on his right, her ever-loyal playfellow Lady Metcalfe on his left, and opposite him, Mr. and Mrs. Darcy and his own omnipresent demon, Mrs. Sinclair. There passed some minutes of barely civil conversation, seasoned with enough sour glares to curdle every reserve of the cook’s white soup—and then proceedings took a turn for the worse.
“I must say, Mrs. Darcy,” said Lady Metcalfe, “I was excessively diverted to hear you never had a governess.”
Matlock glared at his sister, whence that nugget had undoubtedly sprung.
“I am very happy for you,” Mrs. Darcy answered, seeming not in the least perturbed. “I, too, dearly love a laugh.”
Mrs. Sinclair cackled gleefully into her soup. Catherine harrumphed into hers.
Lady Metcalfe sallied forth more determinedly. “And now, I understand, you have taken to schooling tenants on your father’s estate. You feel an affinity for them, I suppose?”
Matlock winced at his nephew’s flare of anger, but was intrigued to observe how easily his new niece quelled her husband’s rage with a discreet touch of her hand to what he hoped was only Darcy’s leg.
“It is quite an absurd notion,” Lady Metcalfe continued, oblivious. “People of that class have not the wit to be properly schooled. You must not expect to have any success in the scheme.”
“Entrenched ignorance will always be exceedingly difficult to overcome,” Mrs. Darcy replied.
Her ladyship gave a firm nod. “Quite so. Good breeding is essential if one is to achieve true erudition.”
“You were not so resolute in your opinion on the matter though, were you, Lady Catherine?”
Matlock raised his eyebrows. She meant to draw his sister into the fray as her advocate? Interesting.
“Of what are you speaking?” Catherine demanded, her brow creased in affront.
“Why, when you and I spoke on the matter, you conceded in the end that a person’s intellect might not be dictated by their descent.”
“I acknowledged your success in teaching a boy to read. Nothing more.”
“You see?” Lady Metcalfe announced airily. “Our minds will never be moved on this subject.”
Thus, the trap was sprung, and Matlock received his first, exceedingly satisfying taste of the cleverness that had caught his nephew’s notice.
“That is precisely as I would have expected, madam,” Mrs. Darcy said drily.
Boasting a broad smile, Mrs. Sinclair signalled to the nearest footman. “Have you any gin? I feel a thirst coming on.”
“You achieve nothing with this shameless sauce but prove your own want of good breeding,” Catherine snarled at Mrs. Darcy in a harsh whisper. “I am not in the habit of being toyed with. Do you still not comprehend who I am?”
“By your own admission, you are one of my husband’s nearest relations and, hence, mine also.”
Her ladyship sucked in a breath, instigating a virulent fit of coughing. Shaking her head and waving her hand to indicate she was not done, she choked out, “Being my relation does not qualify you to bandy words with me!”
Mrs. Darcy’s eyes flashed. “My point exactly.”
“Oh, for the love of God, Catherine, desist!” Matlock hissed. “You are making a fool of yourself.”
“She is making a fool of me!” her ladyship spat back.
“No, she is merely holding doors open. You are striding unhindered through them.”
“Am I to be betrayed by my brother as well as my nephew?” she replied in a rasping whisper. She reached for her drink only to discover her glass was empty.
“Where is the disloyalty in saving you from humiliation?”
“If that was your design, why did you do nothing to prevent Darcy marrying her?” She coughed again, more strongly than before.
“Enough!” Darcy hissed furiously. His expression was thunderous. “This will not do.” He motioned for a footman to fill Catherine’s wine glass. “You are not well, madam. Pray leave off squabbling over unalterable particulars and recover yourself.” With that, he stood, held out his hand for Elizabeth and left the table.
Chagrined that Darcy’s unfailing restraint had made him look a fool by comparison, Matlock shook his head at his sister. “He does not deserve this from you. He is a fine young man.”
“Of that I am fully aware, Reginald! Why in heaven’s name do you think I am so angry? Who will care for Anne now?”
He had to assume the question was rhetorical, for she then left the table, taking Lady Metcalfe with her and abandoning him to the company of four empty seats and one Mrs. Tabitha Sinclair. He gritted his teeth and waited for her inevitable acerbic commentary. Some ten minutes later, he was cursing the vexing old baggage’s ability to wield complete silence and an infuriating, self-satisfied smirk to infinitely greater effect than any of her usual persiflage.
***
There was not enough air in the room for so many candles and Elizabeth to burn so hot. Her chest heaved with the effort of claiming her share as she spun through the figures of the La Boulangere. Over and again, Darcy reclaimed her from the tangle of dancers in the centre of the circle to swirl her vis-à-vis, his grip emblazoning her skin as though she wore no gloves at all and the brand of his touch eclipsing the feel of every other man’s as she danced away again.
The circle of dancers skipped wildly to the left and then all the way back to the right. Bingley lurched along with them, chasing Elizabeth in one direction then Jane in the other. The weight of each of their hands naught to that of the turmoil in his heart.
Though he had struggled, after his calamitous proposal, to resign himself to his fate, he had thought his endeavours to be content with Jane as a wife and Elizabeth as a sister largely successful. Only as the sun set on his ill-fated wedding day had he acknowledged how spectacularly he had failed.
The circle slowed to a halt. His heart cavorted in time with his feet as he performed a turn with Elizabeth in the centre, but too soon, she spiralled away from him, spinning about with the
other dancers in the ring. He accepted Jane’s hand once more, assumed third position, and fought a losing battle against his guilt.
Entering his study uninvited late on Tuesday evening, his sisters had left him in no doubt of his offences. Why, Caroline had railed, had he thought it politic to neglect his own bride at his wedding breakfast?
Another of the ladies swept him into a frenzied turn before moving on to the next man. He resumed his place beside Jane.
How, Louisa had demanded, were they to convince the world of Jane’s worth in the face of his flagrant disesteem?
Heat erupted across his palm as Elizabeth reclaimed his hand. He looked about. Everyone was returned to his and her positions in the circle. They all set off again, prancing leftwards in a vast sweeping arc, and he found himself once more chasing Elizabeth in circles.
What possible reason, Louisa had wanted to know, had Jane for dismissing the maid with a marked resemblance to Elizabeth? When, Caroline had demanded, would he overcome his reckless fascination with Mrs. Darcy?
The circle changed direction. It was now Jane who pulled him onwards and Elizabeth’s scorching presence chasing him relentlessly back to his place.
Again and again, he had denied any misconduct to his sisters, his shame deepening with every reiteration of the lie.
It was his turn to lead Jane through the complicated figure in the centre. They forged headlong into the fray, moving in good time if not perfect unison.
At what point had he ceased concerning himself with her feelings?
He was swept into a dizzying turn with another of the ladies then flung back to his wife.
He knew full well his regard for Jane had been neglected once his feelings for Elizabeth emerged.
He staggered about in a disorientating pirouette with the next lady before being returned to Jane’s more steady presence, falling more quickly into step with her this time.
