The night was late when the Bingley party returned to Netherfield from a ball held by the company of the regiment's officers for the neighborhood. Darcy had enjoyed the evening's entertainment — a strange experience for him.

There was something about the company in Hertfordshire that made him happier and helped him to no longer think fiercely upon the disappointments of the summer.

Perhaps it was the southern air.

Darcy knew with quite complete certainty that was not it. It was that he had been able to unburden himself to someone else, someone who was not so closely involved as Colonel Fitzwilliam. And it was a balm to the soul to have a friend such as Elizabeth.

Before Darcy could proceed up the stairs to his bedroom, Bingley bumped him, and gestured his head towards the billiards room. "Not ready to sleep yet. Mind talking more?"

"Not at all," Darcy replied smoothly.

"What a night." Bingley restlessly paced, not bothering to set up a game of billiards to keep them company as they talked. "What a night."

"Did anything happen of note?"

"Upon my honor, I may be falling in love."

Everything in the room stopped moving. Bingley seemed to move as though through a slow watery haze for a few seconds. Darcy felt something eerie in himself, something he understood not.

"Well, what do ye say to that? Miss Bennet and me getting taking a swing at coupling."

"That should be Miss Bennet and I."

"Damnation man! Damnation! Correcting my grammar in such a conversation!" Bingley laughed loudly and as he did he poured both Darcy and himself a heady shot of brandy, to add to the wine and punch they'd already drunk at the ball that night. "Exactly like you, Darcy. Too proper and focused on such trivial things. What do you truly think?"

"I know not yet." Something in Darcy thought he did know. Something in Darcy thought he should convince Bingley to never do anything of the sort.

"Ha! That is less like you. She will be a fine wife for a man rising upwards. We like each other sufficiently well. People will be impressed with me to have such a woman — so what do you think."

Darcy did not say anything until Bingley grunted and he had a sense of time passing. The first goal, one that took control of him from beneath all of his other scattered hopes and desires was that he must hide his love for Elizabeth from Bingley at this moment. "Have you… have you considered this thoroughly."

"Goodness, not as yet, that is why I am asking you your advice. All my thoughts say I should ask her… what if one day I see a woman I like more? How can I be sure I should marry Elizabeth… I admire her enormously. But there is something missing. Would we really suit? Of course I'm not scared by her knowing Greek. After all, you are my dearest friend, and you are as much a scholar as Miss Bennet."

"No," Darcy replied, firmly, "She is a better scholar than I. Perhaps had I never taken on the estate I could have matched her, but her mind is truly first rate."

"Exactly! You see why I want to marry her."

"Then why do you doubt." Darcy's voice came out at a snap. "What is missing?"

"Well…" Bingley shrugged. "I have not seen every woman in the world."

"Don't be such an obtuse fool. You'll never see another woman like Miss Bennet in your life."

"But…" And here from the way Bingley looked at the green felt of the billiard table, and twisted his glass back and forth without looking at Darcy, Darcy thought that this issue was the true one that was bothering him. "I don't know how much she likes me."

"What do you mean? You spend a great deal of time in her society."

"I can hardly read her — especially not what she feels about me." Bingley looked up at Darcy with his bright friendly eyes. "So tell me true. Do you think she'd accept me?"

Darcy paused to think. He'd been watching Elizabeth during the course of the night. He always was watching her, though he watched her from the corner of his eyes, to keep it from becoming obvious to everyone.

Did she love Bingley?

Images of them talking together. Elizabeth smiling with Bingley, her animation. She smiled and laughed with Bingley often, she spent her time near him, and she laughingly batted back everything he said. She acted the way that women in society acted when they were in love.

Darcy had only one way to interpret this: Elizabeth was in love with Mr. Bingley.

And in this realization he felt a terrible sensation of wrongness, as though that was not the way it was supposed to be. As though Elizabeth should be in love with a different man.

With whom?

The question echoed in Darcy's mind. And he knew the answer to that question. The answer was quite simple, and exquisitely painful, like nothing he'd felt before. To say it to himself was like ripping a claw through his own breast.

He had fallen in love himself with Elizabeth Bennet.

And she loved another man.

And the thought rose to him immediately: He could seduce her away from Bingley. He could make an effort to compete with his younger, less wealthy, shorter, and less nobly connected friend.

But that was not what Elizabeth wanted. And he wanted Elizabeth to be happy.

Bingley smiled at him broadly, his stomach pressing into the hard wooden frame of the billiards table. "Eh, Darcy, what say you? I can not make up my dratted mind. Don't know… it would make great sense to settle myself in the neighborhood with a wife from among them. Elizabeth would like to be settled near her father. I could take the estate for purchase, and have good reason to do so. There is no entailment on Netherfield."

It hurt.

Darcy's chest ached to hear Bingley, with vastly more right than he would ever have to use her Christian name, use her name. Elizabeth. Except Bingley's voice did not caress the syllables the way Darcy's would have. Bingley did not see her as the most precious person in the world.

Except he must.

"Eh, Darcy, what do you think? Is there some reason you think I shouldn't pursue Miss Bennet?" Bingley frowned. "You are awfully quiet. You don't… well you don't have… I said I saw her first, but I would not lose your friendship over any woman. Miss Bennet would not be worth that and —"

"No!"

Darcy stood straighter. And before he knew what he was doing he started speaking, "Nothing of the sort. I would be delighted to see you two marry. I was searching my impressions of her to see if by my impartial observations I could establish whether she cared for you."

Bingley eagerly, and nervously looked at Darcy. "And you don't believe she does? She is perhaps too clever for me and —"

"No, it is my judgement that she does." Darcy gave Bingley a false ghost of a smile. "You must ask her to find out, but she shows every sign of love. She talks to you, smiles with you, flirts with you endlessly. What else can that mean but love?"

Now it was Bingley's turn to frown and look troubled.

"Be sure Miss Bennet is attached to you. And after you have spent so much time dancing with her, twice every time you are in company — you must see that you are raising her expectations."

Darcy knew what he must do in this conversation. At this moment he wanted Elizabeth's happiness more than he could ever want his own.

"You think? But she is so… " Bingley shook his head. "I hardly can read her. She is not like the other women I've known. Not like them at all."

"Miss Bennet is a woman of far more substance than any of your flirts."

"She is…" Bingley yet looked troubled.

"Would you not hate it if… would you not despise yourself if you could see her a year from now, married to a different man, outside of your touch forever, and only a memory of a woman whose heart you had held in your own, and who you had loved as dear as your own flesh? Would you hate to see her happy with another man?"

Bingley frowned into the fire.

"The deuce is… I do not know. I would not… it would not make me to tear my hair out if I were to see her marry another. But one should wish her to be happy no matter." Then Bingley punched his palm against his fist. "I could do a bloody sight worse. A damned bloody sight. And she is so beautiful. Best looking girl in this neighborhood. That is certain."

"Yes…" Darcy's throat ached.

Bingley smiled at Darcy. "My Lizzy will make all the other men jealous. It is just… like I have not yet seen every woman, and I expected some thunderbolt from heaven."

"Things such as that do not happen. Not in true life."

"No I suppose they are a matter for novels." Bingley yawned and stretched. "Best to bed now. Want to call on Mr. Bennet with me tomorrow? You distract the old man, eh? Give me a chance to talk a bit with Elizabeth on my own."

"I can do that." Darcy spoke with a strangely strong voice.

Bingley grinned. "You are the best, Darcy. The best friend." He slapped Darcy on the back in a slightly tipsy way. "I shall never forget how good of a friend you have been to me."

Darcy was left alone in the room, with just the billiards table for company.

Well he was tired too.

He stared at the fire, reduced to embers, at the carpet, at the racks of sticks and small piles of chalk, at the velvet upholstered chairs. He felt terribly like crying.

So instead Darcy picked up the bottle of brandy and the glass he had been using, he lofted high up one candlestick for light and blew the others in the room out, and he made his way up to his own bedroom.

It was quiet and cold, despite the banked fire.

He stripped off his cravat and coat, and then slowly unbuttoned his shirt without waking his valet. The mechanical movements of struggling to undo one tiny button after another helped to distract him from the tears still sitting in the back of his throat and the back of his eyes.

It was the most dull witted emotion he'd ever felt.

Why was he doing this? Why was he encouraging Bingley in this way?

Simple: He wanted her happy.

Bingley was by no means so committed on this course he'd suggested to Darcy that he could not be still dissuaded. Darcy could convince Bingley to drop the flirtation and make a sudden trip to London to break it off.

And then once Elizabeth had enough time to recover from her broken heart, Darcy could find some excuse to spend time in Hertfordshire.

Perhaps as Mr. Bennet's guest.

And he'd flirt with her. Somehow, he truly was no expert at such an art. Smile for her. Or simply talk with her until she got used enough to his presence. He'd ask her to marry him, and convince that even if she did not love him as she had Bingley, he would be a sufficient husband for her.

And then he would be able to make those nighttime fantasies that filled his dreams come true.

And then… he would find a way to convince Bingley to not despise him. To remain friends with him.

And then Bingley and Elizabeth would spend time together with them both as friends. As she was a passionate woman, who would still be in love with Bingley, and Bingley would yet love her.

And then…

Darcy wrenched himself away from this fantasy turned nightmare. But it reminded him, that he would do wrong to use guile to press his way between two lovers.

Darcy poured for himself another nightcap out of the bottle of brandy he taken up from the drawing room where he'd encouraged Bingley to pursue Elizabeth. He held the finely cut crystal glass up to his nose. The glass was hard and slightly cold in his hands, but it quickly warmed at his touch.

Would Elizabeth have warmed to his touch?

Darcy took a deep scent of the fine alcohol, like he'd been taught. It almost burned his nostrils. A fine alcohol like this demanded careful appreciation. Darcy looked at the amber liquid, dark and thick in the candlelight.

He swallowed the fiery drink down in a single gulp and went to his soft bed, to dream of Elizabeth.