Page 5 of Her Whole Heart
“He likes the dark-haired ones, brother.”
“Shut it, Fitz.”
The colonel laughed. “Steady there, Darcy. Standing next to her sister might throw her in the shade a bit, but that is hardly her fault. She is quite a winning creature all on her own. You were too preoccupied to notice that we all secured a dance with her. Well, not Bingley—he only had eyes for Miss Bennet.”
“Poor Miss Hamilton,” Milton said. “You are fortunate you rectified your error in not asking her first, Darcy. Lady Carlisle has a way of making her displeasure felt.”
“I suppose she thinks you a good match for Miss Hamilton,” Bingley said with a shrug. “She is the niece of an earl, and you are the nephew of one.”
If a connection to the aristocracy was all that Darcy required, he would already be wed to his cousin Lady Henrietta, who was here with his uncle, somewhere. “Miss Hamilton is barely out of the schoolroom,” he grumbled.
“I will agree with you there,” Fitz said. “She had her come-out recently, so is still rather young. However, her relations will be willing to offer her another season or two, and by then she will be much improved, as Hen was. The Bennet girls may not be so fortunate, particularly if the countess thinks they are outshining her niece.”
“Miss Bennet would outshine any woman,” Bingley said dreamily, his eyes already scanning the room for her.
Fitz, always the gallant, conceded the point. “Miss Bennet is uncommonly handsome.”
“Have they any fortune to speak of?” Milton asked.
“Twenty-thousand each, so I hear,” Fitzwilliamsaid.
Not enough for Fitz. He had a modest inheritance, and his father gave him an allowance, but his habits required a woman of larger fortune. With his status as the second son of an earl, he could command it. Darcy shifted from one foot to the other, wishing he could leave and chastising himself at the same time. He had been to private balls such as these before and had been able to tolerate them reasonably well. Why, then, was he so miserable this evening?
It was the expectations, he supposed. He had participated in previous seasons for a few weeks, a month, but he had not truly been searching for a wife. He had been buried with other responsibilities, and a month in London with his cousins and friends had been a respite for his beleaguered spirit. That had changed over the past year. Now it was Pemberley that offered him sanctuary from the world, and while he still appreciated the benefits of town, being forced to remain for months on end was not to his liking. But his uncle had insisted it was time for him to find a wife. And so he was here.
Certainly, he could find a suitable woman in one season here and not be required to do this again. A month or six weeks in London each year during the season—that was more than enough. And it would mean his uncle, the earl of Matlock, would stop haranguing him to set up his nursery.
“The Faerie Dance,” Lord Ashford called, and Darcy straightened his shoulders. It was time to collect Miss Elizabeth and escort her to the floor. The sooner he had this dance out of the way, the sooner he could request the hand of a woman whose family was not a mystery to him.
It was a simple thing to locate her group. The three women were huddled about Lady Carlisle as though she were the hen, and they her chicks.
Viscount Fellington approached at the same time as Darcy and Fitzwilliam, and for a moment Darcy worried that the man was about tostart an altercation, so hot was his glare. But when Darcy reached for Miss Elizabeth’s hand and Fitz for Miss Hamilton’s, the man was all smiles.
Lady Carlisle would have her hands full protecting Miss Bennet this evening.
“Good evening, Miss Elizabeth,” Darcy said. “Shall we?”
Her hand, small and delicate, slipped into his, and he guided her to the floor. There they stepped back from one another and awaited the music.
The top two couples skipped forward for the right-hand star.
“Do you like to dance, Mr. Darcy?” she asked while they waited their turn.
The second couple joined the first.
“Not if I can avoid it, madam, no.” There was no point in encouraging the woman when he was unlikely to ever dance with her again.
“I thought as much,” she replied, appearing rather pleased with herself.
This was not the response he had expected, and it made him study her more closely than he had intended. Not as short as he had believed at first, and rather comely. Raven curls, a light and pleasing figure, and dark, intelligent eyes. She was well suited to this dance, for there was the look of the pixie about her. “Why would you say so?”
“Only that you are standing in a glittering ballroom at the beginning of a wonderful evening,” she said, “and yet you wear a pronounced glower.”
“Forgive me, Miss Elizabeth,” he said, but the apology was perfunctory. He had done nothing wrong.
“There is nothing to forgive, sir. You feel as you feel.”
Somewhat mollified, he forced himself to offer her some conversation. “Women enjoy this sort of thing more than the men.”
