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It was then Bingley saw the looks of censure being shot at him from everyone else at the table, including Miss Darcy. He was about to speak again when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned and saw it was Darcy.

“Bingley, go back and join your partner and the Hursts. We will speak about this in the morning,” Darcy hissed next to his friend’s ear.

Realising he had done himself no credit, Bingley returned to his seat.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

At the end of supper, Darcy escorted his sister and her companion up to the suite they were sharing. He was overjoyed at how easily Anna had taken to Miss Elizabeth. In his mind, it boded well for the future. After seeing his sister safely to her suite, Darcy returned to the ball. He had danced almost every set, and found that it was not the chore he always thought it would be.

Thankfully the rest of the ball passed without any major incident and was enjoyed by everyone except Fanny and her two youngest daughters. Requests for the three of them to be returned home had been rebuffed by her husband.

At one point, Lydia stamped her foot and demanded that her mother force an officer to dance with her. After being rebuffed by Colonel Forster earlier, Fanny did not gratify her youngest. For the rest of the ball, Lydia sat with her arms crossed and scowled. She was not used to being ignored and not getting anything she asked for. Kitty sat next to her looking just as unhappy as her younger sister.

Neither Jane nor Elizabeth accepted anyone for the final set. Instead, they sat with Lord Hilldale and Mr Darcy and spoke with them while they watched Miss de Bourgh and Colonel Fitzwilliam and Mary and Cousin Collins, amongst the couples dancing the last dances of the evening.

At the end of the ball, rather than linger as would have been her preference in the past, Fanny and her two youngest could not leave soon enough. Hence, the Bennet carriage was one of the first to depart.

In the carriage on the way home, the three eldest listened to the shrill complaints of their mother and two youngest sisters without comment. They envied their father and Cousin Collins, who were on the box and were not forced to listen to the caterwauling in the carriage.

On arriving home, Fanny began to complain to her husband about her and Lydia’s ill usage, with vocal support from the latter. Kitty added her complaints as well.

Bennet was tired, so he ignored his wife and youngest daughters, turned, and made his way up the stairs to his chamber.

Chapter 26

Even though Wicky had not attended the ball, and not a single officer had paid her even scant attention, Lydia was certain that her beau would be at the hunting lodge at the agreed-upon time.

It was her wont to sleep well into the afternoon when there had been a ball the previous evening, even one as dissatisfying as the one at Netherfield Park had been. Ignoring her desire to remain abed, Lydia was up before ten that morning and got dressed with the assistance of the maid, Sarah. She would break her fast, and then she would claim she needed to go for a walk into Meryton.

Mamma would support her, and Papa would not care. She would walk in the direction of Meryton until she was certain she could not be seen from the house. At that moment, she would strike out towards the hunting lodge, where her soon-to-be betrothed would be waiting for her with open arms.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

It was a chagrined Bingley who joined Lord Hilldale, Fitzwilliam, Hurst, and Darcy in the dining parlour the morning after the ball. He was to depart with Caroline the next day, and that could not come fast enough given how much of a cake he had made of himself at the ball during supper.

As much as he had wanted to run and hide, Bingley knew he needed to face the men at the table. Thankfully, his sister and the rest of the ladies in residence were not there to witness his humiliation.

Darcy waited until the footman poured his friend a cup of coffee. He nodded to the man who withdrew, pulling the door closed behind him. “Bingley, what on earth caused you to harangue Miss Bennet at supper yester-night? That was not the behaviour of a gentleman. I should know, as I did not behave as one either until recently.”

“I so much wanted to dance the three main sets with Miss Bennet, and I was not ready for her to refuse me; she did it in such a sweet way. To make things worse, I misheard her; she did only refer to those three sets,” Bingley admitted.

“Bingley, you have bestowed your attentions on more than a few angels, have you not?” Fitzwilliam queried.

“I suppose I have,” Bingley owned.

“How many of them have done what Miss Bennet did? In other words, how many of your previous angels ever refused to grant you the sets you asked of them? I propose that the fact that Miss Bennet has never fawned over you like others has only increased your desire to win her,” Fitzwilliam opined.

“My anger was driven by the knowledge that she seemed to enjoy her sets with many others more than the one she danced with me. Why was that?” Bingley enquired plaintively.

“I am able to answer that; however, are you prepared to hear something that will not make you happy?” Darcy verified.

“Yes, I am,” Bingley confirmed as he took a gulp of his cooling coffee.

“In case you did not notice it, I was fortunate enough to dance the first with Miss Elizabeth,” Darcy related. “In the interlude between the first and second dances of the set, I quizzed her about Miss Bennet’s feelings as I too saw what you experienced. Bingley, are you certain you want to know?”

“I think I must hear this,” Bingley replied, his eyes pointed at the table.

“She thinks you are amiable but immature. The three eldest sisters care only for love and respect, not money, connections, or rank. In Miss Bennet’s mind, one who only sees her beauty or one who will speak of nothing else even when she tries redirecting the subject of the conversation, does not respect her,” Darcy revealed. “She cannot think of being courted by one who does not see beyond her outer shell. Beauty eventually fades, so if you have no admiration for a woman beyond the superficial, then you are left with nothing. She has seen that in her own home, so it is not what she will accept for herself.”