Page 100 of When Elizabeth's Cat Chose Darcy
“You do. Elizabeth taught me, and I am teaching you, and you are going to dance a jig in Mrs. Bennet’s drawing room in a wet coat, and it is going to be the least dignified thing you have done in your entire life, and you are going to survive it.”
He looked at her, and he laughed. It was the same laugh I had heard in the lane when we stood holding a ruined bonnet between us after the business with the pig, and the hearing of it now, in this room, made me start smiling again
Brother and sister turned around the room, freely and naturally. He let her lead, a man releasing something he had been gripping for years, and the drawing room contracted around them as they turned.
She danced him around me, turning and skipping and then, when I found myself bouncing to the jaunty tune, she placed her brother’s hand in the air between us and stepped back, her eyes glinting with mischief, as if to say,I brought him here. The rest is yours.
And Darcy stood, wet coat and ruined cravat, hair in his eyes, andhe bowed. “Miss Elizabeth. May I have this dance?” as if requesting a dance at the finest ball in London.
I curtsied in my wrinkled dress, my hair loose, flowing down my back, and my sleeves still wet from assisting Georgiana’s bath.
“You may, Mr. Darcy.”
And this—was the yes I had saved for him. And so we danced, and I did not say anything clever. I laughed, and I spun, we held hands and hooked arms, and this was the way life should be.
Fun.
