Mrs Bennet presided over this with sharp eyes and dry cheeks. She said nothing more, her silence the loudest approval she had ever given.
Just as they were moving to sit in the parlour, a knock came at the front door, and Kitty rushed to answer. Elizabeth heard the voice before she saw the face—warm, carrying, pitched to fill a room or a battlefield with equal ease.
“Good afternoon. Colonel Fitzwilliam. I am Mr Darcy’s cousin. I was in Cheapside on an errand and commandeered your sister’s carriage. I come bearing no gifts and no excuse.”
Kitty, who had opened the door expecting the grocer’s boy, stood blinking at six feet of broad-shouldered gentleman in a dark green coat. She recovered with admirable speed.
“I am Miss Catherine, Colonel. But you may call me Kitty. Catherine is reserved by my mother for when I am in trouble.”
Richard laughed—full, startled, delighted—and Kitty’s chin lifted, gratified.
“Miss Kitty, then. Forgive the presumption. Is your sister ready, or shall I be put to work?”
Colonel Fitzwilliam filled the narrow hallway the way sunlight filled a window: completely, without effort, making the space around him seem designed for his presence rather than too small for it. He had his hat in one hand and a paper-wrapped parcel under his arm, which contradicted the claim of bearing no gifts, but the Colonel had never let accuracy interfere with a good entrance.
Kitty stepped aside and he ducked through the low doorframe, straightening to his full height in the parlour. He wore a civilian coat of dark green, well-cut, his boots polished but scuffed at the heel. Off duty, and comfortable in it.
He surveyed the room. Elizabeth watched him register the cramped dimensions, the patched curtains, the scrubbed floor, the table still bearing the evidence of tea and bread. He registered all of it and nothing showed on his face. Richard Fitzwilliam had bivouacked in Spanish barns and Portuguese cellars and had eaten his supper on a cannon barrel. A modest parlour in Somers Town did not alarm him.
Kitty took charge of the introductions.
“Mrs Bennet.” He bowed to the matriarch—a proper bow, unabridged, as if she were receiving him at Longbourn. “A pleasure. I hope you will forgive the intrusion.”
Mrs Bennet’s eyes narrowed. She assessed him up and down, paying attention to his coat, teeth, and left hand. The coat was expensive, the teeth sound, and the left hand bore no ring.
“Colonel Fitzwilliam. You are welcome.” She gestured to a chair. “Sit. You will have tea, of course.”
Richard accepted the cup she poured and drank it without complaint, though Elizabeth suspected it was stronger than he preferred. He set the parcel on the table.
“Biscuits,” he confessed. “From a bakery on Cheapside. I was told they were the finest in London, though the baker may have been biased, as he was the one selling them.”
Kitty opened the parcel. Almond biscuits, golden-brown, dusted with sugar. She inhaled over them and her eyes widened.
“These are extravagant, Colonel.”
“Nonsense. Extravagant is a dozen. That is merely six. I ate the seventh in the carriage. My character is not as strong as my appetite.”
Mary, who had not raised her head from her book during the Colonel’s arrival, spoke without turning the page. “A man who confesses his weaknesses before being asked is either very honest or very strategic, Colonel.”
Richard grinned. “Miss Mary, I have been called both in the same breath, usually by my commanding officer.”
“And were you court-martialled?”
“Twice. Acquitted both times. The evidence was insufficient and the prosecution lacked imagination.”
Mary’s mouth did not curve, but her eyes lifted from the page, briefly and approving. She returned to her book. The Colonel had passed a test he did not know he was sitting.
He turned again to Mrs Bennet. He asked about the house—not with patronising interest but with genuine curiosity. Mrs Bennet answered with precision, and they had a pleasant conversation about chimneys.
Elizabeth watched her mother talk to the Colonel and saw a version of her that she had almost forgotten. Not the shrill, nervy woman of Longbourn, nor the grim survivor of Somers Town, but a woman who enjoyed conversation, who warmed under polite attention. Who had, beneath the sharp eyes and the rationed candles, a wit that had not died but merely gone dormant for lack of an audience.
Kitty had drawn the Colonel into a debate about whether almonds or walnuts made superior biscuits. She was animated, flushed, leaning forward across the table with the restless energy that had been folded inward for years and was now, in the presence of a man who teased without cruelty, unfurling. The Colonel argued the walnut position with mock solemnity and no conviction whatsoever.
Jane emerged from the kitchen.
She carried one of their good plates. On it she had arranged three of the Colonel’s biscuits alongside thin slices of bread and butter, fanned in a pattern that was not necessary and was entirely Jane. She had taken his gift and made it beautiful, as was her custom. She always brought out the best in the materials at hand, quietly, without being asked.
“Colonel Fitzwilliam.” She set the plate before him. “You must try one of your own biscuits properly presented. They deserved better than a paper wrapper.”