Page 67 of A Most Favourable Match

“I am glad that he confided in you,” Miss Darcy responded unexpectedly, smiling despite her tears. “There are so few people that Fitzwilliam trusts and respects enough to speak of his true thoughts and feelings. I fear he must be quite lonely sometimes, for I know I am too young to be much of a companion to him yet.”

“He always looks happy when he is with you, and speaks of you often,” Elizabeth reassured her. “Do not underestimate how much your brother cares for you.”

“Oh, I do not,” Miss Darcy assured her. “He is the best brother in the world, and a good man, too. You must know that too, don’t you?”

Elizabeth paused and then nodded. Without quite meaning to, she found that she was smiling. “Mr Darcy is very frank and direct, but his principles are good.”

“Yes, exactly,” Georgiana Darcy agreed eagerly. “Fitzwilliam’s principles and intentions are always good, but he does not always manage to communicate them as well as they merit. I hope his direct way of talking has not offended you, Miss Elizabeth. I should hate to have you think ill of him.”

“I do not think ill of your brother,” Elizabeth told her, finding that she spoke the truth and that her heart was lightened with the knowledge. “Not at all, although my observations on his manner are true and fair, just as you say yourself.”

“I am glad that you like Fitzwilliam,” Miss Darcy declared. “For he likes you very much.”

“Let us tidy our hair now,” Elizabeth proposed, hiding her blushes from her companion, if not from herself, by turning to the looking glass. “Come, there is room here for both of us, and I will help you.”

∞∞∞

“Thank you for taking care of my sister,” Mr Darcy told Elizabeth after handing Georgiana into the Bingley carriage. “I had not known that Wickham was present tonight, or I should have sent him on his way earlier than I did.”

“The militia officers came late tonight. You could not have known he was there.”

In the flickering torchlight outside the assembly rooms, early leavers were trickling from the front doors and making for coaches, horses, or the road to homes close-by. Mrs Bennet, Jane, and their younger sisters awaited Elizabeth in their own carriage, for Jane had been advised by the local physician not to stay out late for several months more.

On the edge of her seat and watching Mr Darcy with vigilant eyes, Miss Bingley had the air of wishing to drag him inside and away from Elizabeth.

“Still, Georgiana might have been far more distressed without your intervention, Miss Elizabeth,” he insisted, the sound of her name on his tongue making her smile and look away in the darkness.

“Or without yours, in making him leave withouta fuss,” she returned. “I was very glad to find Mr Wickham gone by the time we came back from the retiring rooms.”

“Yes, you were so masterful tonight, Mr Darcy,” struck up Miss Bingley, unable to stay out of the conversation any longer. “It is a sorry state of affairs that you had to exert yourself on this account, but I suppose this is the problem with public assemblies in the countryside. They don’t have the same rules that govern the best assembles in London and let in any old riffraff.”

Neither Mr Darcy nor Elizabeth acknowledged Miss Bingley’s words, while Mr Bingley sat half in a dream and likely did not even hear them.

“I hope I will see you at Pemberley one day,” Mr Darcy said then, his eyes locked on hers as he repeated the invitation. “As does Georgiana.”

“I would like that,” Elizabeth told him sincerely, but very much aware of the tight-lipped fury on the face of Caroline Bingley. “Goodbye, and safe journey if we do not see you again before you leave. Goodnight, Miss Bingley. You and your brother are always welcome to tea at Longbourn.”

Stepping back, Elizabeth watched the door close and the wheels roll away, Mr Darcy’s eyes on hers until the carriage took him from view. Charlotte Lucas was in the doorway behind her when she turned, and the two friends embraced.

“Charlotte! I have had no chance to congratulate you in person. You seem happy, and I am glad of it.”

“I have had no chance to commiserate with youon the end of Jane’s engagement,” Charlotte returned in lower tones. “What a blow for your family, although I doubt Jane will remain unattached for long.”

“We shall see,” Elizabeth said, circumspect but smiling.

“And what of your own prospects, Lizzy?” Charlotte continued, her eyes straying to the carriage pulling away into the distance now at the other end of Meryton’s high street.

“Well, there is certainly no prospect with Mr Bingley, if that is what you are thinking,” Elizabeth laughed. “Both our mothers must accept defeat on that count.”

Charlotte chuckled too and shook her head. “Your thinking is going astray on two counts, my dear Lizzy. It is Mr Darcy who has been casting glances at you all night and seeking out your company at every opportunity, not Charles Bingley. Am I right?”

Elizabeth blushed, glad for the darkness and hoping that no one else had noticed so much and drawn the same erroneous conclusion. Mr Darcy had proposed to her once, but it hadn’t seemed quite real, and had been entirely unwelcome at the time. Now, a proposal would be much less unwelcome, but the possibility of his having feelings for her seemed even less real.

“Ah, Charlotte, your own approaching wedding means that you have marriage on your mind, but not everyone else is in the same position. As for Mr Darcy…”

Elizabeth paused, lost for words.

“Come along, Lizzy!” called out Mrs Bennet irritably from their carriage, with little regard for manners or propriety. “Don’t stand there gossiping with Charlotte Lucas all night.”