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Chapter Thirty

S he had not wanted to come.

The cold was vicious enough to make a passable excuse, but Jane had given her that look—calm, kind, and absolutely immovable. So Elizabeth sat beside her, knees pressed together, fan clutched like a shield, as the carriage wheels clattered toward judgment.

“I cannot see what good it does,” she muttered.

Jane tugged her gloves tighter. “You do not have to dance. Just smile.”

“Oh, I am an expert in cryptic smiling. Perhaps I shall offer them riddles as well.”

The townhouse loomed ahead, all windows blazing. The front steps had been cleared of snow—pity. She might have slipped and turned back.

Mr. Bingley’s butler took her cloak with a bow. She heard her name announced, heard nothing else.

Heat. Light. Laughter.

Not kind laughter. The cloying kind. The kind that bubbled just a second too long.

She stepped in. The drawing room unfolded before her in candlelit layers—music, movement, mirrored walls, silk skirts sweeping past like ships in harbor.

Captain Marlowe appeared almost at once, weaving through a group of laughing cousins with the precision of a man who had practiced his approach. His cravat was immaculate. His smile was already in place.

“You are radiant,” he said, taking her hand as though he feared it might bruise.

“I am frozen,” she replied, slipping her fingers through the crook of his arm. “But do go on.”

He beamed again, delighted. “You have nothing to fear. Everyone here is charmed already.”

Yes, charmed. Or at least entertained.

They stepped into the crush. Conversation rolled over them in waves—easy, elegant, and perfectly choreographed.

She heard her name rise and vanish, like a skipped note in a melody.

Heard it again—softer this time, almost swallowed.

The weight of eyes was constant, though they kept themselves turned discreetly aside.

A cluster of young men near the fireplace glanced her way, then turned to their glasses, murmuring low.

A lady on the settee stopped mid-sentence to track Elizabeth’s progress across the room, then resumed with a smile too broad to be real.

Another adjusted her gloves three times in ten seconds, eyes darting between Elizabeth and her companion.

“Everyone is in excellent spirits,” said Captain Marlowe.

“Excessively excellent,” she muttered. “I am overwhelmed.”

“I should have called for you. I intended to.” He guided her toward a small alcove as if shielding her from something—though not very effectively. “But your uncle mentioned you might not be receiving callers.”

“Ah. That was very diplomatic of him.”

“I only mean—if I have presumed—”

“You have not.” She smiled without showing her teeth. “And even if you had, presumption is rather fashionable at present.”

His brow furrowed, just for a second. He did not get the joke. Or he chose not to.

“A bit warmer in here than the frost outside,” he tried.

“Ah, but the frost lingers near the punch bowl.”

He chuckled—two notes—and went quiet again.

She could feel the attention still hovering, like fog that refused to lift. A woman near the pianoforte narrowed her eyes just enough to suggest she was solving a riddle. Another, in blue satin, whispered to a gentleman in velvet—then both looked down at their cards too quickly to be natural.

Captain Marlowe turned to ask if she would like punch. She said yes, mostly to be left alone for a moment. He promised to return immediately, then hesitated, straightened his cuffs, and told her she looked quite well again.

“I shall endeavor not to fall apart before you return,” she said.

He did not quite laugh that time. Perhaps he did not hear her.

Or was it restraint?

He had been at the Gardiners’ when the last pamphlet had arrived.

He had seen Jane’s face go pale. Had watched Mrs. Gardiner retreat with the folded sheet like it might detonate.

Mr. Gardiner had read only a line before folding it back in half and setting it, carefully, on the mantel—as if the fireplace might consume it on principle.

Captain Marlowe had not asked. But he had noticed.

And then he had sent her flowers the next morning. White camellias and a note that read simply: “I hope the frost thaws.”

She had not known whether to laugh or cry. She had done neither. She had stared at the note until the ink blurred, then buried it in the drawer beneath her gloves.

She stole a glance at him now. His posture was easy. His face pleasant. His conversation mild.

As if he did not know.

Or as if he had decided to pretend.

It was the pretending that hollowed her out. The polite fictions. The way he took her arm like a man rehearsing for a future that no longer fit.

She missed her journal. Bitterly. Violently. It had always been a faithful audience—silent, absorbing, uncensoring. It had never looked at her like this. Never needed a performance.

But worse still—

She would have traded every quip she ever penned for five unguarded minutes with Darcy.

He would not have flinched from her sharpness. He would have argued, provoked, deflected. He would have made her defend it, sharpen it, smile in spite of herself.

And he would have known she was not fine.

Elizabeth’s chest ached. Not from heartbreak—there was none of that here. Just a slow, gnawing ache from the knowledge that she had done this to herself. That the only people still speaking to her were either too kind or too oblivious to stop.

S he heard them before she saw them.

The low hum of new arrivals—the shuffle of greetings, the rising pitch of Miss Bingley’s laugh. Elizabeth turned slowly, already bracing.

Darcy stood just inside the threshold, his frame unmistakable even in a room of well-tailored men. His shoulders were drawn tight beneath his coat, eyes already scanning the crowd as if he might locate a source of danger by sight alone.

Beside him floated Miss Ashford in silver satin, her curls arranged in airy spirals, cheeks flushed with uncomplicated cheer. She waved to someone near the card tables with the untroubled joy of a woman who had not read a newspaper in a week.

Elizabeth studied her face, hunting for a sign—tension, unease, even a flicker of discomfort. Nothing. No shadow passed behind those wide, pleased eyes. The girl was a portrait of perfect ignorance.

Or perhaps—worse—she had heard, but chosen not to understand.

Darcy’s gaze landed on her. Sharp. Steady.

Elizabeth looked away at once. Too fast. Her glass nearly tipped in her hand.

“Too warm?” Captain Marlowe’s voice was low at her ear.

“Perhaps.” She lifted her chin, made herself smile. “I cannot decide if it is the fire or the scrutiny. Either way, I may melt.”

He did not laugh.

She resisted the urge to whisper something to the air between them—some dark little line she would have scribbled two months ago. Betrothed to a ghost and partnered with a sieve. One cannot say I lack variety. But the words only circled in her mind now, homeless.

She sipped her wine, eyes on the rim. She did not look back across the room.

S he should not have worn blue.

It was not even a particularly bright shade—something between cornflower and forget-me-not—but it caught every beam of candlelight like a signal flare. She might as well have embroidered “AUTHORESS” across her bodice in gold thread.

Captain Marlowe had been summoned—some friend from the 33rd, ruddy-cheeked and full of port—and Elizabeth, never more grateful for military punctuality, had seized her chance to drift away.

Not too fast. That would look like retreat.

Just slow enough to suggest curiosity. A vase of lilies. The gilt frame of a hunting print. The ivy above a marble column. Fascinating. She examined it all with the studied intensity of someone desperate not to be approached.

A pair of ladies passed behind her, voices lowered.

“…she walked in like nothing at all…”

“…as if we cannot read…”

“…and with that officer, no less—”

“Aye, the poor fellow! Do you suppose he has not heard?”

Elizabeth studied the ivy harder. One of the tendrils looked suspiciously like a spider. She resisted the urge to lean closer and let it bite her.

A man’s voice from her left: “I say, if she truly wrote those lines, she ought to write speeches for Parliament.”

A dry reply: “Parliament at least signs its authors.”

She shifted her weight, careful not to wince. Her shoes pinched. Her stays were tight. Every part of her was squeezed into place, and still it felt as if she were unraveling thread by thread.

It would have been so much easier if she could jot it down. Something neat and devastating, like “Self: observed in wild, attempting dignity. Dignity unresponsive.” But she had no paper. No pen. Only this brittle little breath of composure—and not even that was dependable.

She had almost managed to slip into a state of numbness—a kind of grim observation of her own unraveling—when she felt it.

A presence.

Not loud. Not sudden. Just… there.

Darcy.

He uttered not a word.

He simply stood beside her, hands clasped behind his back like a man admiring the same ivy. As if this were a gallery. As if they were critics. As if there were no scandal, no whispers, no pamphlets with her name etched invisibly across the margins.

“If you wish to leave,” he said quietly, “I can make it happen.”

She startled. Not at his presence. At his tone.

It was not pity. Or condescension. It was just… support. Offered simply. Without condition.

“And give them the final confirmation they crave?” she said, too fast. “Certainly not.”

His eyes flicked toward the dancers, then back. “Then you will stay.” A breath—low and shaken. “As will I.”

The violins swelled behind them. A brisk reel. She could hear the brush of shoes against polished wood, the rustle of skirts. Her own breath, quiet and shaky.

“Thank you,” she said. It scraped out of her like something sharp. “For not… looking away.”

He turned slightly, just enough that she caught the edge of his expression.

“I have done enough of that, I think.”