Thank you for the warm welcome on my first story. Here is my second offering. I hope you enjoy it as much as the first.
(I am not tech-savvy, being an older gentleman, so you'll forgive me if I don't respond to individual reviews.)
Chapter 1
The music ended and with many bows and words of polite exchange; the dancers separated, returning to friends and families, checking their cards to see if there was a partner listed there for the next dance. Bingley hurried back to Darcy who stood as still as he had left him when he went to whirl off with his blond beauty. "Darcy, old man," he huffed, still somewhat breathless from the fast tempoed reel, "Are you really intending to stand there all night, scowling and sneering at this lovely and amiable crowd? Or has the dagger you have stowed in your boot repelled any of them you have approached?"
"Well, Bingley," his friend snorted, "since you seem to have seized for yourself the most beauteous lady of them all, I am left with little else to do but stand here and envy you. As for the Dagger of Pemberley in my boot, well… no male of my family has not had it close to hand for more than four hundred years. It is both an heirloom and a protective talisman for our line to keep us safe."
Bingley nodded, absently. He knew of his friend's odd attachment to the dagger from their university days. His gaze returned to the blond dance partner he had reluctantly parted from, allowing her to return for a respite to her family. The mother shot many glances in his direction, making remarks to her daughter that brought a flush to the maiden's pale cheeks that was not just from the vigors of the reel. An occasional loud shriek from the mother made the daughter shake her head and put a restraining hand on the boisterous woman.
Darcy sneered more openly now. "You see the price you will have to pay for a closer acquaintance with your blond beauty. I truly hope for your sake she has more sense than her mother or you are in for a severe disappointment."
"Her conversation was shy, but well spoken," Bingley retorted with a suggestion of defensiveness in his tone. "Anyway, if you stand here like a stone statue you can hardly discover whether any of these fair ladies measures up to your strict standards of eligibility."
"Come now, Bingley, you can hardly expect any of these country bumpkins to have the superior intelligence I insist on in a potential mistress of Pemberley," Darcy said, half mockingly. As he spoke these words, his friend was already hurrying back towards the blond beauty who was studying her card. Darcy shrugged and then was startled to hear a swish of skirts from deeper shadows along the wall, as a small figure with dark curly hair in a maroon gown moved away from the wall and started to cross the hall. In shock, he realized the woman must have heard of all his disparaging remarks and he cringed inwardly in embarrassment.
He started after her to render an apology, but she was walking swiftly and before he could approach her a bent old man in servant's livery stumbled into him and fell to the floor, clawing at him as he fell to break his fall. Darcy bent over him, assisting him in regaining his feet. "I'm so sorry, my dear fellow," he began but the servant barely regained his footing before he hurried off, muttering some low words of apology. Darcy shook his head in regret for the collision, then looked again for the small curly haired woman so he could apologize, but she was gone. He caught just a glimpse of the dark maroon skirt as it turned a corner. He hurried in that direction, anxious that he should assure his rudeness should not be taken as anything more than a light jest between friends, as indeed it was, he told himself… only half convinced.
He left the hall for dancing and went past the games hall set with billiard tables, card tables with a handful of players (mostly old men) and chess tables. Passing by the entrance, he only glanced in where he and Bingley had earlier spent some time over a game of chess before the ball began. With a shock that brought him to a sudden halt, he realized his passing glance had caught sight of the maiden at the very chess board he had been sitting at an hour earlier. He stopped short and stepped back to the entrance he had so hurriedly passed. Approaching the young woman he could hear her muttering, "Stupid! Stupid!" as she stared at the chess board. His strengthened his resolve to speak words of apology even though she was scowling at the chess game he and Bingley had abandoned a while before. She glanced up at his approach.
"Please, Miss, allow me to introduce myself. I am Fitzwilliam Darcy," bowing as he spoke. "I beg you to accept my apology for the words you may have overheard as I was jesting with my friend. I assure you I meant no disrespect to the genial company gathered here." Her curtsey was proper, but brief. "Miss Elizabeth Bennet," she stated, then she waved a disparaging hand at his apology.
"I assure you, sir, I pay little attention to random words randomly overheard." Her voice was low and musical and her eyes had an amused twinkle. Darcy found both her voice and twinkle pleasing to his ear and eye. 'Careful, Darcy,' he told himself. 'She is a simple county Miss. Don't let your interest be overly stimulated by pretty eyes and sultry voice.' Nonetheless, he sought a way to continue the conversation but could think of nothing witty. Instead, to his dismay, he blurted out, gesturing at the chess board, "I overheard your words as I entered. So, you think it is stupid for men to play at a game when there is music to be danced to? " he asked, sardonically, slipping again into his habitual arrogant mode.
"Not at all" she answered, coolly, in those low and musical tones he found too pleasing. "I merely think it is stupid that a man who had a won game tipped over his king in resignation," she said gesturing to the white king on its side that he himself had tipped over a while earlier when he had conceded the game to Bingley.
He could hardly hide his surprise. A country girl, albeit a pretty one with sultry voice and twinkling eyes, pretending to understand chess better than he or Bingley. He approached the table and stood behind the black pieces. "And what is this brilliant scheme of yours that would save White from losing both his queen and thus the game?" he asked, skeptically.
She moved the white knight and said, 'Check'. He moved the black king one square and pronounced, "That accomplishes nothing except to allow White to delay his demise for one move." She didn't say a word; just slid the White queen down to the end of the board next to his king and said, "Check" again. Darcy snorted in derision. "Now you gift me the queen that White was doomed to lose anyway," as he snatched the queen off the board with his rook. Again she said nothing. She moved the knight once more and declared, ''Check and mate!" in a triumphant tone.
Darcy's mouth dropped open in shock as he realized what she had done, sacrificing her queen to set up a forced checkmate! He looked at her in awe. "Who are you?" he asked in a voice that rasped in shock.
"Just one of those country lasses, you had turned your nose up earlier as being worth neither your attention nor your time and energy for a dance," she said, and the twinkle in her eye made his heart throb strongly in his chest.
"If you will forgive me my bad jest with my friend that I had no idea was being overheard, I would be greatly honored if you would grant me a waltz or whatever dance form you enjoy most," he said in his most humble tones as he bowed deeply to her. She seemed to reflect for a moment, looking him up and down. Then she nodded her head, and still with that intriguing twinkle in her eye, "I accept, Sir, if only to ascertain if your dancing skill exceeds your skill at this game," she said, gesturing towards the chess board.
Darcy laughed, offering his arm, and was overjoyed when she accepted it with a firm hand. "I will no longer pretend to judge my skill at anything before first hearing your opinion of it," he declared solemnly, with just enough lightness in his voice that he hoped would be accepted as humor.
As they walked, he felt compelled to ask, "How did you attain such skill at that game, if I may ask?" He hoped to continue their conversation to learn more of this intriguing woman. "My father taught me what he knows and I have worked out strategies on my own," she confessed, "being in love with the game as much as I am in love with Shakespeare and music, and my family, of course." Darcy's heart almost stopped. That was exactly the same answer he would have given if someone had asked him the same question.