Page 11 of Friendship and Forgiveness (Mr. Underwood’s Elizabeth & Darcy Stories #7)

Caroline wished to talk over her dance with Mr. Darcy with Elizabeth, unfortunately she did not have the opportunity.

Instead Elizabeth had been approached immediately by her white collared cousin for their dance.

A boring bloated bothersome fellow, Caroline thought.

Colonel Fitzwilliam approached her quickly for their “dance”, and as he had promised when he asked her for it, he led her to the corner of a room, and had them sit it out in conversation.

It was impossible for Caroline to keep from laughing — though she tried — as he loudly insisted that he was a simple soldier, who could not forget that she had said she would much rather the order of the day be conversation than dancing.

She’d seen enough of the officer’s dance with Eliza to know that he had no deficiencies on the ballroom floor.

Colonel Fitzwilliam always had a quite odd way of behaving, but the fact was that while she thought him to be mostly unserious in the mixture of praise and laughing censure that he laid thick upon her, she had begun to rather depend upon him as someone else to converse with when Darcy’s reserve defeated her efforts to draw him into conversation.

However once the next dance ended Caroline had to smile at the way Elizabeth eagerly called out to her and rushed over, laughingly pretending to apologize for abandoning that bloated boring cousin as she hurried away from him.

“Caro!” She exclaimed, “How was your conversation! — and you as well, Colonel Fitzwilliam. Did the two of you prove that conversation is in fact superior to dancing?”

He said, “Beyond a doubt,” exactly as Caroline said, “No.”

Elizabeth laughed. “Which was it?”

“I believe,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said, “that as we have only experienced together one of the options, we must test the other — Miss Bingley, which would be a convenient set for us to dance together?”

Caroline rolled her eyes. “And if none of them are convenient?”

“Then, Miss Bingley, what is an inconvenient dance for us to despise together? I would suggest the supper dance.”

Some hopeful part of Caroline was sure that Darcy would ask her for either the last dance of the night, or the supper dance. But… well it would do him no harm to be told that he had to select a different dance. “The supper dance would be sufficiently inconvenient for me.”

“I shall see you then.” Colonel Fitzwilliam grinned at her, winked, and walked off.

“Eliza,” Caroline immediately turned to her smiling friend, “did you observe me with Mr. Darcy at all? How did he appear during the dance? How would you judge his expression?”

Elizabeth’s smile slid away. She sighed. “I… Colonel Fitzwilliam is a very distracting man. I hardly paid attention.”

A pouty frown. “You must have seen something .” Caroline smiled. “It cannot be long.”

“Have you considered, maybe… you seemed quite happy during your conversation with Colonel Fitzwilliam, you both were laughing and—”

“ Lizzy . You need not dissimulate with me. You can be frank.”

Elizabeth sighed.

An icy sensation stabbed at Caroline’s throat.

Happiness itself was being attacked. “He will love me. It wouldn’t be fair . I’ve shown him. It wouldn’t be fair! I’ve shown him how happy he would be. I’ve shown him he’d be lucky. The luckiest man if he married me. He’ll have to marry me. I’ve shown him.”

“You have.”

“He has to see ! It wouldn’t be fair. I’ve done everything I can. You know that I always succeed.”

Elizabeth put her arms around Caroline and hugged her. Caroline stiffly refused to bend into the embrace.

When Elizabeth stepped back, Caroline said, “And my dress — both you and Colonel Fitzwilliam admire it. I am certain Mr. Darcy did as well.”

“De gustibus non est disputandum.”

“None of that Latin! Your father can use it. Not you.”

“You know what I mean,” Eliza replied.

“You are wrong . He will love me. I will marry him. You will see.”

Elizabeth’s shoulders drew up, and she clenched her jaw in the way she would when annoyed. But then Elizabeth sighed, and the tension in her shoulders eased. She rubbed at her forehead. “I am only scared. Scared that you will… if you are wrong, it will be difficult for you.”

“I refuse to consider such possibilities. Simply thinking that way will make it more likely to be true.”

“That isn’t how such matters work! Your certainty cannot change Darcy’s feelings.”

“It will be.” Caroline ground her teeth together. “You will see.”

“Heavens.” Elizabeth clenched her jaw again. “Sometimes Caro, you annoy me.”

“Though I love you, some times you annoy me.”

The two girls stared at each other.

And Mr. Darcy approached them.

For a moment Caroline’s heart leapt to see him coming near her. He was so tall. So elegant. So… perfect. Their eyes met for a second, and her heart leapt.

He turned to Elizabeth. “Miss Elizabeth, might I beg you to dance the next with me?”

“What?” She blinked at him. “I have another partner. The one after?”

Darcy frowned, but he stiffly inclined his head, “Yes, of course. That will do.”

He bowed slightly to both of them. “Ladies.”

The gentleman walked away.

That damned man.

How dare he speak to only Elizabeth and not her? How dare Elizabeth dance with him?

Elizabeth nudged Caroline. “I had not thought. If you would prefer that I do not dance with—”

“Of course not! He will marry me. Of course I want him to like my dearest friend. Because he will marry me.” Caroline felt something surging through her that she was not familiar with.

It was anger, unhappiness, and a sense that she might do anything.

Her hands shook.

Elizabeth opened her mouth to say something. But before she could decide what, the local gentleman who she was supposed to dance with next came up to her and pulled her away.

There was no one who Caroline had agreed to dance with for this set, so she simply stood about. Mr. Darcy also stood about without dancing with anyone, but on the opposite side of the room.

Caroline thought about approaching him. That would be ridiculous. He would approach her, when he realized how much he wanted to be in her presence. Like how he approached Elizabeth.

She sat down, and gloomily stared at the dance floor.

It was shiny from the layer of wax that had been laid down.

So many pairs of soft dance slippers, the excellence of the band. She’d brought a quartet straight from London. The smell of the hors d’oeuvres was delectable. The dinner would be a triumph.

It was a very good band — hiring them had not simply displayed her access to money, but also her ability to discover the reputation of various groups and to negotiate with them, and to arrange all the matters to the satisfaction of the musicians, and then to also ensure that the old ballroom was effectively and quickly refurbished.

One of the violinist’s had a harelip, and he also was known as amongst the best players in London.

She would be good at being the wife of a man like Darcy.

Elizabeth would just read and argue with him.

No.

No, no, no, no, no.

She would not imagine Mr. Darcy married to Elizabeth.

The sounds of merriment: Too much punch being drunk. Shouts and laughter, beautiful music.

The feel of her nails biting into her fingers.

A slight burn on her neck from where a mistake had been made with the papillote iron. Fortunately that temporary imperfection on her skin had been easily hidden by her hair.

She smoothed her hands down her silk ballgown, trying to feel the luxurious satisfaction she’d felt when she donned it just a few hours ago.

Caroline bit her cheek to keep from crying.

The set ended.

Caroline only noticed because she now had a new matter of curiosity.

There they were.

Elizabeth and Darcy.

Two names that could not less belong next to each other. Darcy and Elizabeth. The sound was just wrong . Discordant, dissonant, despicable.

Standing across from each other.

Elizabeth glanced towards her, and Caroline looked away, embarrassed to be caught watching them.

But she looked back immediately as the minuet started.

Their conversation seemed to be awkward. Elizabeth flushed when she was spoken to, and she did not smile or converse as easily as she often did.

Mr. Darcy was often quiet. Steady, stately, stable.

Caroline let out a breath.

Maybe he didn’t love Elizabeth.

She stared down at her hands, and at the wrinkled fabric of her glove. She felt sweaty and shaky.

The steady rise and fall of the music pulsed through her, and Caroline imagined herself playing on the piano, swaying side to side as she performed a solemn concerto.

One breath.

Two breaths.

Three breaths.

Caroline looked up again.

Darcy looked at Elizabeth.

He just looked at her. His heart was in his eyes, and… love and desire echoed from it.

How did Elizabeth not see it?

Or did she?

But Elizabeth still had that awkward half flushed look, and it seemed to Caroline that her friend refused to meet Mr. Darcy’s eye.

He loved Elizabeth.

She had known it already.

Now she really knew it.

He loved Elizabeth.

It was too painful to look at. Too painful to even think about.

Caroline stood and hurried away from the room, only noticing as she went out that Colonel Fitzwilliam was ignoring his partner to look at her in concern.

Darcy loved Elizabeth, and he would never love her.

That was the simple fact.

She had lost, and there was nothing that she could do about it.

At this point Caroline had the very great good fortune to be one of the residents of the estate at which this ball was held. She was not forced to seek some isolated corner, some seldom traveled hallway, or a cold corner of a cold corridor: She simply retreated upstairs to her own warm and welcoming room.

Caroline entered the familiar room, decorated to her own exacting requirements, and to the height of fashion, with a vase of fresh flowers sitting on her dressing table. She threw herself on her bed and sobbed.

It just wasn’t fair.

It took a long time before Caroline calmed sufficiently to have proper command of herself.

She pushed herself up from the bed and looked at herself in her dressing mirror.

Ghastly, and hideous.

Everyone would know she had been crying — though her disappearance for what must have been an hour would be sufficiently suspicious.

Caroline rang for her maid, a fine French woman who commanded a large salary, and deserved every pence.

When Aliette came up, she gasped. “Mademoiselle! Your face. Oh no, oh no. You must not go down like this. Oh no!”

The woman splashed cold water over Caroline’s face and on her wrists. “I shall need to completely scrub everything, and put it on again. It shall not be so quick.”

“I do not mind — how late is it?”

“They are dancing the last before they sit down for supper.”

“Ah.” She’d missed her dance with Colonel Fitzwilliam.

Would that gentleman despise her for it?

Caroline sat in silence for a while, still stunned, like a rider who'd been thrown and fell badly.

Wipe, wipe. Wipe.

All the rouge, foundation and tears on her face were roughly scrubbed off.

Aliette began the steady work of reapplying the cherry juice to bring out the red in her cheeks.

And an idea occurred to Caroline.

She pushed the thought away. It would be wrong.

The thought bowed, departed, and then returned, with a villainous smirk. It now offered additional details, practical explanations, and schemes for how to make all the details succeed.

Elizabeth would disapprove.

But Elizabeth also was the reason that Mr. Darcy hadn’t come to love her on his own.

This time Caroline didn’t push the dangerous thought away, but rather let it dance its own minuet in her mind.