Page 126 of What Change Entails

Lydia pointed triumphantly at him. “You admit I can play.”

“I admit no such thing. I merely recognize threats when presented.”

“You are all cowards,” Lydia declared, springing from the sofa. “Move aside, Georgiana. I shall improve the evening.”

“You shall destroy it,” Elizabeth corrected.

Lydia ignored her completely and dropped onto the bench. “Mr. Darcy, if you laugh, I shall inform everyone you wept over Hamlet.”

Darcy blinked once. “I have never read Hamlet in your presence.”

“You cannot prove I was not hiding behind furniture.”

“That explanation creates more difficulties than it resolves.”

Bingley had begun laughing already.

Lydia attacked the pianoforte with energy wholly unsupported by precision. The resulting sounds possessed enthusiasm, confidence, and almost no recognizable relationship to melody.

Georgiana covered part of her face.

“You encouraged this,” Elizabeth murmured.

“I did not foresee violence.”

Lydia stopped abruptly. “I heard that.”

“You were intended not to.”

“That sentence alone proves guilt.”

Mr. Gardiner coughed into his hand to disguise amusement.

Lydia resumed with renewed determination born wholly of spite.

Darcy crossed the room at last and stopped beside Elizabeth’s chair. “Will she continue indefinitely?”

“She improves with confidence.”

“I dread the consequences of further improvement.”

His sleeve brushed lightly against the back of her hand where it rested near the arm of the chair.

Lydia struck a chord so catastrophic that Bingley flinched visibly.

“My dear Miss Lydia,” he exclaimed, “the instrument has never wronged you.”

“It knows perfectly well what it did.”

Elizabeth chuckled before she could stop herself.

Darcy lowered his eyes, and whatever response he intended disappeared before reaching speech.

She redirected her attention before her expression betrayed too much. This was becoming absurd. It was not his affection. She had understood that for some time now, though neither spoke of it openly.

Her own feelings frightened her more.

Her feelings had changed while she was occupied trying to deny the fact of it.