Preludes, page 33
“Had you asked me, I should now be calling the dance.” A voice sounded at Darcy’s shoulder.
“Miss Bingley.” She was beautiful to gaze upon until she began to speak. “But I did not ask you, and therefore that honour belongs to your brother and Miss Bennet.”
She tilted her head in the manner she had, whereby she seemed to look down her nose at him despite his superior height. “When you ask me to dance later, we shall show these… people… what excellent dancing is.” She tapped his arm with her fan and drifted off, leaving Darcy gazing once more into the crowds.
The people avoided him, afraid to come too close. Most had not been introduced, after all, and his stern demeanour (so he had been told) deterred any who might dare break the conventions of polite society. Their eyes still landed upon him with their expressions of reverence. He abhorred the attention, but quite depended on the acknowledgement of his superiority… but what was that? There was one face in the crowd that seemed to look upon him with blatant disapproval! It moved behind one head and in front of another, and all he could tell was that it belonged to a young woman. A young country woman, scarcely more than a girl. Curling her lip at him! The impudence!
He squared his shoulders and stood taller, making himself all the more formidable, and thus he stood alone and unmolested all through the long country dance until at last Charles Bingley delivered his lovely partner to her mother and sisters and came to find him once more.
Bingley’s forehead was aglow with the tinges of healthy perspiration and his smile was as wide as ever Darcy had seen it. The young man’s eyes flickered constantly to where Miss Bennet was now in a tight group with her mother and one or two young ladies her age from the town.
“She is pretty,” Darcy opined. There. That was his attempt at friendly civility this evening. He wished nothing more than to be back at Bingley’s newly leased estate with a warm fire before him, a good book on his lap, and a brandy at his side. But he knew his duty to his friend and he would make some effort.
“Pretty? She is more than merely pretty. Look at her, man! She is everything lovely. And charming too. I have already requested a second dance later this evening. See how she smiles at me!”
Darcy deigned to cast his eye in Miss Bennet’s direction. She was, indeed, smiling. She smiled at Bingley, she smiled at her mother, at her friends. “Yes, indeed. But she seems rather indiscriminate with the bestowal of her smiles.”
“Really, Darcy, you are a bore! I like her, and you cannot tell me not to wish to further my acquaintance with her. But have you not danced? Not at all?”
Darcy stifled a yawn. The day had been long, far longer than he had hoped. “I was up very early to conclude my business with my agent before departing London.”
“Yes?”
“I wish only to stand here.”
“And disappoint all these charming ladies hoping to meet you? No, indeed! Come, Darcy, this is quite wrong. I must have you dance. I hate to see you standing about by yourself in this stupid manner. You had much better dance.”
His eyelid twitched. He had hoped to avoid such a discussion, but there was nothing for it. He was weary and not well pleased by his circumstance, and that look he had seen on that one girl’s face, that look of derision, had set him quite in a foul temper.
“I certainly shall not.” Somewhere, a twinge ran up his calf from sitting too long in the carriage. “You know how I detest it, unless I am particularly acquainted with my partner. At such an assembly as this,” he narrowed his eyes as he peered around the room, “it would be quite insupportable. There is not a woman in the room whom it would not be a punishment to stand up with.”
Bingley rolled his eyes, a habit Darcy had not been able to rid him of. “You are a bore indeed! I would not be as fastidious as you are for a kingdom. I have never met with so many pleasant girls in my life, and there are several of them who are uncommonly pretty.”
Perhaps there was something in Bingley’s statement, but Darcy was now set against the very idea. It was bad enough that he would have to dance with Miss Bingley later. “You,” he said at last, “were dancing with the only handsome girl in the room.”
“Oh, she is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld!” Bingley cried. Indeed, thought Darcy, not since the last ball we attended in London. Bingley was somewhat lacking in constancy. But he said nothing, and Bingley continued. “But there is one of her sisters sitting down just behind you, who is very pretty, and, I dare say, very agreeable. Her name, I believe, is Elizabeth. Do let me ask Miss Bennet to introduce you.”
Heavens! Not another Bennet sister. Was there no end to them? “Which do you mean?” he asked. He turned around and saw none other than that country girl who had turned up her nose at him earlier. A wave of anger rippled through him. That impertinent chit must learn her place. He looked again. She was sitting with a friend—Miss Lucas, if he recalled—but it was most assuredly her. Her! One of the Bennet girls. This was most unpleasant. His jaw grew tight again.
He looked at her for so long that he caught her eye, and in that moment that she returned his frank gaze, he sensed her sneer once more. He withdrew his eye and said with all the ice he could muster, “She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me.” Had she heard him? He certainly hoped so. “I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men. You are wasting your time with me.”
Bingley gave another great roll of his eyes and stalked off to return to Miss Bennet and her friends, and Darcy shifted his weight, the better to withstand another tedious country dance. Then, to his side, he caught a flash of motion as the annoying Bennet sister rose from her chair and walked towards him.
She stopped in her path and pivoted to glare at him directly. Her dark eyes flashed and her chin thrust forward as she scrutinised him in the manner of a distasteful piece of meat left out in the sun for too long. Then she stated in clipped syllables, “How fortunate it is that I have no interest in dancing with you. Any lady of quality must have her standards, and I only dance with gentlemen. And you, sir, despite your airs and wealth, are no gentleman.” With which, she turned her back on him and melted into the crowd, her friend scurrying behind her.
Miss Elizabeth Bennet, so it seemed, had just declared war.
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Also by Riana Everly
The Assistant: Before Pride and Prejudice
Through a Different Lens: A Pride and Prejudice Variation
The Bennet Affair: A Pride and Prejudice Variation
Much Ado in Meryton: Pride and Prejudice meets Shakespeare
Preludes: A Modern Persuasion Improvisation
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Riana Everly, Preludes
