Page 51 of A November to Remember

Every head in the parlour turned. Hurst had woken, not exactly fully, but gradually. He was simply conscious, eyes open, hands still folded on his waistcoat.

“The lilies,” Hurst repeated. He nodded at the floral arrangement on the pianoforte. “Third day in the water. Sweetish. Sinister. It is not the girl, Louisa. It is the flowers. The girl smells of horse, and horse is the only decent smell that has entered this house lately. Rest of it is French water and beeswax and—” He made a broad gesture encompassing the potpourri, the candles, and his sister-in-law, “—effort.”

A profound silence followed.

“The stables,” Hurst continued, warming to the only subject that had interested him in a fortnight. “They smell of something real. Leather. Hay. An animal that could kill you. If Miss—” He squinted at Miss Elizabeth, retrieving the name from some distant mental shelf, “—Miss Elizabeth has brought a bit of it in with her, then she has improved the room, and I shall thank the rest of you to stop burning things at me.” He looked at the mantel clock. “Is it dinner?”

“Fifteen minutes, Hurst,” Bingley replied faintly.

“Wake me at ten.” His eyes closed and he was gone between one breath and the next, complete, upright, hands folded.

Miss Elizabeth’s composure held for three full seconds. She turned to the settee and inclined her head. “Thank you, Mr Hurst. That is the finest compliment I have received in this house.”

“He cannot hear you,” Mrs Hurst said coldly.

“That, madam, is what makes it sincere.”

Robert made a highly suspicious sound into his cravat. Richard did not bother hiding his grin. Darcy looked down at his cards, discovered he was holding absolute rubbish, and he had never been happier to lose a hand.

When the quarter-hour had passed, Hughes appeared at the threshold. “Dinner is served.”

At the word dinner, Hurst surged to his feet.

Darcy, who had spent the last five minutes considering precedence, distances, and the position of every arm in the room, discovered that his cousin had beaten him.

“Mrs Hurst.” Robert was already bowing over her hand, the highest-ranking gentleman neatly evading the hostess before anyone else had even risen from their chairs. “Will you do me the honour? I promise to walk on your windward side.”

“Miss Bingley.” Richard presented his arm to the hostess with a sharp click of his heels. “I never let a hostess walk into her own dinner unescorted. It damages morale and ruins the soup.”

“But—” Miss Bingley’s head turned, glancing past Richard’s broad shoulder, performing the arithmetic a half-second too late. “Colonel, surely Mr Darcy—”

“Is behind us, and battalions do not reverse in a doorway. Forward, madam. The food is getting cold and I can hear it retreating.”

Hurst had rushed out, Bingley trailing behind him. Bingley abandoned his host’s privilege, keeping his eyes fixed on the staircase as he passed it, clearly hoping Miss Bennet might miraculously appear.

“Miss Elizabeth.” Darcy offered his arm. “May I?”

She looked at the offered arm, then at the doorway, through which the sound of Miss Bingley’s protest was diminishing down the passage at regulation pace. She looked, finally, at him. There it was again. The expression from the writing desk. The smile she had declined to give him, arriving in full force anyway.

“You may, Mr Darcy. Though I warn you, I am told I smell of horse.”

“You do.” He settled her hand securely on his sleeve. “As Hurst said, it is the only decent smell that has entered this house lately.”

Her laugh escaped before she could arrest it. Darcy walked her into dinner with the sound of it ringing in his ears. He composed, in his head, a postscript no one would ever read.

P.S.—I take back what I said earlier. There are seven.

Chapter Twelve: The Syllabub Subterfuge

November 6th, 1811

Mrs Bennet had not slept a wink. Sleep, she had decided somewhere around three in the morning, was a frivolous indulgence meant only for women with no grace, namely Mrs Long. She, on the other hand, had her mind occupied with the complicated mathematics of matrimonial planning, and the numbers were staggering.

She had spent the dark hours mentally arranging the nave of Meryton church. Her second daughter, she was now entirely certain, had secured the master of Pemberley. Ten thousand a year. The sheer weight of the sum made Mrs Bennet’s teeth ache with joy. Lizzy would wear something ruinously expensive to the pulpit, if only to remind Miss Bingley exactly who she was marrying.

Then there was the astonishing development regarding her middle child. Mrs Bennet had seen the colonel sharing jokes with Mary over the broth. A younger son, yes, but an earl’s son! It was a thread she intended to pull until it unravelled into a proposal.

But her greatest masterpiece, and her most vexing puzzle, was Jane.