Page 63 of Pride and Prejudice Resolutions

"The most beautiful creature?" Darcy repeated.

"An angel," Bingley confirmed, his eyes wide with sincerity. "Miss Ellington. She was dressed as a shepherdess. Or a Greek muse? I am not certain, there was a lot of chiffon. But she smiled at me, Darcy, and I swear, I forgot my own name."

Darcy set his glass down very carefully. The words echoed in his head, bouncing off the walls of memory.

She is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld!

Bingley had said that about Jane Bennet. Standing in the Meryton assembly rooms, sweating in his evening clothes, he had pointed at Jane and declared her the apex of female perfection. He had been ready to lay his heart, his fortune, and his life at her feet.

And now Miss Ellington the Shepherdess was the new Angel.

"Miss Ellington," Darcy said, his voice flat. "What colour are her eyes?"

"Oh, she has magnificent eyes! Blue, I think. Or hazel? I was looking mostly at her smile. She laughed at all my jokes, Darcy. Every single one."

"That is a rare quality," Darcy noted dryly.

"I have danced with her twice now," Bingley continued, oblivious to the temperature drop across the table. "I am thinking of calling on her father. He is a Baronet, you know. Very respectable. Caroline approves. She says Miss Ellington has excellent taste in ribbons."

Darcy looked at his friend. At the amiable, handsome, empty face of Charles Bingley, and felt a sudden, profound exhaustion.

He had spent weeks in self-recrimination. He had lain awake at night, consumed by guilt for separating two true lovers. He had endured Elizabeth's hatred, her scathing words, her righteous fury, all because he believed he had shattered a great romance.

But there was no great romance. There was only Charles Bingley, falling in and out of love with the regularity of the tides.

"You seem quite taken," Darcy observed.

"I am! I truly am. I think this might be it, Darcy. The real thing."

"Like the last time?"

Bingley blinked. "The last time?"

"Netherfield. Miss Bennet."

"Oh!" Bingley waved a hand dismissively. "That was a fancy. A country idyll. Very sweet, of course, but... well, you pointed outthe impropriety. And the lack of affection on her part. It was a lucky escape, really. I see that now."

A lucky escape.

Darcy thought of Jane Bennet. He thought of her sitting in his drawing room that afternoon, pale but dignified, laughing softly at Robert's jokes but with a shadow in her eyes that spoke of deep, quiet hurt. He thought of Elizabeth's fierce defence of her sister, her absolute conviction that Jane's heart was broken.

He had been right, he realised with a jolt of bitter irony. He had told Bingley that he had to leave on a matter of indifference. He had used it as his primary argument. But he had been wrong about the person. Bingley was the indifferent one. Jane was the one who felt deeply.

He had saved Jane Bennet, not Bingley. He had not ruined her happiness. He had saved her from a husband who would have replaced her with a shepherdess the moment she had a headache or the season changed.

It was a victory. So why did it taste like ash?

He knew he should leave it. He should finish his port, wish Bingley luck with his Greek Muse, and go home.

But a demon of perversity—or the ghost of Elizabeth's accusing eyes—pushed him. He had to know. He had to be absolutely certain.

"Funny thing, now that I mentioned Miss Bennet," Darcy said, his voice deceptively casual. He picked up a walnut and cracked it with unnecessary violence.

"Oh?" Bingley looked up from his inspection of his cufflinks.

"Yes. I saw her."

Bingley froze. "You saw her? In Hertfordshire? I thought you were in London."