Page 1

Chapter 1

At the Netherfield Park ball, a certain gentleman dances with a particular lady, both entirely unaware that disaster looms over their heads…

The dilemma in dancing with Elizabeth Bennet, Fitzwilliam Darcy decided, was that it was quite difficult to do so without talking to her.

Of course, as was the decided pattern in matters involving Miss Elizabeth, she herself was the one who had created the difficulty. Darcy would have been quite pleased — rather too much pleased, in fact, to have just moved through the dance with her, reminding himself that he ought not to enjoy the feel of her gloved hand in his, or the way her eyes twinkled when she was amused, or the myriad of other details about her that he had no intention of noticing. But Elizabeth seemed to have other ideas.

“It is your turn to say something now, Mr Darcy. I talked about the dance, and you ought to make some kind of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples.”

Darcy could not stop himself from smiling. Young ladies, as a rule, did not instruct him on how he was supposed to behave whilst dancing, and were even less likely to provide him with a script. “I am much obliged to you for the instruction, Miss Elizabeth. I will endeavour to provide some conversation on one of those topics, though I regret to inform you I have not yet performed the necessary calculations.”

“Never mind, that will do for now. Perhaps, by-and-by, I may observe that private balls are more pleasant than public ones, so you may wish to formulate a reply to that comment in advance. I do not believe that it will require advanced mathematics.”

Darcy was charmed, despite all the reasons he’d methodically been cataloguing the last several weeks that should have firmly convinced him that this lady was not at all charming. “Do you talk by rule, then, while you are dancing?” he asked, wincing internally at the weakness of the repartee.

She gave him a look that told him clearly that she too had observed the inanity of his question, and that she had no intention of keeping her opinion internal. “Sometimes,” Elizabeth said. “One must speak a little, you know. It would look odd to be entirely silent for half an hour together.”

Darcy cleared his throat, thinking that if that were so, it would be best to turn the conversation to her and her sisters. Ladies, in his experience, enjoyed speaking of themselves. “Do you and your sisters often walk to Meryton?” he asked, flailing a bit for a suitable topic that wouldn’t be too personal. Of course, being Elizabeth, she turned even the most innocuous question he could think of into a blade.

“We do, Mr Darcy,” she said. Of a sudden, all the humour was gone from her. Though her voice remained soft, she was looking at him unflinchingly. “In fact, when you met us there the other day, we had just been forming a new acquaintance.”

Darcy stiffened. He had indeed seen her there; in the presence of the man he considered his greatest enemy. He was silent for a moment. Had Wickham and his infernal, insincere charm succeeded in pulling the wool over the eyes of even this clever young woman?

“Mr Wickham is blessed with such happy manners as may ensure his making friends; whether he may be equally capable of retaining them, is less certain,” he said carefully, cursing the necessity of saying so little. It made it intolerably difficult to deliver a warning that she might listen to.

“He has been so unlucky as to lose your friendship,” Elizabeth replied, the accusation laid bare in her tone, “and in a manner which he is likely to suffer from all his life.”

Darcy hoped so, with a fierce intensity that was at odds with the level-headed, unshakeable man he wished to be. The conversation, such as it was, rather went downhill from there. When the music ended, he gave her the briefest of nods, a cold dismissal in line with the cold-hearted scoundrel that she had clearly decided him to be, released her hand, and walked away.

He made for the windows, instead of for the store of excellent whiskey in Bingley’s study, for which he rather felt he should get some type of reward from the universe so clearly bent on trying his patience. There was somewhat less of a crush there, and he stood amid the slightly cooler air and reminded himself that he was a man of considerable sense and even greater self-discipline, and that a negative opinion of him by someone belonging to such a family as the Bennets could only be seen as a mark in his favour.

As though the universe that he thought had abandoned him had abruptly decided that he had not yet suffered enough, Darcy then noticed the ridiculous Mr Collins hurrying in his direction. Stifling a groan, Darcy remained still, not wanting to draw the man’s notice again. Much to his displeasure, he had made Mr Collins’ acquaintance barely half an hour after the start of the ball, when the parson had materialised at his elbow with the air of one who is determined to seize the moment with both hands. Darcy had wondered who he was when he had seen him arrive with the Bennet family, but had not anticipated speaking to him, and certainly not at any length.

Apparently, Mr Collins had other ideas.

“Mr Darcy,” Collins had begun, dipping his chin and hunching his shoulders in a curious manner that seemed intended to substitute for a full bow. “I trust you will forgive the forwardness of my address in approaching you without a formal introduction. I am William Collins, rector of Hunsford in Kent, and I find I am quite unable, in good conscience, to share a room without you and not make myself known, for I know that the most excellent and gracious lady whose acquaintance we hold in common between us — that is, your most esteemed aunt and my most generous patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh — would, I am sure, consider it a grievous failing on my part were she to discover that I had been in company that included her own nephew and did not pay him my respects, and I am quite resolved to never commit any act that might in any way compromise the regard — the very high regard, she is gracious enough to tell me — in which she is so good to hold me.”

Darcy had only been able to stare, waiting with the patience of a man who had learned that some things must be endured for the sentence to end.

It had not ended, not for some time. And when it did, it was followed by another, and another. After a mostly one-sided conversation in which his aunt was mentioned four more times, her home received praise from cellars to garrets, and he was questioned with alarming forthrightness regarding his impending nuptials with his baby cousin Anne — nuptials that he had told his aunt quite firmly were not and never would be impending — Darcy was willing to do nearly anything to free himself. That was why, when he looked across the room and saw Elizabeth Bennet standing unpartnered near the edge of the floor, he did something that, at the time, seemed entirely sensible. He excused himself with a brevity that rather crossed the line to rudeness, crossed the distance between them, and asked her to dance.

Even as Darcy walked toward her, he knew that such an action was a direct violation of the resolution he’d made to himself that very morning to avoid all things Bennet. He was also aware that he did not care, as Collins showed no signs of stopping their conversation, and Elizabeth was standing by the dance floor not dancing, and the only alternative was discussing his lack of interest in marrying a chit he considered a younger sister with a man who would doubtless lecture him on his great fortune in having his aunt as a mother-in-law and then run and report every word to her. A dance with Elizabeth Bennet seemed like a veritable paradise in comparison.

In retrospect, the dance had not been the uncomplicated escape that he had imagined it might be. It was, he admitted to himself as he watched Collins cross the room, quite his own fault for supposing that anything connected to that lady, even something so simple as a dance, could be uncomplicated.

But as though Mr Collins did not attempt to address him again, Darcy’s relief was only momentary. That curiously obtuse and self-important parson walked by him only to focus on Elizabeth, bearing down on her with the momentum of a man who has seen an opportunity and who has neither the sensitivity to question if the taking of it will be welcome or the self-awareness to realise that it is not, in fact, even an opportunity.

Darcy winced as Collins reached her and held out his hand, nodding toward the dance floor as he gave a speech that, thankfully, Darcy was too far to hear. He watched Elizabeth smile at Collins with the smile Darcy recognised as the one she used when she was being civil but could not quite hide that the civility was against her will. And he felt an unaccustomed pang in his chest when he realised it was also the same smile that she’d given him at the end of their dance.

Darcy looked down at his glass. This was his fault. He had danced with her, then left her alone, and Collins had moved in to follow in the steps of the nephew of his patroness. Elizabeth had had to suffer through a dance with him, and now she had to suffer Collins because of him, while he only had to wrestle with the knowledge that she thought him a villain who had callously wronged an innocent Wickham.

That, Darcy thought grimly, was also his fault, as he’d not behaved in any way that would lead her to form a better opinion of him. It seemed unfair that, of the two of them, she was suffering more as a result of his actions than he was.

“Mr Darcy.”

Apparently suffering was not off the plate for him tonight, either. Darcy looked up to see Caroline Bingley, who took another step toward him, bringing her just slightly closer to his side than good taste and modesty would recommend. Her gown was a pale green stitched with gold, and her smile was almost that of an innocent young girl, spoiled only by a slight edge of proprietary malice. She surveyed the ballroom as though deeply interested, giving Darcy plenty of time to observe the profile that three young poets had written sonnets or some nonsense about her first season out. Even Bingley, always so good-natured, had mocked those efforts.

“Miss Bingley,” he replied, hoping his voice did not betray how very much he’d like her to leave.