Fitzwilliam Darcy

Netherfield, Hertfordshire

Really, he thought, he must attend to better strategies in the matter of chess, if he was to avoid these painful scenarios in the future. Losing to Bingley had not been half so embarrassing as being forced into his second-best suit of clothes and nearly frogmarched out of Netherfield and into the carriage.

As it was, he stood at the back of their group, holding his breath against what would happen when they entered into the Meryton Assembly. It would be filled with the local color, he was sure, and his cravat was ever so tight around his neck. He resisted the urge to tug at it and loosen the hold it had on him. He felt as if he could barely breathe.

Besides him, Fitzwilliam gave him a grin and a wink.

"How are we holding up there, old boy?" he asked. Darcy glowered at his cousin and best friend.

"I am well, if you keep your tongue in your head where it belongs," Darcy shot back, and Fitzwilliam laughed, clapping Darcy across the back of his shoulders.

"Truly, this will be a night to remember," the jovial Colonel said without a hint of regret. He was clearly enjoying his cousin's discomfort. Darcy planned to get him back, with some trick or prank. He wasn't quite sure what he would do, but there had to be some means of paying his cousin back for all the chortles and side-long looks of amusement. Bingley, too, although the man was feigning ignorance of Darcy's discomfort. At least the Colonel had Miss Bingley on his arm, and he wasn't being forced to escort her in. That would have been a great difficulty.

Darcy heard the rap of a staff on the floor, and was surprised at the level of formality given that it was a country assembly, and the ringing sound of them being announced across the room. The noise of the assembly was cut off for a moment, and then surged around them again as they entered. He felt at the center of hundreds of staring eyes. In front of him, Miss Bingley fluttered a fan against her cheek, the feathers of her hairpiece waving in the moving air of it.

He froze, for a moment, when he glanced between the wavering feathers to set his eyes upon the glowing, upturned face of a young lady. Her cheeks were flushed, lips bitten to the red of raspberries, and her gleaming brown hair was pulled and curled up, a tempting tendril coiling against her neck.

He felt his heart stop in his chest for a breath, and then another. Mr. Hurst jostled his arm from behind.

"Move on, Mr. Darcy," Mr. Hurst muttered into his ear and Darcy tore his eyes away from the maiden to look at the other man. From the sight of an angel to the more earthly vision of the grumpy and discomfited Mr. Hurst, Darcy felt his mouth go dry. He turned back to look for the girl, but she was gone, lost amongst the crowds of the assembly.

"Ah, Lord Lucus," Darcy heard Mr. Bingley say, and they were being introduced to the gentleman's family. Mr. Bingley was then bowing to another gentleman, who by the state of his dress and the unkempt manner of his hair, was one of the local, lower, gentried men. He refused to crane his neck around to look for the girl, but the image of her, smiling wide, sparkling eyes, were all burnt into his mind's vision. He blinked and saw her in front of him, but it was only the illusion of her. She was very much not there, instead an older woman, accompanied by three girls, stood there.

"You've met my husband, Mr. Bennet, and now then my daughters, at least the three I could find, for Elizabeth is currently engaged in a dance, but here now, this is my eldest, Jane, and quite the beauty if the local word is to be believed," Mrs. Bennet's voice was grating, and Darcy almost felt compelled to step away, and back into the shadows. She was glancing between him and Mr. Bingley, her smile broad and almost hungry. He had seen that look before, on mothers with too many girls to marry off and not enough prospects. Jane, the eldest, curtsied mostly to Bingley, and favored Mr. Darcy's friend with a shy, if very beautiful smile.

Grating voice or not, Mrs. Bennet was not wrong in espousing the qualities of her eldest, for she was beautiful in that natural way that girls might be if they are unaware of the fact or at least humble on it. The other two daughters, he barely glanced over, for he was certain neither of them should have been out, as young in age as they were.

Fitzwilliam was leading Miss Bingley to the floor, already promising to dance with her and keep her away from the flat footed soldiers that peppered the room, and Bingley had abandoned him to dance with the eldest Bennet girl.

Darcy was alone. He backed up against one wall, watching the proceedings, wondering to what awful Fate he had to thank that had caused his awful failure at chess and left him to molder in an assembly which he did not wish to attend.

He was a promised man, given already to a woman he did not know, and he did his best not to meet eyes with any young lady at the assembly and give her a false sense of hope. Already he had heard the whisper of his pounds, of the size of his estates, for that sort of news traveled faster than the wind through a churchyard, and with the same howling loudness. The time ticked by so slowly he was surprised to find Bingley at his elbow, looking flushed in the cheek and pleased with himself.

"Come now, Darcy, there's plenty a fine young lady going wanting for a partner. Why do you stand here against the wall, as if hell were empty and all the demons were here?" Bingley asked with an arch eyebrow and a quirk to his mouth that was more smirk than smile.

"You know why," Darcy groused, letting his irritation and discomfort show in his tone. Bingley understood him almost better than Fitzwilliam did, and would not take offense.

"Well, regardless, I won't have you standing about in a stupid manner all evening. Pick a girl, and I shall have you be introduced to her."

Darcy cast his eye about and felt his tongue turn to stone in his mouth as he saw her again, just having finished a dance, laughter in her eyes and at the corners of her lips. She seemed to sense he was looking at her, for she raised her head and looked at him, a question in her gaze. He glanced away, back at Bingley.

"You've had the most handsome woman on your arm for half the evening," Darcy said, ignoring the deliberate pull his heart seemed to perform, tugging him spiritually towards the girl.

"Her sister is just as handsome, and I had the pleasure of having her for a dance as well, you would like her Darcy, look, over there, Miss Elizabeth," Bingley motioned as he spoke and Darcy glanced back.

It was her. Miss Elizabeth Bennet. The tender curls of want inside him latched onto her name, echoing it in his mind.

He was taken, as good as married and he knew, without a doubt, that were he to take her hand in dance he would want ever so much more. He had never been more certain in his life of anything. As sure as he'd been that up until that very night, every woman he had ever met had not been for him, she was an exception to the wall around his heart.

"Hardly handsome enough to tempt me," he said, brushing her off and his own desire in one swoop. Bingley scowled.

"Really, Darcy-"

"Really, Bingley, she is barely tolerable, a half-adequate partner for you, and not nearly adequate for me," Darcy said, cutting Bingley off with a jerk of his hand through the air. He turned to storm outside for some air, and nearly ran into a slight figure, her face upturned, her sparkling eyes dull, her cheeks flushed from anger as opposed to passion and entertainment.

"Mr. Darcy, might I introduce you to my second eldest," Mrs. Bennet emerged, like a fog from the ground, a broad smile on her face. "Miss Elizabeth, and quite a match for my Jane in everything but hair color, don't you think?"

As Miss Elizabeth glared at him, making it quite clear she had heard his every dismissive comment as to her charms, Mr. Darcy wished that the assembly room floor might shatter apart and swallow him whole.

"It is a pleasure, Miss Elizabeth," he managed to get out. She lifted her chin, and he saw a spark of defiance in her eyes. Her beautiful, soulful eyes. Curse his impetuous words. Curse them to the darkest of fates.

"I should hope it is more than a merely tolerable pleasure, Mr. Darcy," she replied, curtsying to him and then she turned away to greet a friend, taking his heart with her.

New chapters uploaded on Fridays, but you may find it in its entirety on Amazon now by searching for 'Nora Kipling - A Required Engagement'.