I am so, so sorry it has taken this long to update... grad school and life in general have swallowed me up and spit me out a few times this year, but I promise I am trying to keep up with this story. Clearly, I'm not doing the best job of it! Do forgive me, as Mrs. Bennet would say. You'll be happy to know that part of what brought me back was the series Sanditon that was shown recently in the UK. I'm sorry, but can Theo James be any more attractive? I think not. I want to write for Sidney and Charlotte for the same reason everyone else is doing so - Andrew Davies and his damn realistic ending. Damn, damn, damn...

You might ask how I was able to view this series given that I live in the US and not the UK and it hasn't aired here yet... but you all are a smart lot. I'm sure you can figure it out. Do yourself a favor and see it. You won't regret it, but be careful of unscrupulous websites. Just sayin'.

Reviews give me life and encourage me to keep writing! This chapter will probably be updated as I edit though, so please ignore any mistakes for the time being. I just wanted to get something up.

Even if you don't review, please enjoy! :o)

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Nervousness was not in the retinue of Darcy's emotions. While some with a temperament similar to individuals such as Charles Bingley might be plagued by sweaty palms and a quivering stomach when anxious, Darcy was not. Rarely did he stumble for words or feel the need to occupy trembling hands. Pacing was an activity not in his nature, at least not when undertaken for the alleviation of nerves. Impatient pacing was altogether different, after all. No, Darcy's actions were deliberate, controlled and reasonable.

At least, that is what he told himself.

Rather, that is what he would have liked to believe about himself, if he had his druthers. So dearly did he want to believe that he had enough control over the exterior expression of his emotions, he was generally successful no matter his true feelings. In other words, believing it made it so.

Or, again… so he liked to believe. Fortunately, he was mostly correct. He wore many subtle masks and wore them well.

Then again, he would also have liked to believe that seeing Wickham once more wouldn't have reduce him to running (or riding full speed atop his poor horse, as was the case) flat out in the opposite direction.

And we saw how well that played out, didn't we? You made an utter fool of yourself.

Now, if pressed, he would admit to a small amount of anxiety related to certain social engagements but would staunchly deny that its defining characteristics could be described as nervousness. He disliked balls and dancing in general (for reasons previously stated) which made for a certain anxiousness of mind. He still would not say that attending a ball made him nervous, just as dancing did not make him nervous by itself. It gave them too much power, too much consequence, too much entirely for one who called himself the Master of an estate such as Pemberley.

If anything, when he was of a mind to do so, he thought himself rather a good dancer.

However, along with several lessons he was unwittingly in the process of learning, Fitzwilliam Darcy was coming to the belated realization that his ideas about the world to which he belonged and schools of thought to which he was accustomed were not as simple and orderly as he would have liked. In short, he did not know all he thought he did and he certainly did not know everything. The education he thought long complete by dint of his age was, as the universe would have it, still missing several vital pieces.

For example, the nerves he would have, until recently, claimed he rarely experienced seem to have ferociously awoken in their own right in an alarmingly short time frame. It was as if the worst of them had been lying in wait for the majority of his twenty-eight years to rear up at the most inopportune moment possible.

More specifically, they must have been waiting for his attention to be genuinely engaged by a woman. Said engagement was apparently the signal for surreptitious nerves to awaken with an almighty roar that shook the foundations of all he knew to be true about himself.

All this to say that mere hours before the Netherfield ball started, Darcy was experiencing nervous feelings of an intensity he never had before, if his memory were reliable. Even if his memory happened to be failing him, in truth, it made no difference. He could not sit still, found himself wanting to pace the floor, and had to (casually) utilize a handkerchief to dry damp hands on more that one occasion. Due to this, he waited as long as possible to change clothes for the ball so as to keep from sullying his shirt and cravat with odious sweat.

To say the least, he was not best pleased by any of this, expressly since the day before had seen him in relatively normal spirits.

Pull yourself together, for goodness sake.

He'd meticulously spent the last full day before the ball narrowing down what he wanted to relate to Elizabeth about Wickham and how to go about telling her this information during the course of one dance. This meant he needed to choose his words specifically to ensure the message came across because it might very well be his only opportunity. A dance only lasted so long and he did not want to enflame the expectations of her family by asking for a second simply because he forgot to impart something of import.

On some level, he wished it were possible to simply corner Elizabeth and advise her something to the effect of, "Wickham is not what he appears to be — he is a rake of the worst sort and you should remove yourself from his presence post-haste," but he knew better than to think that would work.

If anything, it would make her hate him even more than she seemed to already.

The due course of this focus on the discussion soon to be at hand served as a more than adequate distraction; any anxiety he might have had regarding the ball was suppressed by this consideration. He went to bed the night before feeling fairly secure in what was going to happen the next day. He would speak to Elizabeth by asking her to dance early, take that time to tell her about Wickham and spend the rest of the evening observing Bingley and Miss Bennet to get a better sense of their attachment to each other.

Simple enough.

In light of this, the fact that he was once again going to be in Elizabeth's bodily presence had (strangely) gone overlooked, no doubt some sort of defense mechanism that had allowed him one more day of peace before he saw her again. This is not to say that he didn't know she needed to be present in order to both dance with and speak to her, but rather, he did not take into consideration that he, himself… physically… was going to be near this woman again.

A woman about whom he'd been dreaming. A woman who would be dressed in her best white finery. A woman whose touch he could not forget and simultaneously resented because he did not understand and could not anticipate the reactions of his own body. A woman he would now have a perfectly legitimate and appropriate reason to touch during the course of a dance.

He could only pray she would be wearing gloves.

He rather hoped she wouldn't.

Good lord. This is ridiculous.

For whatever reason, thinking about the situation in quite that way had failed to intrude upon his senses until he woke up morning of the ball.

Upon waking, intrude upon him it did and in high style.

Dear god… I'm going to purposefully dance with Elizabeth Bennet tonight. I'm going to touch her again, be close enough to look in her eyes, read her expression...

Following this thought were several ungentlemanly curses that need not be repeated. Given the level of Darcy's disquiet, one must forgive him.

Indeed, from the moment he opened his own eyes that morning, it dropped on him like a stone from above, directly on the heels of waking from yet another licentious dream that seemed unduly centered on Elizabeth's hands — more specifically, her hands on his body. Hands running through his hair, untying his cravat, unbuttoning his coat, gliding along his cheek, even movements as innocuous as brushing lint from his person filled his head for what felt like the entire night, not to mention her lithe fingers teasing him in other, unmentionable areas.

Nothing else, it seemed, could occupy his thoughts for long; he felt slightly sick to his stomach and found his heart racing now and then with the tantalizing possibility of feeling her skin again.

You'd think I've literally never felt the touch of a woman before, he groused to himself bitterly.

Fortunately, the Netherfield household, staff excluded, spent much of the day resting up for the evening's frivolity. Darcy was perfectly content with spending much of the late morning and afternoon alone, considering his face felt flushed for the better part of several hours after leaving his bed. He couldn't seem to get the dreams out of his head to an extent that hadn't afflicted him in some time. In fact, he awoke in a state unlike anything he'd experienced since his youth, one that embarrassed him more than he could ever (or would ever) say.

It was odd, indeed, that his dreams that night had produced such a condition, for he had definitively envisioned far steamier scenarios. The more he thought on it (for he had little choice in the matter, so he might as well try to figure the thing out) the more he concluded it had to have happened because of a key change. This most recent dream being the only one in which he remembered Elizabeth being the initiator of requiting their desire for one another.

Their dream selves' desire, that is.

In his nighttime imaginings, her hand grabbed his own hurriedly as she led him to what had to be a the shared sitting room between the two bedchambers traditionally used by the Master and Mistress of Pemberly. Lustily, she kissed him the moment the door clicked shut, moving him towards the settee that sat before a fireplace blazing with cheerful heat. Gripping his jacket, she urged him to sit with a forceful shove before straddling his lap with hiked skirts. In the dream, there was nothing underneath but stockings and chemise.

He hands slid underneath her clothing, the discovery of her skin making him moan as he explored her legs and hips, reveling in any chance he got to touch a part of her that was not only normally clothed, but also never touched by anyone other than the two of them. Even as he found her wet and ready, her eagerness had her reaching between them, pulling the front of his shirt free with a sure but trembling touch. He cried out again as she freed him from the confines of his breeches and enveloped him with no preamble, silencing him with her mouth and stealing his breath at the ferocity of her need for him.

What followed was a rushing frenzy that rocked him to the core both in the dream and without, and left him sticky and bereft upon the dream's conclusion in the real world. Never before had the dreams resulted in so dramatic an impact on his body. At least, he equivocated, it hadn't happened in such a distinctly... adolescent way.

Due to this, he felt perfectly justified in breaking his fast in his rooms rather than joining the Bingleys. Nothing short of having this occur at Rosings and in the vicinity of his Aunt Catherine could have left him more mortified than the idea of facing the Bingleys after this indignity. He could only be grateful Joseph would be the only one who could potentially notice his heightened state of… agitation. And even that was horrifying.

Otherwise, he felt quite convinced, no matter how illogical, no matter how foolish, the truth would invariably be written upon his face.

He took Admiral on a brief and calm ride in the early afternoon and spent the rest catching up on correspondence and paperwork in the library. Fortunately for his state of mind, Caroline Bingley put in no appearance whatsoever and her brother only popped in briefly to say hello and, likely, to get a respite from the preparatory madness that had enveloped his sister.

For when Darcy finally exited the library to begin his personal preparations for the ball, he noticed more than one servant rushing down the hallway as fast as they could go without running. Each of them looked harried in what he suspected was a unique reaction to the lady of this particular house — a lady whose voice he could hear loudly exclaiming from down the hall that someone was daft to think she meant for that to go there and to get it out of her sight immediately.

Darcy quickly made his way to his rooms using a circuitous route with the single object of avoiding that part of the house lest he be somehow drafted into moving tables and chairs about. Though he thought it unlikely, he did not trust Caroline not to rope him into activity with which he had no desire to help.

It had hardly escaped his notice that she did tend to behave far more solicitously toward him than other people.

Fortunately exempt from greeting guests at a house than was not his own, Darcy took his time with his ablutions and made his way downstairs only after the arrivals had begun. Even then, he hung back for a time on the first level where he could see the comings and goings of carriages, phaetons and curricles scurrying up and away from the lower doors.

He tried his utmost to avoid thinking of the fact that the first time he had felt Elizabeth's skin was when she was departing in her family's carriage near the same set of lower doors.

He failed utterly. Instead, the moment played over and over in his mind, the memory of her hand in his sending the same sensations coursing through him, making him feel simultaneously hot and cold. Unconsciously, he rubbed the same offending fingertips together that had contact with her, as he remembered how completely uprooted he'd felt afterward.

In an effort to avoid thinking of this, he watched the flames of the large fires in front of the house grow brighter as dusk descended and more people arrived than he had previously thought lived in all of Meryton. Indeed, it seemed as though the invitation had been extended to the whole of Hertfordshire given the number and variety of equipage gracing the front drive of Netherfield that evening.

Still, he had to admit that the spectacle was impressive — ladies dressed in varying shades of white and cream next to men dressed either in regimental red or black and white coattails — the combination was pleasing to the eye and certainly lent a modicum of class that had been sadly lacking at the Meryton Assembly Rooms.

His first clue that the Bennets had arrived came in the sound of Mrs. Bennet's voice carrying above the hum of conversation in the stairwell. Somehow he'd missed the arrival of their carriage. He could not hear her words until he started down the stairs, but recognized her grating pitch nonetheless. As he approached, it became clear that she was speaking of Charles and Miss Bennet, effusive once again in her praise of them both as the most wonderful creatures ever to fancy one another.

Then, he saw her.

Standing in the center of the foyer was the object of Darcy's thoughts, achingly lovely in a filmy white dress that emphasized the elegant length of her unadorned neck. The small pearls gracing her hair looked like drops of snow that dared not melt into her carefully curled coiffure. Her skin gleamed against the sea of white around her and he swallowed hard upon seeing she had, once again, eschewed gloves. Vaguely, he knew hers to be an older style of gown but could not imagine one that could more perfectly emphasize her natural beauty. He'd have been unsurprised to find that Titania herself wore such a gown.

Elizabeth looked around the room with a searching gaze, not only taking in her surroundings, but clearly looking for someone. The uncomfortable lurch of his heart against his ribs told him she was likely looking for Wickham.

Damn the man.

Once again, he counted himself grateful for the amassed crowd, praying it would keep her from finding Wickham before Darcy could secure a dance with her. As such, he watched as she gathered her skirts and turned to make her way back down the length of the hall.

Stepping behind her, he intended to get her attention so as to reserve the first dance but found himself completely arrested by the small curls of hair resting against the nape of her neck. He mind went blank except for an overwhelming urge to nuzzle his nose there as he had countless times in slumber.

Fortunately, his sense of self-preservation once again took over, directing his steps to follow her for only a moment before veering off into a doorway nearest his left. He stepped into the next room and paused, silently cursing his inability to retain his composure so soon after being in her presence again. So consumed was he by these thoughts that he failed to secure the first dance with her.

When next he spied her, she was standing with Miss Lucas, Miss Bennet, and a very short, odd looking man who appeared to be doing what Darcy had hoped to do himself. He watched with a frown as the man made a strange movement by rising to his toes before looking down at them as he spoke. There was no reference in his memory as to the identity of this man; Darcy was certain he did not know him, and yet something about the man tickled the edge of his memory.

From the side the room, he watched the first dance progress and felt something inside him relax as he took in the obvious humor on Elizabeth's face as she fought to keep from laughing at the small man's antics. Though he hadn't taken the notion seriously, it had crossed his mind that this man could represent another rival suitor for her attentions. Then he caught himself.

You are not Elizabeth's anything — other than acquaintance — and certainly not her suitor! The thought made his jaw and his stomach clench tightly.

After this, he decided to stop lurking at the edges of that particular room in favor of another. He kept his ear tuned to the song to which Elizabeth was dancing so he could mark its ending and find her when it had finished.

While he waited, he steeled himself for the necessary task of finding Wickham and somehow trying to prevent him from getting to Elizabeth first. In truth, he had no idea how to handle such a maneuver; he could only hope providence would be on his side and this time Wickham would be the one to turn tail.

It took him several minutes to traverse the handful of rooms being utilized for the ball. Though they were small in number, their size more than made up the majority of Netherfield's main floor. As casual as he tried to be, he knew each group of red-coated men probably wondered why on earth he was scowling at them for no apparent reason.

Finally, it hit him — Wickham was nowhere to be seen because he wasn't there at all. He had, in essence, turned tail by staying away, thereby allowing Darcy time to disseminate any information about him he wished.

Why, I could ruin his reputation in one night with a few well placed words in the right ears, Darcy marveled. And I would have done if it didn't also expose Georgiana. How like him to avoid the inherent messiness of having a shred of integrity.

It was at that moment that he noted the cessation of music for which he'd been waiting. Quickly, he headed toward the room across the hall where the dancing was held, relieved to have one stressor eliminated from his night.

And now to face the most vexing source of anxiety.

Elizabeth Bennet.

Knowing he was about to have to speak to her made his heart start to pound all over again. It's increased rhythm in his chest was only made faster hearing that sound he would recognize anywhere, no matter how large the crowd.

It was the same sound that arrested him once before — that of Elizabeth's laughter.

He saw her toward the end of the dance floor with her friend Miss Lucas, the two of them lost in giggles he suspected had something to do with Elizabeth's erstwhile dance partner. Arm in arm, they swung around the door at the other end of the room that let out into the front of the entry hall.

Darcy planted himself in their path so they would have no choice but to acknowledge him.

"Oh!" Elizabeth exclaimed upon nearly running into him. Genuine dismay sliced through him at watching her face go deliberately blank when she realized who was in front of her. A pause stretched almost too long as Darcy struggled to remember why he was, in fact, standing in her way. At last, he spoke.

"May I have the next dance, Miss Elizabeth?" He asked, pleased with the steadiness of his voice. The feeling did not last; he was so close to her he could plainly see the struggle behind her eyes. A part of her desperately wanted to say no or to be outright rude to him but he banked on her good manners preventing any such response.

He was right. Charlotte Lucas worked to suppress a smile at her friend's predicament.

"You may," Elizabeth finally spoke woodenly, with a confused resignation in her eyes. It could not have been more clear in that moment just how little she truly wished to dance with him.

No matter. All I need is for her to listen to what I have to say, Darcy reminded himself. It matters not if she enjoys dancing with me.

The infernal voice in the back of his mind, however, whispered that it wasn't true and the disappointment he felt confirmed it. He bowed hastily, taking his leave to find a place before the dance began.

Elizabeth and Miss Lucas disappeared briefly before the former joined the line of women opposite their partners on the dance floor. Upon her face was a carefully crafted attitude of nonchalance. Standing across from her, Darcy did his best to remember the speech he, too, spent time crafting with care. It started, Miss Elizabeth, I asked you to dance to discuss your association with Mr. Wickham…

But try as he might, with Elizabeth now standing before him, his recollection was entirely blank beyond those opening words. Instead, he was again enthralled by the lovely length of her neck where he had pressed numerous kisses during the night in his dreams.

Damn it — To discuss your association with Wickham and — what comes next? He cursed to himself in desperation.

Occupied as he was with racking his mind for the next words, he failed to say anything at all as the dance began. Sure enough, the moment their hands connected, the familiar tingling fire spread from the tips of his fingers upward and his focus was instantly absorbed by the sensation.

Such was his attention to her, the moment Elizabeth spoke, his reply came quickly after, much to the surprise of both.

"I love this dance," she intoned flatly.

"Indeed. Most invigorating," came out of his mouth. He wanted to wince at how lifeless and stiff he sounded. Invigorating?! That is the best you can do?

The dance wasn't even a particularly lively one.

Another silence.

"It's your turn to say something, Mr. Darcy," Elizabeth prodded. "I talked about the dance. Now you ought to remark on the size of the room or the number of couples." The urge to roll his eyes was powerful. Again, she took it upon herself to opine on his behavior. If she wished to play a game in which impertinence was the currency, he was all too ready. In fact, it made the nerves jumping around in his stomach calm some, and burned away the fog in his mind as the sparring began.

"I'm perfectly happy to oblige. Please advise me of what you'd like most to hear," he returned. Hah, he thought with triumph.

"That reply will do for present," she supplied instantly, with that infernal arching of her brows in amusement. His triumph crashed down heavily.

He had no idea what to do with such a statement. Exactly how is she so good at this?

Another pause stretched.

"Perhaps by and by, I may observe that private balls are much pleasanter than public ones. For now we may remain silent." This was altogether too much. He needed to say something rather than let her continue to narrate her way through the nature of having a conversation while dancing, while they were actually in the process of dancing.

Again, he found himself wishing she would just behave in a manner he expected. Why did she insist on unsettling him at every turn?

"Do you talk, as a rule, while dancing?" He wanted to know; also he could think of nothing else to say.

"No," she smiled, a quick lifting of the corners of her lips that threatened to arouse him. "No, I prefer to be unsociable and taciturn. It makes it all so much more enjoyable, don't you think?" Now she had moved on to teasing him outright.

You don't want to know what I think about, Lizzie. The thought sizzled unbidden in his head as he tried valiantly to avoid thinking of the very dream he'd awoken with that morning.

The dance was progressing more quickly than he anticipated and he had yet to even mention Wickham's name. He scrambled to create an opening that would allow him to broach the subject.

"Tell me, do you and your sisters very often walk to Meryton?" A good, and innocent enough, question.

"Yes, we often walk to Meryton." Elizabeth responded with just enough defiance to suggested she knew exactly why he was asking. "It's a great opportunity to meet new people. In fact, when you met us, we'd just had the pleasure of forming a new acquaintance." Ah, here it was — his opportunity, at last.

What happened next would be the subject of many sleepless nights Darcy was to face in the months to come. Despite the favorable opening in the conversation, he couldn't quite work it to his advantage and would somehow realize, only later, how thoroughly he bungled the entire thing. In his defense, it all happened so fast, he couldn't be certain of what he'd been thinking while the rest of the conversation actually happened.

"Mr. Wickham is blessed with such happy manners, he is sure of making friends," he agreed. "Whether he is capable of retaining them is less certain." True enough, but vague and certainly less than a warning.

"He's been so unfortunate as to lose your friendship." Elizabeth, it seemed, had been waiting for an opening of her own and jumped on it with gusto. "And I dare say that is an irreversible event?" The steps of the dance spun them to face each other and Darcy stopped cold.

"It is. Why do you ask such a question?" The words were forceful, sharp. Elizabeth's chin tipped up stubbornly, not giving an inch.

"To make out your character, Mr. Darcy."

"And what have you discovered?"

"Very little. I hear such different accounts of you as to puzzle me exceedingly."

"I hope to afford you more clarity in the future." The words were spoken sincerely but from a place he could not name and for which he had no explanation. They suggested he wanted Elizabeth to know him better, to see him clearly rather than through a lens of other peoples' expectations. He had no idea why he said them in quite they way he did and would come to spend much time pondering over the tenderness of his tone in this one statement.

An otherworldly feeling gripped him then and the room melted away as the two of them revolved around each other, the steps of the dance causing them to ebb and flow like the sea in a give and take that suddenly seemed every bit as natural as the tide. It was as if dancing with Elizabeth transported him somehow to a place where only the two of them moved around the room as stringed instruments thrummed a haunting melody he would find himself humming now and then in idle moments. They might well have stepped into one of his dreams given the way he felt then, aroused and painfully aware of her presence, her eyes on him, her body and the feeling that they had most certainly done this before.

It was fortunate his body remembered the steps because the next thing Darcy became fully aware of was applause breaking out amongst the two lines of dancers. He could only describe the time in between as something of a fugue state in which only he and Elizabeth existed. Try as he might, he couldn't seem to organize his thoughts in the usual manner that would have had him castigating himself for overly romanticizing the moment.

Though it was difficult to tell, Darcy suspected the dance had discomfited Elizabeth more than she would have liked, too. They both clapped half-heartedly for the musicians before Elizabeth dropped a slow and deliberate curtsy before walking away.

Darcy was hard pressed to say just exactly what the hell had just happened but one thing he knew for certain was actually quite simple.

When it came to warning Elizabeth about Wickham's true nature, he had failed utterly.

The rest of the ball sped by in a blur of black, white, and red, punctuated by more unseemly happenings than he'd ever had cause to experience in the space of one event. (This was most certainly not accurate, given the predilections of some of London's high society, but any other such examples fled his mind in the moment. Let it not go unnoticed that more money one has the more judiciously bad manners may be treated.) All in all, it added up to an evening of ridiculous behavior that could not have convinced Darcy of the Bennet family's unsuitability more if that had been the sole object of the night.

Whether it was the insolence of Mr. Collins introducing himself at the volume of a shout, the middle sister singing badly at the pianoforte and being subsequently hushed by her own father, the mother bragging about the expected marriage between Bingley and Miss Bennet, or the two youngest sisters' generally abject sense of decorum, Darcy had his pick of reasons to dissuade Charles from pursuing this match.

His motivation in finding said reasons was heightened, it must be said, by the desire to distance himself not only from Elizabeth herself, but from the exceptional disconcertion he felt while dancing with her. It all made him long for the predictability of limited interaction and if there was one thing he assumed he could rely on happening predictably, it was inappropriate behavior on the part of others and his ability to judge them for it.

From the pinched look of disapproval marring Caroline's face all night, Darcy knew he was hardly alone in his disapprobation. Though he betrayed little reaction, he had wholeheartedly agreed with her comment regarding the idea of someone producing a piglet for them all to chase after.

It was shortly after guests began leaving that Darcy decided he'd had enough; there was little else, aside from something criminal, any Bennet family member could do that would cause his opinion to sink much lower. Fortunately, not being the particular host of the ball meant that he did not have to stand by and bid farewell, sacrificing his rest to the societal expectation. As a guest himself, he could retire in peace whenever he chose, a circumstance for which Darcy counted himself inordinately grateful. He retired shortly after Colonel Forster and his officers began encouraging the militia to retire back to their barracks with the reminder that their presence was expected at drill the next day at noon sharp.

Sleep came with blessed speed after Darcy ascended the stairs to his chambers. He was deep in slumber by the time Caroline issued the admonition, "Charles, you cannot be serious," to her brother on the balcony as the Bennets, amongst the last guests to leave, finally pulled away in their carriage with Mrs. Bennet still chatting away merrily.

Elizabeth too, had quit the ball early, or at least earlier than her family. Though Darcy did not see her steal away in the Lucas's family carriage, he might have been surprised to know that part of her reason for leaving was much the same as was his for retiring. For not only was Elizabeth embarrassed by her family's antics, but she similarly had no idea what to make of the dance she shared with Mr. Darcy. A dance that, unsurprisingly, featured strongly in both their dreams when sleep finally came.