An Assembly Such as This by Pamela Aidan Page B

bounded, and Darcy continued on his way, quickening his pace. He caught up with the others just as the hound returned, proudly bearing his treasure securely in his jaws.
    “I say, Darcy, your dog must be of extraordinary use to you. Mine will retrieve only game, while yours provides for the fire to cook it as well!” quipped one of the gentlemen standing with Bingley. The group laughed genially, Darcy joining them.
    “Gentlemen, this has been a most agreeable morning’s work,” said Bingley, pausing with pleasure as he was interrupted by several hear, hears. “Thank you…my pleasure.” He nodded back, acknowledging their accolades. “I, for one, have found it to have worked up a considerable appetite. Shall we turn back and see what my cook has deemed appropriate provender for gentlemen returned from a successful morning’s hunt?”
    Hefting his weapon over his shoulder, Darcy recalled his dog from his intense perusal of the prized stick and turned back toward Netherfield. A clap on his other shoulder brought his head around sharply, but he relaxed immediately when he realized it was Bingley coming up behind him.
    “What do you think?” his friend asked in a whisper as they tarried behind the others. “May I report my mission accomplished to my sisters?”
    “Without question,” Darcy assured him, and added with a wry smile, “Take care you do not stand for a seat in Parliament next election, for you will surely win if you continue as you have begun!”
    Bingley laughed heartily, then leaned toward Darcy conspiratorially. “I have it on reliable authority that the family of a certain young woman has also accepted an invitation to dine at the squire’s tomorrow evening. And,” he continued, blind to the martial light that appeared in Darcy’s eyes in response to his news, “while it is
likely
that we may find them at the Kings’, it is
certain
that they will be at the colonel’s, for the youngest daughter, I have learned, is a particular friend of the colonel’s wife.”
    “You have neglected to mention the assembly at Sir William’s. Why is that, I wonder?” Darcy decided that Bingley’s ballooning exuberance could stand a judiciously delivered pricking.
    “Oh, I knew that they would be included at the assembly,” Bingley replied, oblivious to the intent of the question. “
I
wonder you did not notice that Miss Elizabeth Bennet and Miss Lucas are fast friends! They are often in each other’s company.” Bingley shook his head incredulously at Darcy. “Really, Darcy, you are usually more observant!”
    Darcy snorted at Bingley’s naïveté but forbore to correct his misapprehension.
So, Miss Elizabeth, we are to be continually thrown into each other’s society?
he thought.
What will be your next tack, I wonder.
Bingley moved away to rejoin the other gentlemen, leaving Darcy to contemplate what forces he would need to marshal for tomorrow night’s engagement.

    By the end of the evening at Squire Justin’s, Darcy knew himself to be thoroughly routed. Nothing had gone as he expected. Eschewing any form of strong drink that day to ensure himself a clear head, he had come prepared to parry wit and grace with his disturbing adversary. If the opportunity arose and all went well, he also intended to offer her his apology. Neither was to be.
    Looking back, he realized he should have known that an evening beginning as inauspiciously as this one had could never, once in motion, be recouped. They had arrived at the squire’s more than fashionably late due to some detail of Miss Bingley’s dress that displeased her at the very last moment. They were further encumbered by the unfortunate throwing of a horseshoe by the carriage’s team leader, necessitating a slower than usual passage through the countryside. The muskiness of Mrs. Hurst’s perfume, which seemed to pervade the carriage, was nigh on giving him a headache, so that by the time they had finally gained their host’s drawing room, Darcy was