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She could not know what those words on the pamphlet meant. She could not guess who they had once belonged to.

He looked away.

Protecting a woman’s reputation—he had always thought it a matter of silence, vigilance, the right connections applied at the right time. But what defense could there be when the enemy was her own voice, bent into new shapes and hurled into the drawing rooms of strangers?

He had not saved Georgiana from everything. He had not saved Elizabeth from anything. And now—

Laughter again. The youngest Ashford daughter held up another slip, eyes sparkling with anticipation.

Darcy pressed a hand briefly to the back of his neck.

Miss Ashford stepped beside him. “Mr. Darcy. You look rather… pained. Is something the matter?”

He did not trust himself to speak at first. He cleared his throat. “Only the heat.”

Her look was sympathetic. “You are quite pale.”

“I assure you I am not.” The smile came, brittle but practiced. “If you will excuse me.”

He turned, made for the decanter table.

It was not distance he needed, or wine. It was time. It was an answer. And he had neither.

27 December

T he paper cut her thumb.

She had not noticed until the blood welled up, a thin, stinging crescent at the edge of the page. Three letters, opened and brutal, lay in her lap like small knives. They had arrived with the midday post. She had known they would come.

She had just not realized they would hurt like this.

Mary’s letter had no salutation. No sign of hesitation or grace.

Now I know what you were always scribbling. You might have told us. Or better—burned it. Father says it is wit. I say it is cruelty dressed in cleverness, and I do not see the difference.

Elizabeth gripped the page tighter.

You laughed at our manners, our talk, our visitors. Even Mr. Denny. And now all the county is laughing, too. Mama will never recover. I daresay you think that is amusing. I do not. I never did.

No farewell. No signature. Just the familiar ink-blot at the end, as if even the pen could not bear to continue.

Elizabeth stared at the paper until the words bled into themselves. Mary had never had her ear, not really. And yet somehow, it cut deeper than she could have imagined.

The words blurred. Not from tears—she had not earned those—but from shame that ran too deep to cry out.

Her father’s was worse. Four lines, and his sarcasm bit.

So it seems your wit has finally found its audience.

I had not expected the Bennet name to become a literary device, but there it is.

The neighbors are thoroughly entertained.

Your mother has locked herself in her room and refuses even broth.

Your aunt Phillips has reportedly swooned at every gathering since Tuesday.

Shall we expect you home for Twelfth Night—or simply await the printed sequel?

She read it again. And again. And still, it managed to sting worse with each pass.

Because beneath the glibness, beneath the barbed tone—

He was disappointed in her.

The fourth envelope sat unopened.

She had known Charlotte’s handwriting longer than any of the others. Recognized it by the slight rightward slant, the careful spacing, the ink that always seemed to fade at the ends of her loops.

Elizabeth’s hand hovered. She could bear her father’s sarcasm. Mary’s coldness. But not Charlotte’s crushed heart. Not that.

She broke the seal.

I recognized it immediately, of course. That first line could only have come from you.

You always did see me more clearly than anyone else did.

Or so I believed. The second line—well. I am not clever enough to guess where it ends and you begin.

I told you once, Elizabeth, that you would not be able to protect the people you love from the sharpness of your wit if you kept sharpening it in private.

I never thought I would be one of them. It is difficult to be a joke.

More difficult when the joke is well-made.

And hardest of all when it comes from a friend.

Her fingers tightened until the letter crumpled. The words blurred. But not because of ink.

She had written that first line. She remembered it perfectly—had jotted it with affection one quiet afternoon, thinking how remarkable Charlotte was in her quiet way.

But the second line... She had written something kind.

Something about how no man deserved such a friend.

It had not ended like this . Not with that cruel twist.

Someone had changed it. Spoiled it. Published it with flair and intention.

And now—

She bent forward, arms braced against her knees, the letter clutched in her fist. A sob tore through her throat—loud, graceless. No elegance, no poise. Just the raw sound of something breaking open.

It was not enough that she had broken her family’s hearts. Humiliated Jane—oh, indeed, Jane would have to be blind to fail to recognize her in the last pamphlets. Jane was mortified, Aunt Gardiner was disappointed, and her uncle strongly considering declining all their remaining invitations.

But more than all this, she had wounded Charlotte. Of all people!

There would be no explaining. No version of the truth that did not reek of excuses. She had let her pride dance too close to the edge, and now her friends—her family—were falling in.

And she could not even warn the next one.

Oh, how she wished she had burned that journal before ever penning a single line!

But no, she had laughed over every word, gleefully turning her phrases to perfected turns of wit.

Perhaps she had not handed them over like party favors—not put them forward intentionally, and certainly never wished to hurt anyone.

But she had not locked them away, either. She had written them, laughed over them, left them where eyes might wander. And now—this.

Charlotte. Her father. Her mother. Each humiliated in elegant verse, their flaws gilded in cleverness and paraded through London drawing rooms by the dozen. Every word sharpened and loosed with her name attached, whether the byline admitted it or not.

A sob rose and she crushed it down. She deserved this. Every bit of it. But there was no apology sharp enough, no explanation clean enough, to undo the wound. She had not meant to betray anyone. But she had. And now her hands were stained with the ink.

From downstairs came the clatter of china—afternoon tea being laid. She was supposed to come down. Captain Marlowe was expected to dinner.

Her stomach turned.

He had not said anything—yet.

Not after St. Stephen’s Day. Not when the pamphlet had arrived in the middle of a game, fluttering innocently through the hands of her uncle like a holiday jest. Not when Jane’s smile had faltered or when Mrs. Gardiner had risen from her chair so suddenly she startled the fire screen.

Not even when Mr. Gardiner, usually so composed, had read the page in silence, his lips a line, his eyes fixed too long.

He had seen it all. Sat beside her through it. Listened to her laugh—thin and brittle—as line after line fell from her cousin’s lips.

Still, he had said nothing.

But the silence had changed. When he took his leave, his bow had been as polished as ever, his words unremarkable—but there had been a pause before he took her hand. A beat too long. The kind one feels more than hears. The kind that says: I know something is wrong.

Or perhaps it said: I am waiting for you to say it.

Elizabeth sat straighter, blinked hard, and pressed Mary’s letter into thirds with aching finality. Then her father’s. Then Charlotte’s. Each one folded as carefully as regret, each tucked away as if that might lessen their sting.

Her fingers trembled as she reached for her hairpins.

A few minutes later, her reflection in the mirror showed nothing amiss. Calm eyes. Straight shoulders. A mouth that could almost pass for smiling.

She did not feel composed. She did not feel anything at all, except the odd pressure in her chest as she turned toward the stairs. The captain would be arriving for dinner any moment.

And she must look like the kind of girl who did not need forgiving.