Bing didn’t quite know what to make of the night so far.

He’d been separated from Darcy and Wick on a table two rows over. On the one hand, that was a good thing because Darcy didn’t have to sit with their parents, but on the other, Darcy was sat on a table full of strangers with Wick as his only company.

Bing tried his best to keep an eye on his brothers and often saw Darcy’s keen gaze locked on Eliza Bennet while Wick seemed smitten with attracting Lydia Bennet’s attention. Bing found himself dividing his focus between his parents and fellow table guests, his brothers, and the woman that had snagged his attention since he first laid eyes on her not thirty seconds after he’d walked through the doors.

Jane Bennet was bewitching.

Her golden hair shone like tousled waves of silk, her subtle curves were accentuated by the pale pink of her dress, and her wide blue eyes captivated all who gained her attention. Never had he seen a more exquisite creature than she. But it wasn’t solely her looks that had Bing chasing her with his eyes every second he could. It was her. The graceful way she moved, the thoughtful way she greeted everyone by name, the engaging way she chatted ensuring each person felt like they had her complete attention. She wasn’t just beautiful on the outside, but the inside too, only the light from within her shone more brightly than any beauty he’d ever seen.

Jane Bennet had captivated him.

A dozen times he’d made to go and introduce himself to her, but a dozen times he hesitated and someone else got there before him.

“What are you gawking at, child?” Anne Austen asked him during the final course of the evening as his gaze followed Jane to the stage. His mother had the uncanny knack of timing her curiosity at the worst point possible.

“Nothing,” he mumbled absently, dropping his gaze abruptly and stabbing a grape from his cheese course with a fork.

“It doesn’t look like nothing to me.”

Anne Austen shifted in her seat to peer through the guests at the object of Bing’s rapt attention.

“In fact, it looks like that middle Bennet sister has tickled your fancy.”

“Mother, please,” Bing groaned and went to remove his glasses but remembered he had contacts in, and dragged his hand down his face instead.

“Don’t mother, please me,” she admonished loud enough to draw the gaze of others at their table. “You go over there and introduce yourself. You can’t be in the race if you don’t saddle up your pony.”

Bing suddenly understood why Darcy refused to sit in public with their parents. If they weren’t bickering and muttering jibes at each other, then mother was sure to humiliate you without even trying very hard.

Thankfully, Bing was saved from being forced out of his chair like a young child is encouraged to go and kiss an old aunt with no teeth, by the static of a microphone and Jane introducing her younger sister Lydia to the crowd.

If he thought the night had been hard to interpret so far, that was nothing to the spectacle he witnessed on stage as the youngest Bennet performed her risqué song complete with accompanying dance moves—if grinding and rubbing were classed as a form of dance.

Bing dragged his eyes away from the exhibition on stage and sought out Jane. He couldn’t see her anywhere, and he worried for a brief second that her sister’s performance had sent her running. Something told him the spectacle Lydia was making in front of this esteemed audience, wasn’t anything that Jane had sanctioned.

He was about to get up and search for the middle Bennet sister when a flash of pink caught his eye. There in the shadows to the left of the stage stood Jane. Not even the dim lighting could hide that she was as white as a sheet and even if it did, the expression on her face was telling.

She was mortified.

Bing’s chest ached for her. He knew how difficult it was to be the peacekeeper amongst his family, but at least both his parents were still alive. The loneliness on Jane’s face called to him. At that moment, he felt what she felt, and he’d never had this kind of connection to another person, let alone one he’d never formally met.

He was on his feet before his next breath.

The show on the stage was coming to an end, but before he got to Jane she’d moved to stand next to Eliza, the eldest Bennet sister.

He stopped and watched them from the side of the room, waiting for the chance to say something, anything to the woman in pink. Jane Bennet appeared to wear her heart on her sleeve, and right now, he felt the tremor in her emotions as surely as if the room had been hit by an earthquake.

He finally got his opportunity to approach her when Lydia finished her song and left the stage. Mere moments later, Eliza thundered from the room leaving Jane alone in more ways than one.

Bing was only a few feet away from her when a well-dressed man in an expensive suit and dark tortoiseshell spectacles stood abruptly from a front row table almost toppling his chair, and stormed in Jane’s direction. Jane blanched before he’d even got to her, but quickly straightened her spine in preparation for whatever the man had to say.

Bing wasn’t near enough to hear what words were exchanged, but Jane’s face told him it wasn’t a pleasant conversation or one that she was enjoying being a part of, so when Jane made to walk away, and the man’s hand snatched out to grip her wrist, Bing leapt into action.

“Excuse me, Miss Bennet, I’m so sorry to interrupt—” He wasn’t “—but I’d hoped to speak with you about the Longbourn Shelter.”

“Piss off,” the man spat at Bing, increasing his grip on Jane’s wrist. “I’m fucking talking here. So, toddle off with your ‘excuse mes’ and go take your begging cap elsewhere.”

Bing wasn’t generally an aggressive man, but his fists clenched involuntarily, and he stepped up until he was practically toe to toe with the other man. Bing may seem unassuming, but on rising to his full height he was easily three inches taller than his counterpart, and it gave him a burst of confidence to force the man to look up at him.

“Unhand her.”

“Or what,” the other man sneered.

Not used to issuing threats, Bing snarled the first thing that came into his head.

“Or I will hit you so hard even Google won’t be able to find you.”

The man’s face froze, his mouth open but silent, and Jane used the opportunity to rip her arm from his grip.

“I suggest you sit and maybe grab another drink to cool down Conrad,” she offered calmly.

Jane’s sweet voice washed over Bing, and he momentarily forgot about the man he was trying to intimidate. He stared at the woman at his side as if it was the first time he’d ever experienced her beauty.

Awestruck.

He paid dearly for his inattention, and the left hook that landed on his jaw blindsided him and knocked him straight onto his arse.

“Google that,” the man called Conrad spat, glaring down at Bing with prideful anger.

But Bing forgot all about him again, as Jane rushed to his side and gently cupped his already swelling jaw in her soft palm.

“Oh, my God. I’m so sorry. Let me get something to put on that. Some ice maybe or—”

Bing was lost in her blue eyes but his brain finished her sentence with, “Your Lips.”

“I’m sorry? What did you say?”

Bing remained dumbstruck as he focused on Jane’s face and her striking eyes that were crinkled with worry.

I didn’t say anything, did I?

“Can you get up?” she asked sweetly, her voice laced with concern.

Clarity finally washed over Bing, and he pushed up to stand with Jane’s arm firmly wrapped around first his shoulders, and then his waist.

Her touch felt right, like she was meant to stand next to him. Like her body was made to be at his side as his equal.

“This wasn’t how I imagined talking with you for the first time,” Bing confessed in embarrassment.

Jane led him away from the front of the ballroom and out of the gaze of the many eyes that followed. They bypassed the foyer and went straight into the general manager’s office, which was thankfully empty. Jane continued to help him—even though he should have told her he was more than capable of walking unaided—until he was sat on a low leather sofa, and she was bent at the knees looking at his injured face. Bing supposed his pride should have felt wounded too, after all, he’d just taken a sucker punch and landed on his arse in front of a room full of the rich and wealthy, but with Jane before him and all her attention focused on him, he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

“I’d planned on asking you to dance with me,” he said absently as she ran her fingertips gently over his jaw.

Jane’s eyes flicked from his bruised face to his gaze, and she flushed slightly.

“I would have said yes,” she admitted softly.

“I wanted to talk with you about the work you do. I wanted to dance, talk, and then, at the end of the night ask for your number.”

The pink on her cheeks heated further.

“I would have given it to you.”

Bing smiled at her honesty, but the injury to his jaw turned it into a painful wince. Jane grimaced at his reaction before standing, the movement popping the bubble that had encased them for a moment.

“Let me get you some ice.”

She walked towards the door but not before stopping with her hand on the brass handle.

“Thank you for what you did in there. I want you to know that I’m not with Conrad, just in case you got the wrong idea. He’s with Lydia, and he was angry about what she… the song she…”

She didn’t finish her sentence, unable to voice how embarrassed she was about Lydia’s show.

Without saying any more, she quietly opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.

He watched the oak panel click shut behind her before replying, “Even if you were with him, I still would have asked for your number.”