A Truth Universally Acknowledged
The air in the Meryton assembly rooms was thick with the scent of beeswax, perfume, and a particularly virulent strain of hope. Elizabeth Bennet found it all rather suffocating. From her position near the potted fern—a strategic retreat—she observed the familiar ritual with a critic’s eye. Gentlemen preened, ladies simpered, and her mother’s voice cut through the din like a hunter’s horn, signalling the proximity of eligible prey.
“Lizzy, do stop skulking by the foliage and smile! A gentleman of five thousand a year has leased Netherfield Park, and his name is Bingley. Is it not a delicious name? It sounds rich, do you not think?”
Elizabeth offered her mother a wry smile. “I’ve never considered the auditory qualities of wealth, Mama. Does his friend, this Mr. Darcy, have a name that sounds of ten thousand?”
“Do not be clever, it is most inconvenient,” Mrs. Bennet chided, her gaze fixed on the entrance. “Ah! There they are!”
The room seemed to still as Mr. Bingley and his party entered. Mr. Bingley himself was exactly as advertised: sunny-faced, amiable, and with an easy smile that instantly won the room. He was pleasant. Unobjectionable.
It was the man beside him who commanded silence.
Mr. Darcy was tall, with a powerful build that his impeccably tailored coat did little to conceal. His hair was dark, his features were sharp and aristocratic, and his bearing was one of unassailable authority. He did not smile. His gaze, a startlingly deep shade of blue-grey, swept across the room as if taking inventory of its inadequacies, and finding it severely wanting.
A collective sigh seemed to ripple through the feminine population of the assembly. Elizabeth felt it too—a faint, unwelcome flutter in her stomach, swiftly quashed by reason. He was handsome, certainly. In a carved-from-granite, might-actually-be-a-god sort of way. But his expression was one of such profound boredom that she immediately resolved to dislike him.
The dance began. Mr. Bingley, true to his nature, secured Jane’s hand for the first two dances, his admiration plain as he gazed at her serene beauty. Elizabeth’s heart warmed for her sister.
It was during a lull in the music that she found herself momentarily stranded near the refreshment table, directly in the path of Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley.
“Come, Darcy,” Bingley was saying, his face flushed with good wine and good humour. “I must have you dance. You cannot stand about like a monument to your own solemnity all evening.”
Elizabeth pretended a deep interest in the lemonade pitcher, her ears pricked.
“I certainly can,” Mr. Darcy’s voice was a low baritone, a vibration that she felt as much as heard. It was a voice that suggested dark libraries and whispered secrets. “Your sisters are engaged, and there is not another woman in the room whom it would not be a punishment to stand up with.”
Elizabeth’s spine straightened. A punishment?
Bingley laughed, oblivious. “Upon my honour, I have never met with so many pleasant girls in my life. Look, there is the other Miss Bennet. She is very pretty, and I dare say, very agreeable.”
Elizabeth held her breath. She saw Darcy’s gaze follow Bingley’s indication and land squarely on her. For a breathtaking second, his eyes met hers. It was not a glance; it was an assessment. She felt it like a physical touch—a cool, sweeping scrutiny that took in her simple gown, her wind-tousled hair, and the intelligent defiance in her own eyes. A spark of something—not boredom—flared in his depths, so quickly she might have imagined it.
He looked away, back to Bingley, and delivered the blow with casual, devastating precision.
“She is tolerable,” he said, the word dripping with indifference. “But not handsome enough to tempt me. You are wasting your time with the sisterhood. Return to my side and lament the state of country society.”
He turned, his broad back presented to her as if she were a piece of furniture.
The insult should have washed over her. She was well-used to her mother’s dramatics and Mr. Collins’ pomposity. But this was different. This was a dismissal of her very essence from a man whose opinion, for one foolish moment, she had inexplicably wanted to earn.
The heat of a blush crept up her neck, but it was not born of embarrassment. It was fury, sharp and bright. And something else—a thrilling, dangerous sense of challenge.
As the music struck up again, her friend Charlotte Lucas appeared at her elbow. “My dear Eliza, did you hear what that odious man said?”
“Every word,” Elizabeth replied, her voice deceptively light. She turned to face the dance floor, a slow, cunning smile gracing her lips. She would not skulk or simper. She would not be cowed by his ten thousand a year and his sculpted jaw.
“And?” Charlotte pressed.
Elizabeth’s gaze found Darcy once more across the room. He was, to her immense satisfaction, looking directly at her. His expression was unreadable, but his attention was fixed. Good. Let him look.
She met his stare, her smile not sweet, but sharp. A glint of pure, unadulterated mischief lit her eyes.
“I find, Charlotte, that I have just formed my first impression of Mr. Darcy,” she declared, her voice carrying just enough to ensure it might be overheard by a nearby matron who would delight in spreading the gossip. “And I find him to be the last man in the world with whom I could ever be prevailed upon to dance.”
She turned her back on him, a perfect mirror of his own dismissal, and walked away, the thrill of a coming war singing in her blood. The game, she sensed,
was afoot. And she had never been more eager to play.
