"Oh! She is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld, but there is one of her sisters sitting down just behind you, who is very pretty, and I dare say very agreeable. Do let me ask my partner to introduce you."
I turned to look, was shocked to the bone, and spoke emphatically enough to startle my companion. “No need, my friend! No need at all! I know her well.”
I neither knew nor cared what my friend did next, as I had but one goal in mind. I imagine he either stared at me dumbstruck or burst into flames, but I could not be bothered. I strode over to the purported sister of his angel, grinning like a fool.
“Miss Smith!”
“Mr Jones!”
With that, and the aforementioned polite greetings, we were both smiling and laughing gaily.
I gave the back of her hand a kiss, which gave her a slight blush, which was interesting. We had discussed many subjects over the previous years that society said should make a maiden blush, but nothing had ever fazed her before.
I followed up my advantage. “Miss Smith, might I be granted the supreme privilege of your next available set.”
“I should be delighted, Mr Jones. My next is free.”
I offered my arm, and she happily took it (another first), then we turned to the dance floor, where the musicians were threatening to start another dance.
We had just started for the floor, when we were stopped by my friend and his latest angel, an ethereal beauty by the current fashion. For the first time, I doubted something Miss Smith had told me. I could clearly remember what she said in that first meeting, five years earlier: “My sister is seventeen, has been out two years, and is five times prettier than anyone else in thearea; so, it all seems pointless. Nobody will look past her to me anyway.”
I could not entirely disregard her words, whether I agreed with them or not. Her elder sister was a beauty of the current fashion, and entirely sufficient for my friend—but in my opinion, her beauty barely matched Miss Smith’s, let alone bested it. I had to attribute the disparity of opinions to sisterly affection (of which I could heartily approve), her mother’s browbeating (of which I could not), or just part of her stratagem to avoid coming out (which I also could not disdain).
“Who are Smith and Jones,” the elder sister asked confusedly to which Miss Smith replied, “I will tell you later, Jane.”
“I shall do the same,” I said to Bingley, which would have to be enough because the dance was starting.
For the next half-hour, Miss Smith and Mr Jones got to enjoy the sublime pleasure of dancing with a perfect partner, though at the time, I could only vouch for Mr Jones’s opinion. There was no need to talk. There were plenty of things to say, but none fit to be spoken on the dance floor. Besides that, I believe we were just enjoying the first time in five years doing something enjoyable, ordinary—and oddest of all—public.
As we danced, I saw the matron I had been introduced to earlier and realised that had I paid more attention to the introduction, I might have worked out that she had five daughters so must therefore be Mrs Smith. Alas, I had not, but I was happy enough with how it all worked out.
With the minuscule attention I was willing to pay anyone else, I saw my friend looking confused, his sister looking murderous, Miss Smith’s mother looking avaricious, and everyone paying far too much attention. I assumed my income must have made the rounds already, as it always does, and regretted that Miss Smith would know about it before we had a chance to speak in any real depth. It was a pity, but it couldhardly be a surprise to her that I was a man of means. Modest men did not buy duelling pistols for hundreds of pounds just to make their fathers briefly happy.
When we separated, we had said barely two words to each other, and I think we both knew we would have nothing even vaguely resembling our customary level of privacy.
By unspoken agreement, when the dance ended, I led her back to her mother to keep the peace; she whispered, “Oakham Mount. Sunrise.”
I nodded; since she was not making any attempt to engage me in conversation, she was clearly trying to save herself from her mother’s matchmaking efforts—an idea with much to recommend it. Aside from Bingley and the eldest Miss Bennet, nobody knew we were previously acquainted, and anyone watching the encounter would assume Bingley bludgeoned me into submission.
I gave polite nothings to the mother and took pity on the poor next daughter. I assumed she was the religious one since she dressed like a Quaker and had the same very plain hairstyle Miss Smith had worn the past five years. Miss Smith gave me a bright smile at that one, and quickly nodded to the elder Miss Lucas, who had danced the first with Bingley, but then been superseded by the supposedly more beautiful elder Miss Smith. I supposed I would have to learn her real surname eventually.
I asked Miss Lucas for the next dance, then lined up my duty dances with Bingley’s sisters.
I enjoyed the dances with the religious sister, who was apparently Miss Mary, and with Miss Lucas, whose given name was Charlotte. I endured Bingley’s sisters as usual and rounded the night out by avoiding the youngest Miss Smiths entirely. They were obviously cut from different cloth than the sister who sold me my grandfather’s duelling pistols when she was their age.
By the end of the night, I still had not been properly introduced to Miss Smith, though it was not difficult to learn her name, and it would not strain credulity to believe she knew mine.
I could not wait for sunrise.
14th October 1811 7 o’clock
“Miss Smith!”
“Mr Jones!”
That was how our eighth encounter began.
She laughed gaily, which lit her eyes as prettily as they had back in the summer, just before she saved my sister’s life.
