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Chapter Twenty-Six

C aptain Marlowe’s handwriting was unexpectedly elegant. That was her first thought.

The second, more pressing thought was that she had no more than five days—perhaps six—before some unnamed social guillotine came down upon her neck.

Elizabeth folded the note again and set it beside her teacup.

It had arrived that morning by hand, delivered with an unnecessary flourish by a footman in a naval-blue livery.

Inside was a neatly penned invitation to a Christmas gathering near the Serpentine—a skating party hosted by one of Marlowe’s cousins.

He had included a line in his own hand, tucked just below the printed card:

“It would be the greatest honor to steady your hand on the ice—if I might be so bold. And I should be pleased if your sister wished to attend us as well. Yours, with admiration and a good deal of hope—M.”

It was not poetry, precisely. But it was close enough to make her stomach twist in several directions at once.

A Christmas outing. Music, lanterns, ice that would groan politely beneath her boots while Captain Marlowe offered his arm and said something gallant about the stars. It was exactly the sort of invitation she needed at exactly the right moment.

The gathering was public, which meant spectators. It meant opportunity. It meant she could be seen in his company, and possibly claimed by it. And Captain Marlowe—poor nervous man that he was—would never invite her at all unless he hoped for something more.

She lifted her teacup to her lips and stared at the folded note.

He was the best prospect she had. He was generous. Affable. Inclined to flattery. And if he asked every five minutes whether she preferred orange punch or lemon, well… she could learn to tolerate attentiveness.

She had no illusions about love. Love was not what one needed when one's reputation hung by a thread sewn by a jealous rival. What she needed was a husband who would not flinch at scandal. One who admired her enough to forgive it—or better, to dismiss it entirely.

Better that than the world thinking her too clever to wed.

Better a man who admired her blindly than one who saw all too clearly.

Mr. Darcy, for instance.

She did not doubt that he would stand up for her—had already stood up for her, in fact, in ways no one else would know.

If she pressed him—truly pressed him—he might even honor that absurd old promise. It would be done with integrity. Quiet efficiency. A lifetime of unwavering responsibility.

And she would resent every moment of it.

He knew too much. He had read her secrets on a page and recognized them without being told. He knew when she was bluffing. When she was proud. When she was afraid. And worst of all, he never tried to flatter her. He did not offer warmth unless he meant it.

No, it would never do.

Captain Marlowe, at least, had the good sense to worship her without reservation.

Her fingers brushed the edge of the note once more. “You shall do,” she murmured under her breath. “You shall do very well indeed.”

A rustle at the door interrupted her strategy. Jane entered, cheeks pink from the cold, her expression just shy of triumphant.

Elizabeth tucked the note quickly under the edge of her plate.

“Good morning, Lizzy,” Jane said, breezing in with the sort of radiant composure that made one believe she had never said anything scandalous in her life—let alone written it down.

Elizabeth glanced up. “The post has come?”

Jane nodded and crossed the room, her step just a little too light, her eyes just a little too bright.

She held a small stack of correspondence in one hand—and in the other, a modest vase of white hyacinths and winter roses.

Someone had been early. And hopeful. And rich enough to bribe the gardener at half-past eight.

Elizabeth gave her a slow, sidelong look.

“They arrived this morning,” Jane said quickly, as if the presence of artfully arranged florals in winter needed no further explanation. “Mr. Bingley has a great fondness for hyacinths. He once told me so himself.”

“I recall. He compared them to his favorite cravat,” Elizabeth said. “Which I think you will agree is the highest compliment Mr. Bingley is capable of offering.”

Jane blushed, but it was the sort of blush that spoke more of anticipation than embarrassment. “He was very kind yesterday. He asked after Kitty, and spoke warmly of Papa. He even inquired whether Mama was bearing the cold well.”

Elizabeth snorted. “Which is to say, he has already guessed she is complaining of chilblains.”

Jane laughed. “And draughts, and the ruin of her best bonnet. But he was very attentive. He seems… sincere.”

Elizabeth smiled warmly at her sister, though her stomach was roiling in disquiet.

Mr. Bingley’s attentions were becoming more obvious by the day, and if he had decided to quicken his pace, then Elizabeth would have to do the same—because Miss Bingley surely would.

If Jane’s courtship advanced too far, Caroline would have to act fast if she wanted to forestall it. Her leverage was growing stale. She would not wait long before casting it into the fire.

Elizabeth’s hand tightened around the note from Captain Marlowe.

He must be secured.

She would smile and glide and let him talk about stars. She would praise his poetry, endure his compliments, and make herself agreeable in precisely the ways most unnatural to her. Because Jane had flowers and a future. And Elizabeth had a pamphlet waiting to destroy both.

“There is a letter from Charlotte,” Jane said, passing the folded paper across the table. “And one from Mama. Which do you want to read first?”

Elizabeth cleared her throat. She could do without her mother’s anxious fretting right now, for she was fretting enough on her own without help. “Charlotte’s, please.”

She broke the seal, unfolded the page, and began to read.

By the second line, her eyes narrowed. By the fifth, her mouth had gone dry.

Lizzy,

Have you heard of a pamphlet circulating in town called “The Ink-Stained Nobody”?

It arrived in Meryton only this week. I had never heard of it before, but now it seems to be everywhere at once.

I first saw it at the Harris’s, where my brother produced it with great flair and insisted we all listen to the section about the ‘unseasoned curate who once compared love to a pork roast.’ Then Mrs. Long brought her copy to tea and nearly choked on a biscuit, quoting the passage about dinner parties as acts of civil warfare. And Lizzy—

Elizabeth gripped the paper more tightly.

—there is something about the tone of it that reminds me of you. Not just in the wit, which is sharper than it ought to be, but in the… cadence. The way the sentences march about with too much energy. I do not say this to alarm you. Only to prepare you.

Elizabeth forced herself to keep reading, though her heart had begun a slow, sickening thud against her ribs.

It has become something of a party trick among the militia officers.

Colonel Forster’s wife recited the bit about the ‘insufferable heir and his unfailingly damp gloves’ and the men laughed until the soup arrived.

I admit, Lizzy, the turn of phrase is wicked…

sometimes out of place, as if certain words had been changed to sound particularly harsh—but the tone feels…

familiar. Quite a few people have remarked upon it.

None aloud, of course. But you know how it is.

That look passed across the room. That cough just a beat too slow.

That sense that everyone else knows something they are politely pretending not to.

She read it twice. Then a third time.

The paper trembled only slightly in her hands.

How in mercy’s name had the pamphlets reached Meryton… and in such numbers? London satire rarely traveled past the city’s fashionable gates unless someone made sure of it. But this? This was precise. Swift. Directed.

It had help.

She closed her eyes, just for a moment. One breath in. Then out.

Caroline Bingley.

She had always known it would come. The question was never if , only how . How publicly. How cruelly. How quickly.

And now she knew. Quickly enough to catch fire.

And Mr. Bingley—dear, oblivious, generous Charles Bingley—was sending Jane flowers. Paying visits. Making eyes at her across the room.

Miss Bingley would not like that.

Not at all.

“Something the matter with Charlotte, Lizzy?” Jane asked. “You look rather green.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “Nothing of consequence.”

“Lizzy...”

“Truly. It is only... gossip from home.”

Jane was not satisfied, but she said no more. She turned back to her own letter, which she read with a pleased little frown.

Elizabeth, meanwhile, stared down at the paper as though it might arrange itself into something more manageable if she gave it time. But no amount of rearranging would soften the truth.

The pamphlets were spreading.

Caroline had waited until just the right moment—until Jane had begun to smile again, until Elizabeth had found a viable suitor—and then she had moved the knife.

There would be more. There was always more.

Elizabeth folded the letter slowly, deliberately, and placed it beside her plate. She straightened her back, crossed one ankle over the other, and reached once again for Captain Marlowe’s invitation.

It was time to answer.

Time to smile, to charm, to bind him fast with whatever combination of wit and desperation she could summon.

H e had not yet sealed the note.

It lay on the desk before him—folded, addressed, unsigned.

A polite refusal to the Ashfords' invitation to dinner next week.

The fifth such note he had composed in as many days.

Not because the wording was difficult, but because the lady whose father sent the invitation gave him pause every time he looked at her: Miss Ashford.

There was nothing objectionable about her. That was the problem.