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 smilehad 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.
Chapter Thirty
31 December
She had not wantedto 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.”
