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Chapter Sixteen

“ Y ou cannot hide behind the ficus forever,” Elizabeth said gently, brushing a drooping leaf away from her shoulder as she settled beside her sister. “Even the ficus thinks you have made your point.”

Mary sniffed. “It is mortifying.”

Elizabeth leaned in. “Which part? The playing? Or the vigorous applause at your retreat?”

Mary scowled. “They were laughing. ”

“Not all of them,” Elizabeth said. “Miss Goulding was only laughing because her cousin knocked over a chair and blamed it on the music. Which, as you know, is always the sign of a critic.”

Mary folded her arms, but some of the starch had already faded from her spine. “Kitty said I played too many verses.”

“You did,” Elizabeth said brightly. “I counted nine. A lesser woman would have stopped at four.”

That earned a grudging twitch of the lips. Encouraged, Elizabeth offered her arm and coaxed Mary into the open. They stood just at the edge of the ballroom, where the lights had softened and the footmen were beginning to peek around corners with practiced discretion.

“I would wager,” Elizabeth continued, “that Sir William will never again request ‘Roslin Castle’ unless he is prepared for every last stanza.”

Mary flinched. “He was only being polite.”

“Which makes his pained expression all the more heroic.” She smiled. “Come now. I believe we have survived the evening.”

Mary cast one last glance toward the parlor before nodding. “I shall find Papa.”

Elizabeth kissed her cheek. “I shall find my wrap. If either of us are not back in five minutes, assume we were abducted by musical critics.”

Mary gave a small, reluctant laugh and wandered off in the direction of the card tables.

Elizabeth turned toward the retiring room, her expression relaxing into a faint smile as she walked.

The floor was quiet now, strewn with the debris of crumpled programs, half-sipped punch, and the occasional fallen glove.

The retiring room, dimly lit and cluttered with the wreckage of a dozen tea trays, was nearly empty.

Her wrap was where she had left it—folded neatly over the back of a floral-upholstered chair near the fire.

But as her fingers reached beneath it, expecting the familiar shape of her reticule…

Nothing.

She checked again, lifting the wrap fully. The seat was bare.

Her breath caught.

Elizabeth crouched quickly, peering beneath the chair. Then under the one beside it. Then behind the table, where discarded shawls and forgotten fans often collected.

Nothing.

She straightened, eyes darting to the other women in the room. None paid her any mind. One was smoothing her gloves. Another was yawning into a handkerchief. A third glanced at herself in the mirror with resigned exhaustion.

Elizabeth turned back to her chair. She retraced every movement in her mind. She had come in before supper. She had powdered her nose. She had spoken to Charlotte. She had placed the reticule carefully—so carefully—beside the cushion before accepting a cup of tea.

She had tucked it in.

She was sure .

Her stomach turned to ice.

Elizabeth stepped into the corridor, scanning the walls for familiar silks. Her sisters were nowhere in sight. Neither was Charlotte. She hurried back into the ballroom, now half-dimmed, and searched the spot where she had been seated beside the ficus.

Nothing.

The reticule was gone.

And with it… her journal.

Her pulse galloped in her ears. She placed a hand against the edge of a nearby chair to steady herself.

Not at home. Not misplaced. Not forgotten.

Gone.

And the only people who had been near it—who had sat beside her—who had smiled just a little too sharply…

Her throat went dry.

Caroline Bingley.

She pressed a trembling hand to her mouth, willing herself to remain composed.

She stared at the empty chair.

Not misplaced. Not at home. Not forgotten.

Gone.

If Caroline Bingley had taken it…

No. No, it was unthinkable! And yet entirely plausible.

She had lingered near the tea service. She had made some remark about the supper set—how she and her sister had taken bets on which eager young lady Mr. Darcy might favor.

She had smiled too widely, with too many teeth, and then added that misunderstandings could be such a dreadful inconvenience.

Her hand had rested near Elizabeth’s wrap, just briefly.

And then she had left.

The journal had not been tucked far. Just beside the silk. Close enough to lift without fuss. Close enough to disappear.

And if it had?

If Caroline Bingley was holding that book in her well-manicured claws at this very moment—

Elizabeth’s mind reeled.

Every name. Every biting turn of phrase. Every scribbled observation she had made that evening and in the past months—about the guests, the dancing, the officers, the food, the heat, the noise, the desperate marriage schemes. About Mr. Darcy.

Dear God.

She had written about him . About the way he looked at her. About how she could not stop cataloguing his flaws even when he danced well.

If even a single line made it into someone else’s hands…

A step echoed behind her.

“Elizabeth?”

She turned, heart lurching. Jane and Charlotte stood in the doorway, their expressions worried.

“You looked pale,” Jane said. “Is something—”

“My reticule,” Elizabeth interrupted, her voice far too quiet. “It is missing.”

Charlotte’s brows lifted. “And?”

“My journal was in it.”

Charlotte blinked. “You brought your journal to a ball? ”

“I wrote in it tonight,” she snapped. “Twice. I tucked it beneath my wrap.”

“Good heavens, Lizzy,” Charlotte sighed. “Were you so short of dance partners that you needed that thing to entertain you?”

Elizabeth pressed her lips together in a scowl. “It was meant to stay hidden.”

Jane’s hand found her arm. “We will find it. You are certain it is not at home?”

“I am certain,” she said. “I remember the exact place I left it.”

“Perhaps one of the maids collected it by mistake,” Jane offered gently.

Elizabeth hesitated. It was not impossible.

Within minutes, Jane had found a maid near the doorway and asked about any misplaced belongings. The girl conferred with another, and soon two more joined. A quiet conversation passed between them, punctuated by furrowed brows and slight shakes of the head.

At last, one curtsied and returned. “No, miss. We have not moved anything from the retiring room this evening. Not unless it was brought directly to us.”

Elizabeth’s stomach dropped.

She turned back to Charlotte and Jane. “They did not see it. Any of them.”

Charlotte’s mouth pressed into a line. “Miss Bingley was near you, was she not?”

“I am aware,” Elizabeth said shortly. She sat down too quickly, her knees no longer confident in their abilities. She gripped the edge of the dressing table and stared down at the floral pattern of the rug as if it might offer some reassurance.

Charlotte moved beside her. “You know I told you—”

“This is hardly the time,” Elizabeth said through her teeth.

Charlotte paused. “You are right. Forgive me.”

They sat in brittle silence, broken only by the whisper of silk and distant strains of music.

Elizabeth closed her eyes and prayed the rug would open up and swallow her whole.

T he hour had grown long.

The musicians were drooping. One violinist played with his eyes closed, and a footman stifled a yawn behind a candelabra. Still, a dozen couples clung to the final dances, feet dragging, ribbons wilting, determined to dance their way into dawn.

Elizabeth moved among them with far less grace. She was not dancing. She was hunting.

Miss Bingley had vanished.

The retiring room, empty. The parlor, quiet. The card room still flickered with laughter, but not the voice she sought. The refreshments table was littered with crumbs and spent punch cups—but no silk rustle, no sharp perfume, no false sweetness masquerading as concern.

Gone.

She had slipped away, somewhere in the last quarter hour—and Elizabeth’s nerves were unraveling with every passing minute.

The journal. The cursed, ridiculous journal.

She had no proof. But Caroline Bingley had lingered at her elbow, smiled at her wrap, and said the sort of pleasantry that only ever masked poison. She had not touched the reticule—or not that Elizabeth had seen. But there had been time. Enough time.

If she had it… if she had even glanced inside…

It was not only her name on those pages. Her family—every one of them—had been sketched, teased, annotated with a wicked fondness that now felt like a death sentence. Jane's quiet sensitivity. Mary’s pompous reflections. Lydia's... everything.

Even her father.

And if anyone— anyone —got their hands on those pages, those observations, those names…

The Bennet girls would be finished. No fortune hunter would court a family mocked in drawing rooms and pamphlets. No respectable man would offer for them, not once satire had peeled them bare.

It would be her fault. Utterly. Entirely. Irrevocably hers.

She would have to protect them. All of them.

Her only option—the only one that did not involve flinging herself into the sea—was marriage.

Quick. Quiet. Practical.

She would vanish into someone’s household, slip into respectability, and draw the curtain down before the whispers began.

It would not matter if she were happy.

It would matter only that Lydia was still invited to assemblies and that Kitty could flirt over a teacup without being called indecent.

That Jane could marry Bingley.

She clenched her fists. What if…?

Mr. Collins.

She could not believe she was thinking it. But he had written to her father. He had intentions. He sounded absurd, yes—but absurd men still had livings. Still offered protection.

And if he came soon—if he proposed quickly—

But then—

A pause in the crowd. A gap between dancers. A movement that caught her eye.

Darcy.

Not dancing. Not even speaking.

Just watching, the way he always did.