“The handsome one, Kitty. Do look at the handsome one.”

“I am looking at him.”

“Then why are you staring at Mr. Denny?”

Elizabeth caught Lydia by the elbow before her determination to direct Kitty’s attention took them both into the milliner’s glass. On the opposite pavement stood the officer whose arrival had occupied Meryton since breakfast. By the second morning after the assembly, the promised regiment had begun to appear, and every errand in the town had acquired a military purpose.

“His name is Wickham,” Lydia said. “George Wickham. Aunt Philips says he has the most elegant address imaginable.”

“She told us that at the corner,” Mary replied.

“You were attending to the bookseller.”

“The bookseller allows one to finish a thought.”

Lydia dismissed this unattractive distinction and adjusted the ribbon at her throat in the window’s reflection. “Does it sit better so?”

“It sat very well before,” Jane said.

“Yes, but he was not looking before.”

Mrs. Bennet had recognized Denny. She raised her hand and called across the street with sufficient warmth to bring both gentlemen toward them. A delivery cart obliged the officers to wait at the crossing. The pause gave her daughters time to become interested in entirely different objects.

Jane examined the milliner’s display. Kitty examined Lydia. Mary read a pamphlet she had bought with her own money, and Elizabeth, having neither a pamphlet nor any wish to appear artless, watched the gentlemen approach.

“His boots are new,” Kitty whispered.

“His face is better,” Lydia answered.

“Girls,” their mother said, without lowering her own voice, “pray remember yourselves.”

Mr. Wickham removed his hat. The movement brought his eyes to Elizabeth’s, and she discovered that observing a handsome man was a less secure occupation when he observed her in return.

Denny presented him. Wickham bowed to Mrs. Bennet as though introductions to the mothers of five daughters were among the chief advantages of a commission. Jane received a gentler attention; Lydia and Kitty were included in his smile. When he came to Elizabeth, he seemed to wait for something beyond the usual civility.

She supplied it willingly.

“You have arrived with a considerable reputation, sir,” she said. “I hope Meryton has not exhausted your accomplishments before you have had the opportunity of displaying them.”

“I had no notion my reputation had preceded me. I must endeavor to catch up with it.”

“Aunt Philips says you dance,” Lydia put in.

“Then I am relieved. I can at least verify that report.”

“Every set?”

“With suitable encouragement.”

“Oh, you shall have that.”

Jane touched her sister’s arm. “Mr. Wickham has scarcely been allowed to breathe since his arrival.”

“Pray do not restrain her on my account, Miss Bennet. A newcomer is fortunate to be given something he knows how to do.”

Lydia gave a delighted squeal, then covered it with a cough of such transparent manufacture that Kitty giggled. Wickham looked gravely toward the apothecary.

“Shall I fetch assistance?”

“La, no! It is only the wind.”

“Then we must find you shelter. Denny, were we not charged to present ourselves to Mrs. Philips?”

He had given Lydia a way out without requiring her to be ashamed. Elizabeth liked him for it. She liked, too, the warmth with which he turned back to include her in the exchange.

“I am told it is impossible to be dull in Meryton.”

“By somebody concerned in the town’s reputation.”

“Interested witnesses are often the warmest.”

“Also the least exact.”

“Exactness is a colder virtue. I have had exact friends before. They make excellent accounts and poor evenings.”

The cart had moved on, leaving a wet track through the dust. A groom called to a horse farther up the street; a shop bell rang as somebody emerged beneath a parcel. Elizabeth was drawing aside to let the woman pass when a cheerful voice reached them from the corner.

“Miss Bennet! We hoped to find you abroad.”

Mr. Bingley brought his horse to a walk. Jane’s attention lifted so promptly that Elizabeth wished she could have put a hand between her sister’s face and their mother’s.

Mr. Darcy had checked his horse before Bingley stopped. His eyes were upon Wickham. The officer’s smile held while he put his hat beneath his arm; a flush spread from his collar as Darcy brought his horse level with them.

“A fine morning for a walk,” Bingley said to Jane. “We have been making the most of it ourselves.”

“The lane beyond Longbourn is very pretty now,” she said. “If you have been that way.”

“We shall be obliged to go tomorrow, whether we have or not. I should be sorry to miss it. Denny, good morning. You must make me known to your friend.”

Denny performed the introduction. Bingley leaned forward to offer his hand. Wickham took it with an ease that had returned by the time their names were exchanged.

“Wickham! I have heard a great deal of you. Darcy tells me you are old acquaintances.”

“Very old,” Wickham said.

“How agreeable to come into a neighborhood and find a friend already established. You will have Derbyshire to talk over.”

“Mr. Darcy has many claims upon his time.”

“Darcy? No more than he chooses to invent. I have been trying to persuade him of it since he came.”

“We are delaying the ladies,” Mr. Darcy said.

His horse moved beneath him. He shortened the rein. A rider ought to have been the person most at ease in this gathering; he sat above them all, with the open street before him. Yet Wickham, standing beside the milliner’s step, appeared to possess every convenient way out of the conversation.

“Pray do not hurry on our account,” Elizabeth said. “We were only proposing to visit my aunt.”

Jane glanced at her. Elizabeth knew that glance and chose to misunderstand it.

“Mrs. Philips is at home, Mr. Bingley. She would be very happy to receive you.”

“Very happy indeed,” Mrs. Bennet assured him. “My sister is always at home to agreeable people.”

“We are expected back,” Mr. Darcy said.

“Are we?” Bingley blinked.

“Before luncheon.”

“There is time enough.”

“I have business.”

Bingley looked at him, then at the ladies, and recovered himself with a smile. “My friend will have me punctual in spite of myself. Another day, if Mrs. Philips will be so good.”

Wickham put on his hat. “And Miss Darcy? I hope Pemberley is not too quiet for her without you.”

Darcy’s horse threw its head. The sound of the bit was sharp in the interval before he answered.

“She is well.”

“I am glad. She was always pleased to see an old friend. Pray give her my best remembrance.”

“I will not trouble her with your compliments.”

“Of course.”

Bingley glanced between them. “Miss Darcy is a great musician. Wickham, do you play—”

“Bingley.”

Bingley’s hand tightened on the rein. He bowed to Jane with an apology in his expression and turned his horse. Mr. Darcy acknowledged the party and followed him.

Elizabeth watched them go. If Mr. Darcy considered concern for his sister an impertinence, his friendships must be difficult things to maintain. Yet there had been something startling in the force of his reply, and Wickham was watching the riders with his hat brim held low against the light.

Jane addressed Denny before their mother could do so.

“You mentioned my aunt was expecting you. Shall we walk on?”

Mrs. Bennet took the invitation upon herself. Lydia attached herself to Denny with a question about the regiment’s next assembly, and the party divided to pass a barrow standing across the pavement. Elizabeth slowed to allow Mary past. When the way cleared, Wickham was beside her.

She matched his pace.

“You have known Mr. Darcy a long time?”

“All my life.”

“Then I am sorry you cannot persuade him to make better use of his acquaintance.”

He smiled, but she had to wait for it. “Some acquaintances are better remembered than renewed.”

“Including his sister?”

“Miss Darcy was a child when I knew her best. I ought perhaps to have remembered that her brother dislikes inquiries into his family.”

It was a reasonable admission. It also left Mr. Darcy in possession of all the severity she had witnessed.

They passed beneath a projecting sign, its iron bracket creaking as the wind lifted it. Wickham moved to the outer edge of the pavement when a rider came too near. His sleeve brushed Elizabeth’s arm as she drew in. The contact was brief, ordinary, and sufficient to make her aware of the space she left between them afterward.

“You are acquainted with Pemberley, I suppose,” she said.

“I was brought up there. My father was steward to the late Mr. Darcy.”

“The families were very close, then?”

“The old gentleman was the best of men. He took an interest in my education that I shall always remember with gratitude.”

They had reached Mrs. Philips’s steps. Lydia was waving to someone at the window, and their mother called for Elizabeth to come forward.

“And the present Mr. Darcy?” Elizabeth asked.

Wickham offered his hand to assist her over a broken edge of the step.

“We are not friends, Miss Elizabeth. I believe you have seen as much.”

“Mr. Darcy has already made me uncomfortable at an assembly. I am learning to survive him in different places.”

“I heard something of that.”

“Meryton is thorough with its old inhabitants too.”

His hand remained ready for hers. “I cannot account for a man who looks at you and finds occasion to be uncivil.”

Her hand rested in his a moment longer than the uneven step required.

“You give me courage to be excessively vain.”

“I hope you will remember who encouraged you.”

He stood aside for her to enter.

Mrs. Philips had a good fire, a card table, and the happy belief that every officer admitted to her house improved its prospects. She received the party with delight. Denny was sent to bring forward another chair; Lydia found the sugar tongs and began to explain how nearly she had been deprived of seeing Wickham by Mary’s wish to visit the bookseller.

“A pamphlet,” she told her aunt, as though the offense required no further account.

“It contains a song you asked me to find,” Mary said.

Lydia turned. “Does it? Why did you not say so? You might have bought two. Kitty will only want to borrow mine.”

“It is mine.”

“You are very particular today.”

Elizabeth took a chair near the card table. Wickham had been captured by her aunt and was answering questions about his quarters. She watched his attention move around the room as he spoke, offering each person enough to feel included. When it reached her, she held it.

He came over as soon as her aunt paused for breath.

“You have survived my introduction to Meryton. I fear it has been a long one.”

“We are thorough with strangers. It saves trouble afterward.”

“Then I ought to dread your final opinion.”

“You may improve your prospects by taking the chair.”

He sat beside her. The fire had warmed his coat; she caught the scent of wool as he leaned nearer to hear over the first dispute at cards.

“We shall play for pennies,” Mrs. Philips announced. “No fortunes lost in this house, gentlemen.”

“I am glad to hear it,” Wickham said. “My new profession has yet to make mine.”

“You speak as though you had intended another,” Elizabeth said.

He turned a card face up, found it was one her aunt wanted, and passed it across the table. “I was educated for the church. There was to have been a living upon the Darcy estate — a parish to serve, with an income sufficient for a clergyman to marry.”

“There was?”

“The late Mr. Darcy wished it. He spoke of it often enough that I allowed myself to believe it certain.”

Across the room her aunt called for a marker. Wickham found one beneath the cards and passed it to her with a smile. Elizabeth waited until the room’s attention had returned to play.

“Was it not put in writing?”

“There were recommendations. Expressions of a wish. I learned afterward how much may depend upon the person charged with interpreting such things.”

“Mr. Darcy?”

He inclined his head.

“And you were given nothing?”

“An education which fitted me for a profession I was unable to enter upon, and the obligation of being grateful for it.”

He smiled as he said it. Elizabeth found that more affecting than an open complaint. He had been taught to expect a place, then made to feel presumptuous for asking to occupy it. Her own mortification at the assembly became a very slight injury beside it, and a useful confirmation of the man who had caused both.

“It was infamous.”

“You are generous to think so.”

“I am merely just.”

“Then I have found a virtue I must endeavor to deserve.”

He said it with his eyes upon her. She had never found it difficult to meet a gentleman’s gaze before; now she glanced toward Jane and discovered her sister was occupied with a question from their aunt. She could return to Wickham without being observed by anyone whose opinion she cared to consult.

“You need not make light of it for me,” she said.

“I should prefer to give you a pleasant afternoon.”

“You may trust me to know when I have had one.”

His smile broadened, and she had the pleasure of believing she had surprised him.

Lydia called from the card table. “Mr. Wickham, do say whether Kitty ought to have played that. She declares she forgot what was trumps, but she remembers whenever it suits her.”

He settled the dispute in Kitty’s favor and endured Lydia’s indignation with such good humor that she invited him to advise her next hand. Elizabeth drew her chair aside to let him see the cards. He brought his own closer, leaving them both within the circle of play.

“You will come to Mr. Bingley’s ball, I hope,” she said when Lydia was occupied.

“Is there to be one?”

“He has spoken of it too often to escape us now.”

“Then I should like to attend. Darcy may make it difficult for our host.”

“Surely Mr. Bingley can choose his own guests.”

“He can. I should be sorry to make an old friendship uncomfortable.”

“I shall speak to him,” she said.

“For me?”

“For his freedom of choice. You may enjoy the consequence.”

“I shall owe you my evening, then.”

“Only a dance. I should dislike so great a debt.”

He bent his head toward hers. “That one I shall be very happy to pay.”

Lydia demanded his attention again. He answered her without moving his chair away, and Elizabeth left her own where she had placed it.