“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 neededthatthing to entertain you?”
Elizabeth pressed her lips together in a scowl. “It wasmeantto 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.
The hour had grownlong.
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.
