Page 61 of When Elizabeth's Cat Chose Darcy
His mouth compressed, and he released the shuttlecock to Caroline with the composure of a man who had been struck in the chest by a woman he promised to dance with.
From the adjacent court, a whoop of triumph carried across the lawn. Georgiana had executed a serve that sent the shuttlecock sailing over Jane’s head, and she was bouncing on her toes with the unrestrained delight of a girl who scored a point and had not yet been told to moderate her enthusiasm.
“Well struck, Miss Darcy!” Bingley cheered. “Jane—Miss Bennet—I do apologize, she has a vicious serve. I believe she gets it from her brother.”
“I taught myself, Mr. Bingley,” Georgiana corrected. “My brother taught me chess. The serves are entirely my invention.”
Darcy, hearing this from across the lawn, straightened with the expression of a man who had just learned something about his sister he did not know how to classify.
The match resumed. Darcy served to me, and I returned it to Caroline’s forehand, because her forehand was where shuttlecocks went to die, and the point was won before she had fully committed to swinging. Four-one. Mrs. Hurst served, and Darcy smashed it back with such force that I had to dive sideways, scooping it off the grass with the flat of my battledore at ankle height and flicking it back over the rope where it clipped the boundary and spun into Caroline’s skirts.
“Five-one,” I said, slightly breathless and conscious that my hem was now decorated with a grass stain.
“That cannot have been in bounds,” Caroline protested.
“It clipped the line,” Mrs. Hurst said, with the dispassionate authority of a woman who had been watching the boundary rather than her sister’s scheme. “Five-one.”
Caroline, who had contributed little to the match beyond presence and the occasional decorative swing, dabbed her forehead with her handkerchief. “Mr. Darcy, perhaps we should reconsider our strategy. Miss Eliza appears to be playing a rather different game than the rest of us.”
“Miss Bennet is playing the same game,” Darcy said, straightening his cravat, which my smash had loosened by a fraction I should not have noticed. “She is simply playing it better.”
Caroline’s jaw tightened, but she could hardly argue with the obvious. Darcy wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at me—at the grass stain, at the battledore clutched in my fist, at the hair that had escaped its pin and was curling against my neck—and the looking contained an intensity that had nothing to do with the score.
And I noted that maddening curl plastered over his forehead, and considered ourselves even. “Serve, Mr. Darcy.”
He served. I returned. He sent it back at an angle that required me to cross the entire width of our court, and I reached it, barely, with a backhand that floated high, too high, an invitation for a smash.
Darcy did not smash it. He tapped it gently, just over the rope, so that it dropped at my feet like a feather surrendering to gravity. It was the sporting equivalent of mercy, and I found it infuriating because I missed it.
“Five-two. Do not patronize me, Mr. Darcy.”
“I would not dare, Miss Bennet.”
“That drop shot was patronizing.”
“It wastactical.”
“It was condescension. You had the angle for a smash and chose to be gentle. I do not require gentleness.”
“Very well,” he said. “You still missed.”
His next serve came at me with a velocity that implied he had taken my request to heart. I returned it. He slammed it back. I lunged, saved it, drove it toward Caroline, who shrieked and ducked, and the shuttlecock sailed past her head.
“Six-two!” I said. “Mrs. Hurst, we are winning.”
“I am aware. I have contributed almost nothing to the effort, and I find the experience most agreeable.”
Caroline raised her battledore. “I require a breather. Refreshment. Lemonade.”
From the far court, the sounds of Bingley’s match carried across the lawn—cheerful and increasingly lopsided. Jane was playing with the quiet, devastating competence she applied to everything, and Mary had discovered that the optimal angle of return was forty-three degrees from the perpendicular, which she announced after every successful shot.
“Forty-three degrees, Jane. I am increasingly confident in the mathematics.”
“You are increasingly confident in everything, Mary, and we are winning, which I suspect is related.”
Bingley, meanwhile, hit every shot to Jane’s side, as if the shuttlecock were a love letter he kept sending to the wrong address. Georgiana compensated with fierce returns and increasing exasperation.
“Mr. Bingley, you are hitting it to Miss Bennet again.”
