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 nopaper. 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.”
It was not a smile. But it lived in the same country.
The music shifted. A call for partners. And like that, they were drawn back into the tide. Elizabeth followed the motion of the crowd, head held high. For the first time all evening, she was breathing.
She sensed her before she heard her.
Music trilled, conversation hummed, but the practiced sweetness of Miss Ashford’s voice cut through it all. ““Oh—there you are, Mr. Darcy. I was beginning to fear I should have to dance alone… or else impose on Miss Bennet’s generosity a moment longer.””
Miss Ashford was all grace and silk as she arrived, fingers curling lightly around Darcy’s arm—nothing forceful, nothing sharp. Just the quiet certainty of a woman used to being welcome. Her skirts whispered across the floor, brushing his leg as though the fabric itself had been trained to claim her territory.
Darcy paused. Only for a breath—but she saw it.
Not hesitation. Not exactly.
A flicker. A thread tugged loose before he caught it again.
“Of course,” he said. Smooth as always. “Forgive me.”
Miss Ashford tilted her face up to his, smiling with the satisfaction of a lady whose dance card would never be found wanting. She slipped her hand through his arm, light as ribbon, and steered him gently toward the dancers. He went without resistance.
Elizabeth stood where he had left her, one hand still against the cold plaster of the column. The warmth he had lent her vanished with his coat sleeve. The space beside her collapsed.
The violins rose. The candlelight bled gold over the parquet floor. Someone laughed—high and musical and unaware. Elizabeth did not move. Did not speak. She only watched them go, and told herself it did not ache.
He had not looked back.
But he had not wanted to leave—she was sure of it.
