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For the first time that evening, she felt something like real warmth between them, not born of obligation, but of shared awareness and understanding.

They stood in a silence that, if it did not yet have the ease of friendly companionship, was at least not so uncomfortable as it had once been. Elizabeth gazed out and watched the couples dancing, thinking that even that much improvement was worthy of considerable gratitude: it might have been much worse.

Suddenly, she became aware of Caroline Bingley watching them from across the room. Elizabeth frowned to herself, feeling the oddity of the circumstance. Somehow, she did not quite wish Miss Bingley to notice her observation in return. Elizabeth kept her face turned towards the dancers, and glanced towards Miss Bingley only briefly, as though by simple accident. Each time, she found Miss Bingley’s gaze already there. It never lingered. It was always replaced, within a second, by attention directed elsewhere, as though Miss Bingley’s eyes had simply been passing through the vicinity of Mr Darcy and Elizabeth on their way to something more interesting.

There could be no doubt: though not wishing to be caught at it any more than Elizabeth wished to be, Miss Bingley was watching them.

Miss Bingley looked impeccable that evening. Her gown was the finest and most fashionable in the room. Her conversation, from what Elizabeth could observe, was informed, amusing, and entirely correct. She danced twice and smiled brightly and was at every point precisely what a hostess’s sister ought to be. No one could have seen any flaw in her.

And yet, as Elizabeth watched, she found herself thinking about a door unexpectedly locked, with a young woman and Mr Darcy on the wrong side of it. She found herself thinking about who might have benefitted from such an occurrence…if, perhaps, a different woman had been on the wrong side of that door.

She had said nothing to Mr Darcy about her suspicions beyond what they had discussed in the corridor. He had said nothing further to her. By unspoken agreement, they had reached the limit of what two people could determine without evidence, and were waiting. For evidence, for inspiration, for anything that might show them what step to take next.

Miss Bingley passed near her once in the course of the evening, in the movement between sets. Mr Darcy was absent for once, having left her to speak with Sir Lucas, and seen her in Jane’s company before departing. Jane looked to Miss Bingley with a smile, obviously glad for the familiar company. Elizabeth could not claim to be equally so, or to anticipate anything Miss Bingley might say with much pleasure.

“Miss Eliza.” The warmth in her voice was perfectly calibrated, being enough for civility, but not so much as to suggest friendship. “You look very well this evening. Marriage agrees with you already, and you are not even married yet.” She laughed lightly. “I always say that engaged women have a special bloom. Do not you find it so, Miss Bennet?”

Jane looked a little confused at this, likely feeling the undercurrents to the statement and wishing to give them a more positive interpretation than Elizabeth believed they deserved, but answered readily. “It is their happiness, I think,” Jane said softly. “Surely anyone who has found their partner in life must be wonderfully happy, and such happiness could hardly help but give them a certain bloom.”

Miss Bingley laughed brightly at this. “How sweet you are, Miss Bennet! And I cannot disagree with you, only I think there is also something more than this. It is not only a matter of happiness, but of certainty. To have one’s future so happily settled must be a great relief. Do you not think so, Miss Eliza?” Her pause then was extremely brief. Brief enough to be deniable. “We are all so pleased for you, of course.”

“You are very kind,” Elizabeth said evenly, and met Miss Bingley’s eyes for just long enough to see that they were bright, watchful, and not pleased at all.

Miss Bingley moved on with a smile. Elizabeth watched her go.

“She is very civil,” Jane said, beside her.

“She is,” Elizabeth agreed. She said nothing further, remembering the conversation they had shared about Caroline Bingley previously, and knowing that Jane was determined to see the good in everyone.

∞∞∞

The carriages were called at half past midnight. Elizabeth collected her mother and her sisters by the incremental process that this always required, and found herself in the entrance hall in the final dispersal of the evening, shawl around her shoulders, waiting for Lydia to retrieve a glove she had left somewhere in the card room.

Mr Darcy stood beside her. He had appeared without ceremony, as though his support and company ought to be expected, and Elizabeth found herself almost as surprised by his courtesy as by the lift of her heart at finding him there.

“Miss Bennet,” he said quietly, below the noise of the hall. “This might have been a challenging evening, but you managed it well. I congratulate you.”

“Likewise,” she said. “We work well together, I think.”

A sudden, flashing smile lit his face, making Elizabeth’s heart pound with sudden awareness of his handsomeness. “So we do,” Mr Darcy agreed gravely.

For once, Elizabeth was at a loss for words, but before she could say anything, Lydia reappeared with the glove and a story about finding it under a card table, which she told at full volume. Mrs Bennet began to put on her wrap. Jane appeared at Elizabeth’s other side, and the hall was suddenly full of Bennets in motion. Feeling a strange mixture of relief and regret, Elizabeth moved with them toward the door.

She was handed into the carriage and looked back once, without meaning to, at the lit doorway of Netherfield. Mr Darcy was still in the hall, speaking to Mr Bingley. He did not look out. She turned forward, telling herself she ought not to have expected anything else.

Then the carriage moved, and Netherfield fell behind them into the dark.

Mrs Bennet talked all the way home about the ball. Elizabeth listened and said yes at intervals, and thought about Mr Darcy’s smile, and the quiet, honest words he had spoken to her.

The night was very clear. Through the carriage window, the Hertfordshire fields were pale with frost under a half moon. For the first time in some weeks, Elizabeth found that the thought of tomorrow did not alarm her quite as much as the thought of yesterday.

∞∞∞

Caroline Bingley had never considered herself a woman whose composure might be easily shaken. In public, she was the very model of cultivated ease. Her smile was measured, her posture irreproachable, and her voice modulated to suit both drawing room and supper table alike. If disappointment ever visited her, it did so without leaving a visible trace. She had long ago mastered the art of appearing above injury.

No one in attendance at the Netherfield ball could have accused her of bitterness.

She received her guests with elegance. She praised the musicians and complimented Mrs Bennet’s gown with such precision that even the more perceptive among the company detected no irony. When Mr Darcy requested Miss Elizabeth Bennet’s hand for the first set, Caroline inclined her head in mild approval, as though nothing in the arrangement concerned her beyond the general success of the evening.