Chapter Text
Fitzwilliam Darcy glanced down into his nearly empty coffee cup. The dark, shimmering liquid sparkled and glittered, reminding him of a pair of intelligent eyes he had come to admire.
He frowned. That blasted Elizabeth Bennet. No matter where he looked, his mind seemed to be drawn inexplicably back to her. Even his morning coffee was not immune from the intrusion.
Perhaps I should start using cream, he mused, the corner of his mouth curling in amusement at the idea.
A falsely sweet voice trilled across Netherfield’s breakfast table. “Why, Mr Darcy! A frown and then a smile? Whatever has caused such an uproar of spirit in you this morning?”
All amusement fled Darcy’s face as he raised his chin to acknowledge Miss Caroline Bingley.
“I beg your pardon, Miss Bingley. I was simply lost in my own thoughts.”
“Of course, Mr Darcy,” Miss Bingley simpered. “Do I dare to suppose what these thoughts might be? I flatter myself I could guess them.”
Darcy almost did laugh out loud at that thought. The thought that Caroline Bingley, who made no secret of her desperation to attach herself to Darcy in the most intimate of ways, could possibly guess that he was thinking of another woman’s eyes was actually quite funny. “I assure you, Miss Bingley, you could not possibly guess the bent of my thoughts.”
“Oh don’t be so sure!” she insisted. Her eyes sharpened as she leaned forward and continued, “With that frown, you must be thinking, as am I, of the disaster that awaits us tomorrow at this stupid ball that Charles has been agreed to hold in this wretched little town. And you smile so derisively to think of all the ridiculous clowns the neighbors will make of themselves.”
Mr Bingley, seated to Caroline’s left, spoke up. “I say, Caroline, you go too far. This is a perfectly lovely village, the example for all the English countryside to follow. The neighbors couldn’t be kinder or more mannerly. We will have a perfectly splendid time tomorrow, I am sure.”
“Oh Charles, you truly begin to scare me with your infatuation with this … place. But come, Mr Darcy, do enlighten us. Did I find you out?”
“On the contrary, Miss Bingley. My thoughts were much more agreeably engaged.”
“Pray, do tell!” she cried.
Darcy saw his chance to put a hitch in this woman’s stride; she felt herself entirely too entitled to his attention. “The rich brown of this excellent coffee simply brought to mind a pair of fine eyes I have recently noticed, and what pleasure they give in the face of a pretty woman.”
Bingley barked out a laugh, but Miss Bingley finally showed a flicker of doubt in this course. Darcy could almost see her mind working out his statement with the narrowing of her blue eyes.
Her tone now having a hard edge over the performed sweetness, Miss Bingley said, “And whose fine eyes might these be?”
With perfect nonchalance, Darcy replied, “Miss Elizabeth Bennet.”
“Bravo, Darcy!” Mr Bingley cried. “I see you’ve recovered some from your first impression. ‘Not handsome enough to tempt you’ is what I recall you to have said. And I say, such a dumb opinion it was! Her loveliness is only superseded by her elder sister.”
“Stop gushing, Charles,” Miss Bingley snapped. “You sound ridiculous. You cannot be serious about Miss Bennet.”
For the first time, the other attendants at the table showed interest. Mrs Hurst and her husband Mr Hurst lifted their gazes from their plates in time to see Mr Bingley’s cheeks flush.
“I don’t know why I shouldn’t be,” Mr Bingley replied defensively. “She is everything that is good and lovely. She’s an angel. And she’s the daughter of a gentleman.”
Now it was Mrs Hurst’s chance to scoff. “A gentleman? Well yes perhaps, but barely. Miss Bennet has no money, no connections, nothing to recommend her. And her family is utterly silly.”
As the conversation continued in that vein, with Bingley defending Jane and her family, and his sisters berating them, Darcy felt the chastisement as acutely as if it have been leveled at him. Everything Jane Bennet was accused of was exactly true of her sister as well. Darcy could not be distracted. There were great expectations on his future match.
Not that he had considered more than admiring Elizabeth’s lovely eyes…
When had he stopped calling her Miss Elizabeth in his own mind?
He quickly swallowed the last of his coffee and stood, vowing to stick to the palest tea for the remainder of his stay in Hertfordshire.