This house is full of opinions, full of motion, full of sound. It is impossible to think in here. It is even harder not to feel.
Someone laughed down the hall. Jane, perhaps.
Elizabeth closed her eyes briefly. She envied Jane her gentleness, her way of gliding past things without being wounded by them. Her own heart had too many sharp edges. Every feeling caught.
He is proud. Cold. Entirely too sure of himself.
Also: handsome. Which is unfortunate. And not helpful.
Also: very tall.
Which is infuriating. I never like having too clear a view of a man’s nose.
He looks like someone who reads preambles for fun and then has opinions about them.
He watches like he expects people to fail—but quietly, as if he would not enjoy it.
I cannot tell if I want to argue with him forever or make him apologize for something he has not said yet.
“Lizzy?” Jane called. “Do you need the room? Mama wants us to practice curtsies again, and I fear Lydia is about to turn it into a footrace.”
Elizabeth groaned. Curtsies again? The last time, their mother would not let them stop until Kitty was coughing and Mary was dizzy from the blood rushing to and from her head too many times. She sighed and flicked her pencil with the tip of her finger. “I am nearly finished.”
Jane appeared in the doorway, her brows lifted in quiet amusement. “You always say that when you are writing,” she said. “You say ‘nearly finished,’ and then an hour disappears.”
Elizabeth looked down at the page, then up at her sister. “It is a very philosophical hour.”
Jane tilted her head. “That means it is not one you wish to explain.”
“Exactly.”
Jane smiled and stepped back.
Elizabeth returned to the paper.
I am not sentimental. I am not.
But something about him—about how still he is—makes me want to be louder. And softer. At the same time.
She stared at the words. That was not quite right. She stuck her tongue between her teeth and tried again.
I find I cannot dislodge his dratted face from my mind. Not just the expression, or the glances, or the way he always looks a bit like he is struggling with a particularly offensive turn of phrase—but the weight of his attention.
He watches everything. Everyone. But he does not speak unless it matters. I used to think that was arrogance. I am not sure now. Perhaps it is restraint. Or a kind of self-defense.
“Mama says to remind you your white gown needs airing,” Kitty said, poking her head through the doorway. “And that you are not to forget the pin with the pearls.”
Elizabeth nodded without looking up. “Tell her I shall wear it on my forehead, like a coronet.”
Kitty’s eyes widened, as if that were the most inspired idea she had ever heard. “Well, you had best hurry up, because Mama also wants—”
“Yes, yes, curtsies. I know.”
Kitty blinked, shrugged, and vanished again.
I am very good at laughing things off. I have never known what to do with sincerity except ruin it.
She looked at the line. Then crossed it out. Then rewrote it exactly the same. And then she wrote something else… something that had been picking at her mind for a fortnight now, ever sinceheshowed up in Meryton.
