Longbourn
Elizabeth had not writtenabouthim.
Not directly.
There were metaphors, of course. Imagery. A pair of boots abandoned by the hearth. A falcon with a frayed jess. One particularly vicious sketch of a hedge maze with no exit and too many mirrors.
But no names. No initials.
Certainly no mention of… well,thatwas just inconvenient.
She was back at Longbourn now, curled sideways in the window seat of the morning room while Jane read a letter aloud from their aunt Gardiner. It was all cheerful things—Mr. Gardiner’s new merchant contact in Newcastle, a paintingpurchased at auction, their eldest child’s peculiar taste in porridge.
Elizabeth nodded at the right places. Smiled.
But her eyes were on the glass. The yard was muddy with the last of spring, and one of the chickens had taken shelter beneath the lilac bush. She had written about that once, too—the stubbornness of chickens. The bloom that came whether they deserved it or not.
“Lizzy,” Jane said gently. “You are woolgathering again.”
Elizabeth turned back. “Only a little.”
“You have been quiet since London.”
“London was loud enough for both of us.”
Jane hesitated. “Did something happen?”
Elizabeth considered lying.
Instead, she offered a careful truth. “I believe I have worn out my welcome in at least one drawing room.”
“Oh, no.”
“It was bound to happen eventually.” She stood, stretching. “My opinions have always been dangerously shaped.”
“By what?”
“Experience. Irritation. A deep mistrust of velvet.”
Jane smiled. “Do you regret it?”
Elizabeth opened her mouth. Closed it.
“Regret” was not the word.
She did not regret writing what she had. She regretted thathehad read it. Been wounded by her words out of the proper context of their usual debates. Regretted the coldness that had followed. The tight-lipped bow. The way his voice dropped a degree with every word.
And most of all, she regretted the part of her that had been glad to see him.
She picked up her notebook from the window ledge, thumbed through the pages. The passage was still there, a little smudged now. She did not cross it out. She never did.
“I regret,” she said finally, “that some people make far better characters than companions.”
Jane, sweet Jane, said nothing at all.
Elizabeth sat again. And wrote nothing.
For once.
