Most Ardently: Chapters 1-5

If he was careful not to look at his chest — or anything below the neck, really — “Elizabeth,” his mother admonished.

As far as his mother was concerned, it was each of their responsibilities to attract an upper-class suitor with coquettish smiles and batted eyelashes.

Jane laughed politely at something decidedly unamusing, then Bingley said something to his morose companion and began moving toward them.

There were six trunks total, each of them with innocuous labels like “books” (Oliver could only afford enough books to place in one small trunk), “trinkets,” “embroidery” (in reality, Oliver despised embroidery with a deep and burning passion), “drawing” (he had actually enjoyed drawing once, but it had been over a year since that trunk had been opened), etcetera.

Once dressed, Oliver would replace the trunks as they were, then — after ensuring everyone had gone to bed or was otherwise occupied far on the other side of the house — climb out the window using the trellis running alongside the town house to lower himself to the ground.

Here too he had a binding cloth to give him the appearance of a flat chest, a single pair of white trousers, an emerald-green double-breasted silk-and-linen vest with a high collar, a black double-breasted wool waistcoat, two white linen shirts (one frilled), a white linen cravat, and — his favorite piece — a black wool double-breasted tailcoat.

Oliver had been sneaking away from home to spend time in public as himself for months now, but he’d never had more than a fleeting, transient conversation with another boy as himself before.

“I was just asking Oliver if he’d be amenable to showing us around the fair,” Bingley said to Darcy.

Having his own personal library was an unattainable dream.

His aloofness from earlier in the day wasn’t gone entirely, but as the day went on Darcy seemed less reticent to address Oliver directly.

“Don’t you see, Elizabeth? Mr. Bingley was so taken with our Jane the other night that he wants to get to know her personally! And of course he’ll be even more enamored with her after spending more time with her. It’s only a matter of time before he proposes.”

The walls of their bedroom were painted a garish yellow-green, which reminded Oliver of one of his least favorite meals, split pea soup.

“But something strange happened…” Oliver recounted the story of the weekend’s adventure, from running into Bingley and Darcy, to spending the morning exploring the fair together, to the Temple of Muses and finally the invitation to Watier’s.

The suggestion was better than the future Charlotte had been alluding to, but the thought of having to pretend to be someone’s wife, even in just “certain public situations,” twisted and soured in his stomach.

They’d been walking for about ten minutes when Lu suddenly perked up and turned to Oliver with a conspiratorial smile.