A/N: If you are a strong fan of Charles Bingley (or of Jane, really), then I apologize in advance for how I will fundamentally ruin the characters in this story. If that is not your cup of tea, please do skip this one. This story is inspired by a favorite Chinese romance of mine, and Bingley and Jane had to be sacrificed on the altar of adaptation. Here we go!
"Why, Netherfield Park isn't half as bad as my sisters feared, is it?" Bingley chuckled loudly as he paced down the empty hall. "It's fallen slightly into misuse, but not entirely."
"Yes," Darcy muttered. He was a man of few words the vast majority of the time. Bingley did talk more than enough for the both of them, after all.
"And to think Louisa called the endeavor a fool's errand." Bingley laughed heartily at the sister he had left in London. Outside the front doors, the horses that had transported their party to Hertfordshire seemed to neigh in protest. "Caroline shall have plenty to tell her."
"Perhaps you ought to wait for your sister's opinions before determining them."
"Caroline and her trunks shall take forever." Bingley gestured loosely towards the half-open door. "I shall have toured half the house by then."
Darcy smiled a small smile. Ever impatient - at times, outright impulsive - Bingley proved a constant source of entertainment for him. Unfettered by family expectations or the need to maintain his own trade, young Charles Bingley was in possession of social freedoms Darcy could only ever dream of having for himself.
"Is my brother gone already?" Miss Caroline Bingley, the soon-to-be Lady Caroline Durn, huffed upon her entrance to the spacious hall. "I swear that boy shall never settle down."
Darcy smiled. "He is boyish at heart, I suppose."
"Too boyish - utterly flippant, at times." Miss Bingley sighed, hands waving in the air. "It is by sheer luck alone that I managed to snag a viscount."
"You improve your family's ties."
"Well, someone truly ought to, for all our sake's." Miss Bingley began to fan herself enthusiastically. She sighed a most desperate-sounding sigh. "With Louisa marrying in trade and my brother ready to wed every other wench he meets, I had no choice but to do well for myself."
Darcy leaned his head to the side. "Your brother's pursuits are hardly of wenches."
Miss Bingley sighed once more, with greater dramatics than her previous attempt. "I swear to you, Mr. Darcy, he shall be half in love with the prettiest woman in Hertfordshire within a fortnight of our being here. The boy simply could not be helped."
"Perhaps he would not be quite as hasty as you fear," said Darcy, knowing full well even as he spoke that Miss Bingley's assessment of her brother was hardly wrong. "The estate does appear to be in better terms than one might have expected."
Miss Bingley released yet another sigh. "I suppose."
"Darcy! Caroline! Are the two of you done unloading all your knickknacks?" Bingley hollered from the top of the stairs. "You simply must see the view from the bedrooms. It is most charming indeed. We can visit the guest rooms together."
Darcy found himself to be the one sighing this time around, even as he thoroughly ignored Miss Bingley's triumphant grin.
The rest of the day wrought with it more than one reason for Miss Bingley to grin in triumph. Despite Darcy's every effort to dissuade him, Bingley insisted that their party begin to call upon every household in the area within a matter of hours.
And, as Miss Bingley so rightfully predicted, Charles Bingley seemed to fall instantly in love the very moment their party entered the parlor at the nearby Longbourn estate and was greeted by the four daughters in the room. The ladies all appeared unremarkable to Darcy, for fair hair, flirtatious smiles, and shy demeanors were hardly things that ever caught his fancy.
For Bingley, however, the very room seemed worthy of heaven's light - and he announced his courtship with Miss Jane Bennet the very next day.
They had hardly arrived for a day.
"Jane is so very lucky, Lizzy, you shall see," Kitty sighed, lashes fluttering, as the approaching party came into view through the sitting room window. "Mr. Bingley is so incredibly handsome."
"Is that so?"
"Oh, you don't know a thing!" Lydia chastised, an equally dreamy look about her face. "Mr. Bingley and his sister have been calling every day. Surely, nothing you encountered in London could have been half as fun."
"I thought you had wished to go to London with me," Elizabeth teased. Her youngest sisters were so frightfully easy to tease, after all.
"They wouldn't stop speaking of it until the Bingleys came," Mary informed, as if answering a question before anyone could ask. "Only the promise of Mr. Bingley's visits have allowed them to recover their joy."
"You girls are all so frightfully dramatic." Jane sighed from her perch in the corner. She rolled her eyes slightly, all while fanning her very pretty face.
It was no surprise to Elizabeth that any young man newly arrived in the neighborhood would fall fast in love with Jane. Her sister may be shy - even cold - but she was most indubitably beautiful.
"I look forward to grow acquainted with your suitor, Jane." Elizabeth left her three younger sisters to crowd around the window as she relocated herself to the seat beside Jane. "I hope I haven't missed too much by visiting our aunt and uncle."
"You were in London a mere three weeks." Jane scoffed.
"It did feel frightfully long without the four of you chattering about."
"Lizzy." Jane frowned. She did like to frown whenever Elizabeth, or anyone, teased her. "You must be grateful to have whatever you do have."
"But I am, Jane." Elizabeth smiled. "I understand that not all younger children have the opportunities I have been blessed with. But aren't you glad you stayed in Longbourn? You would not have met your Mr. Bingley otherwise."
Jane's reply to Elizabeth's eager smile was a slight, haughty scoff.
"They're here! They're here!" Kitty and Lydia cry before the servants could make a single announcement. There were things about Longbourn that Elizabeth had not missed at all.
"Ah, Miss Catherine! Miss Lydia! Miss Mary!" A bobbing head accompanied the enthusiastic greetings as a party of three squeezed their way into the room. The tall, slender woman Elizabeth took to be Miss Bingley. The taller man at the back, who bowed primly and grimly, had to be the friend her sisters had previously mentioned.
And in the midst of them all - smiling despite the crush of childish female attention - stood a handsome, cheerful, radiant young man.
"Ah! You must be Miss Elizabeth!" The young man strode over with a wild and buoyant grin. "A great pleasure to meet you at last!"
He reached for Elizabeth's hand before she could utter a word - and bowed most gallantly over it.
"Mr. - Bingley, I presume," Elizabeth stuttered. It was unlike her to feel so flustered by a stranger - unlike her to feel such kinship for a person she so freshly met.
But there was a look in Mr. Bingley's kind eyes that seemed to echo in her soul. In gross contrast with the silliness of Longbourn, or the pretensions of London, their new neighbor greeted her with exuberance and joy - sincerity and gladness.
And Elizabeth hardly had a single minute to feel any sort of guilt as her heart skipped merrily along.
"Mr. Bingley," Jane stated then, her voice penetrating the fog in Elizabeth's mind. She spoke her suitor's name like a summon - heartless and cold.
"Ah, my wonderful Miss Bennet!" Mr. Bingley let go of Elizabeth's hand just as he turned to smile at Jane.
The moment was gone - fleeting and ruined. Elizabeth watched helplessly as the first man she had ever preferred upon sight stepped away from her and towards her sister. The rest of the room arranged itself to allow the king and queen of the hour their moment in the sun.
But for the rest of the morning, even as Elizabeth struggled not to scrutinize their new neighbor too closely - the tug on her heart continued. It was not an angry tug, or a desperate one. It was a friendly urging, a warmth she had never in her young life felt before. It was a prickly sensation that wound and unwound itself in her chest at every other interval.
It was a constant pang renewed every time Mr. Bingley turned to give Elizabeth a true and gentle smile.
And when their callers rose to leave, claiming the late hour, Mr. Bingley greeted each sister with a courteous bow and a temperate greeting, promising most heartily that he would be very glad to return the very next day.
And Elizabeth wondered, in the privacy of her heart, why Mr. Bingley lingered twice as long when parting ways with her. Was it for the very reason she hoped he did?
The glint in his eyes as he returned her gaze, before firmly stepping away from Longbourn, seemed to affirm her selfish, unlikely reckoning to be true.
A/N: I know it's hard to swallow that Darcy or Elizabeth might prefer anyone else with the other person standing RIGHT THERE, but I promise an ODC happy ending!
P.S. I do not expect everyone to like all the elements of this story. In fact, many probably won't. But I DO request that anyone who leaves a review to be respectful to authors and other readers alike. We will all be better off for it :)