Page 60 of When Elizabeth's Cat Chose Darcy
“There is no wind,” Mrs. Hurst observed beside me.
“There will be by the time she finishes explaining,” I murmured, and Mrs. Hurst made a sound that might, in a more demonstrative woman, have been a laugh.
On the adjacent court, Bingley was bouncing on his toes while Georgiana tested her serve. Jane and Mary took their positions opposite, Jane with graceful readiness and Mary with the squared shoulders of a field marshal intent on winning a battle.
Darcy collected the shuttlecock from behindCaroline with the economy of a man who has already accepted that he would be covering approximately ninety percent of the court. He served—a clean, controlled stroke aimed deep into the corner—and Mrs. Hurst returned it with a backhand of surprising precision.
“Well played, Mrs. Hurst.”
“I am as surprised as you are, Miss Bennet.”
The rally built. Darcy, at the back, covering every shot Caroline should have taken and several she had not attempted. His returns were measured and accurate, placed with the careful deliberation of a man who surveyed land for a living and understood angles. Caroline contributed a decorative presence at the front and the occasional swing that connected with nothing but air.
I, meanwhile, was discovering something I had not expected. I wanted to win. Not in the general, abstract way one wants to win at any game, but in the specific, personal, and entirely irrational way one wants to win against a man who kicked his acorn farther on the lane and looked at me as though the kicking mattered.
Darcy sent a shot wide to Mrs. Hurst’s side. She lunged—creditably, for a woman who had pledged not to perspire—but the shuttlecock passed her reach.
“One all,” Darcy said, and the corner of his mouth moved in a direction that was not quite a smile but was undeniably competitive.
Across the lawn, Georgiana’s serve slapped against Jane’s return, and Mary, positioned at the net with the solemn concentration of a woman defending a philosophical principle, blocked a return with a flat-paddle stop that sent the shuttlecock dribbling over the cord.
“Point,” Mary announced. “Newton’s third law. For every action, an equal and opposite reaction.”
“I do not believe Newton played battledore, Miss Mary,” Darcy called across.
“He should have. It would have improved his temperament considerably.”
Darcy blinked, shocked and amused, and I bit the inside of my cheek.
The rallies sharpened. Darcy sent a cross-court shot that I chased to the boundary post, stretching for a return that my battledore found at the last possible moment—a wrist-flick that sent the shuttlecock spinning back across the cord in a trajectory that surprised me as much as it surprised Caroline, who watched it sail past her immobile battledore and land at Darcy’s feet.
“That,” Darcy said, looking at the shuttlecock and then at me, “was not the stroke of a middling player.”
“I never claimed to be middling, Mr. Darcy. That is Jane’s technique. I prefer honesty to modesty. Two-one.”
“They are not mutually exclusive.”
“In battledore, Mr. Darcy, they very nearly are.”
Darcy served again—harder this time, aimed directly at me, no longer content to let Caroline’s deficiencies determine the match. The shot was fast and flat, and I returned it with a reflex stroke that sent the shuttlecock back at an angle he was already moving to cover. We traded returns—four, five, six—each stroke harder, the rallies tightening into something that had very little to do with battledore and everything to do with two people who could not stop competing because the competition was the only honest conversation available to them.
He sent a lob high over my head. I sprang back, watched it descend, and swung—connecting at the top of the arc with a satisfying crack that drove the shuttlecock downward across the cord with a speed and angle that made Darcy take a full step backward.
He returned it. Barely.
I was at the cord now, closer than strategy recommended, and the shuttlecock came back to me at a high arc—invitation, provocation, or test, I could not determine which. I planted my foot, jumped, and brought the battledore down in an overhead smash that sent the feathered cork directly at Darcy.
He didn’t return it. He tried stepping back to use his battledore, but the shuttlecock bounced off his chest. He caught it with his bare hand and stood holding it, his chest rising and hishair disordered with a look on his face that I could only describe as delighted—a word I’d never associated with Fitzwilliam Darcy, and now that I had, I couldn’t unthink it.
“Point,” I said, slightly breathless from the jump.
“You hit me.”
“I hit the shuttlecock. You happened to be behind it.”
“I happened to be behind it because you aimed at me.”
“I aimed at the open court, Mr. Darcy. It is hardly my fault that you occupy so much of it. Three-one,” I announced.
