Page 26

And wondered what, exactly, Elizabeth had said. And whether the truth, in her mouth, would hurt less than the lie.

S he should not have brought the good paper.

The pages had been meant for letters—real ones, carefully folded, sealed in wax, possibly even respectable.

Instead, she had filled nearly half the first sheet with an overlong sentence about a man she did not like, written in a handwriting that had become alarmingly romantic in style the longer she went on.

She stared at it now, pen hovering.

There is a certain loneliness in being seen too clearly by someone you do not wish to impress, and yet cannot escape thinking about.

She made a face.

From the hallway came the uneven rhythm of familiar chaos: the thump of hurried feet, Mary’s voice halfway through a quote she was convinced applied to every crisis, Kitty’s over-enunciated attempt to tell Lydia not to take her gloves without asking.

Mrs. Bennet’s voice rose above it all. “That hem is still too high, and you cannot wear rose with coral—Kitty, do not argue, you are not the one who will be blamed!”

It was maddening.

But it was also—comfortingly so—the usual.

Elizabeth tapped her pen against the edge of the page until a small puddle of ink formed.

This house is full of opinions, full of motion, full of sound. It is impossible to think in here. It is even harder not to feel.

Someone laughed down the hall. Jane, perhaps.

Elizabeth closed her eyes briefly. She envied Jane her gentleness, her way of gliding past things without being wounded by them. Her own heart had too many sharp edges. Every feeling caught.

He is proud. Cold. Entirely too sure of himself.

Also: handsome. Which is unfortunate. And not helpful.

Also: very tall.

Which is infuriating. I never like having too clear a view of a man’s nose.

He looks like someone who reads preambles for fun and then has opinions about them.

He watches like he expects people to fail—but quietly, as if he would not enjoy it.

I cannot tell if I want to argue with him forever or make him apologize for something he has not said yet.

“Lizzy?” Jane called. “Do you need the room? Mama wants us to practice curtsies again, and I fear Lydia is about to turn it into a footrace.”

Elizabeth groaned. Curtsies again? The last time, their mother would not let them stop until Kitty was coughing and Mary was dizzy from the blood rushing to and from her head too many times. She sighed and flicked her pencil with the tip of her finger. “I am nearly finished.”

Jane appeared in the doorway, her brows lifted in quiet amusement. “You always say that when you are writing,” she said. “You say ‘nearly finished,’ and then an hour disappears.”

Elizabeth looked down at the page, then up at her sister. “It is a very philosophical hour.”

Jane tilted her head. “That means it is not one you wish to explain.”

“Exactly.”

Jane smiled and stepped back.

Elizabeth returned to the paper.

I am not sentimental. I am not.

But something about him—about how still he is—makes me want to be louder. And softer. At the same time.

She stared at the words. That was not quite right. She stuck her tongue between her teeth and tried again.

I find I cannot dislodge his dratted face from my mind. Not just the expression, or the glances, or the way he always looks a bit like he is struggling with a particularly offensive turn of phrase—but the weight of his attention.

He watches everything. Everyone. But he does not speak unless it matters. I used to think that was arrogance. I am not sure now. Perhaps it is restraint. Or a kind of self-defense.

“Mama says to remind you your white gown needs airing,” Kitty said, poking her head through the doorway. “And that you are not to forget the pin with the pearls.”

Elizabeth nodded without looking up. “Tell her I shall wear it on my forehead, like a coronet.”

Kitty’s eyes widened, as if that were the most inspired idea she had ever heard. “Well, you had best hurry up, because Mama also wants—”

“Yes, yes, curtsies. I know.”

Kitty blinked, shrugged, and vanished again.

I am very good at laughing things off. I have never known what to do with sincerity except ruin it.

She looked at the line. Then crossed it out. Then rewrote it exactly the same. And then she wrote something else… something that had been picking at her mind for a fortnight now, ever since he showed up in Meryton.

I am not in danger of falling in love. That would be absurd.

But I am in danger of being understood. And I find I like it less than I imagined.

T he ballroom was already thick with candlelight and chatter by the time Darcy took his place beside Bingley near the entrance.

He would rather have been anywhere else. A cold stable. A collapsing roof. A duel, possibly.

But as Bingley’s house guest—and, more damningly, a single man of income—he had no excuse for absence. Not unless he meant to insult the entire county and undo every social connection Bingley had spent the last two months cultivating.

And so here he stood. Ready to tolerate pleasantries until his mouth soured of them. Prepared to count overdressed daughters and their eager mamas. Wishing the night would end before it began.

The door opened, and the first cluster of guests spilled in—laughing too loudly, shaking rain from their cloaks, peeling off gloves as if they had been sprinting through a field. Meryton society had come dressed in every scrap of silk and expectation they could manage.

Bingley welcomed them with a grin so natural it bordered on oblivious. Darcy inclined his head, murmured civilities, and kept a tally in his head of every person who walked away from him whispering behind their hands, “Ten thousand a year!”

Mrs. Wheaton. Miss Wheaton. Miss Mary King, blinking too hard under her fringe and carried forward by an overzealous aunt.

The Breretons—three daughters, two overdressed, one suspiciously quiet.

The Markhams—sisters in matching gowns, neither of whom had yet discovered the concept of subtlety.

The Gouldings arrived en masse, with Miss Lavinia and Miss Eugenie both giggling into their gloves and one of them managing to drop her fan at his feet within seconds. He returned it without a word. She blushed. He said nothing else.

And so it went.

Miss Latimer smiled at him with the unerring confidence of a girl who had practiced in the mirror. Miss Everly attempted a curtsy so deep she nearly toppled. Miss Drayton, who barely spoke three words all evening, still managed to walk past him three separate times and sigh.

He endured.

Bingley had handed out invitations like sweets at a christening, and the room was beginning to swirl with color and sound. Darcy kept to the edge of it. Unless some miracle occurred tonight, there would be nothing here that he had not already rejected.

He had fulfilled his role: he had shown up, greeted people, made himself visible. That was enough. It should have been enough.

Then the Bennets arrived.

He saw them before the room did.

Miss Bennet was the first through the door, her posture perfectly upright, her eyes scanning the room too quickly to be at ease. She was smiling—Bingley would never notice the strain in it—but Darcy did. He suspected she had been rehearsing it all the way from Longbourn.

Miss Lydia—if, indeed, that buxom creature deserved the appellation “Miss,” burst through next with the velocity of a cannonball, already laughing at something no one had said.

Miss Kitty clattered after her, nearly tripping on her own hem as she twisted her neck, probably looking for a uniform.

Miss Mary trailed behind with a selection of piano music clutched like a weapon and the expression of a woman preparing to be disappointed.

Mrs. Bennet swept in behind the cluster of her daughters, beaming at everyone, waving to no one in particular, and bubbling into conversation before she had even removed her gloves.

And then—

He looked away too quickly.

Elizabeth had not yet spoken to anyone, but she was already doing something deeply aggravating. She looked amused. As if the entire evening—this ballroom, this crowd, this county—were hers to critique.

She wore green. Not soft, not shy. Sharp through the waist, cut close at the bodice—a shade too modern to be modest, and just bold enough to suggest she had not dressed for him, but fully expected to be seen.

The sleeves were slightly modern. The trim unnecessary to draw the eye, for her way of moving was sufficient to the task. The effect—infuriating.

It made his collar feel too tight.

Her gaze drifted over the room with idle curiosity, pausing briefly at the windows, the orchestra, a few heads of note. Not his.

Which only made it worse.

And unless his eyes deceived him, she was carrying a reticule large enough to hold a small novel—or, more likely, a selection of scathing observations she planned to immortalize in ink the moment she got home.

He did not care for the effect.

He especially did not care that he had noticed.

She did not look his way. Of course not. That would have meant something . And Elizabeth Bennet was far too clever to give anything away she did not wish him to see. Which only made him want to see more.

Her attention was fixed on the far side of the ballroom, her expression still thoughtful—still faintly entertained—as her gaze moved past the musicians, the doors, the faces.

Not searching. Not expectant.

Just… waiting.

And that made it worse. If she were scanning the room for Wickham, at least then her loyalties would be visible, predictable. Instead, she looked content to let the evening come to her—as if she already knew its outcome and was only indulging its delays.

Where was Wickham?

The question had not left his mind for days. The night seemed perfectly arranged to test his composure: Wickham should have appeared by now, all flashing teeth and polished lies, just in time to steal Elizabeth’s attention before Darcy could finish convincing himself he did not care.

But he had not appeared. Denny had mentioned “militia business.” Darcy was inclined to believe nothing that passed through that particular channel.

Darcy had braced for it. Wickham's arrival should have been the match. The explosion. Instead—nothing. And that silence was its own kind of threat. Because Wickham never vanished. He waited. He chose his moments. He studied the board.

And Elizabeth had always been too generous with her trust.

Perhaps Wickham had thought better of coming, employing discretion for once in his life. Perhaps he had slipped away, knowing what would come if Darcy finally snapped.

Perhaps he had finally run out of luck.

And yet, half the women in the room were already whispering about his absence. “So handsome,” one said behind her fan. “So gallant,” said another. “I do hope he is well.”

Darcy resisted the urge to find something glass and hurl it into the fireplace.

Caroline Bingley appeared beside him with the timing and accuracy of a trained hawk. Her gown was flame-colored—did she own another shade?—and she was already speaking before he looked at her.

“You must dance the first with me, of course,” Miss Bingley said, appearing at his elbow with an effortless smile. “As hostess, I cannot lead the set alone. And Charles is already besotted—he has promised his to Miss Bennet.”

Darcy only nodded.

She waited half a breath, then added lightly, “Unless you mean to offend half the room by refusing? I should hate to see such a promising evening begin in scandal.”

He gave her a sidelong glance. She met it with impeccable serenity.

And that was that.

She slipped her hand into the crook of his arm. Her perfume coiled too close. Her grip feathered against his sleeve with all the delicacy of possession. And Darcy, mute like always, stood beside her like a statue—one carved out of spite and dressed for dinner.

“Do try to enjoy yourself,” she said sweetly as the music began. “And remember—if the young ladies grow tiresome, you may always rely on me for conversation that does not require translation.”

Darcy looked across the room as he was verily dragged away.

Elizabeth was laughing at something her sister had whispered, her posture relaxed, her eyes lit with the kind of ease that did not belong in a room like this. She had not looked at him once.

He stepped onto the floor with Miss Bingley on his arm, every line of his posture perfect, every word unspoken.

And all he could think was that he was dancing with the wrong woman.