Chapter One: The Invisible Woman
Mary Bennet had been a resident of Darcy House for three weeks, and in that time, she had determined that marital bliss was not merely an emotion. It was an atmospheric condition. And like a dense London fog, it was damp, pervasive, and impossible to wave away.
She sat in the corner of the parlour in a high-winged chair, a book on the moral implications of solitude open on her lap, currently serving as a shield against the infestation of happiness taking place before her.
On the damask settee, a piece of furniture that had seen more dignity in its making than in its present usage, sat her sister Jane and Viscount Keathley. Robert was not merely sitting, though. He was draped—much like a Roman senator, and examining a strawberry with the awe of Captain Cook discovering New Caledonia. He held it aloft, inspecting it like a crown jewel.
"It is a travesty," Robert declared, his voice trembling with performative outrage. "Look at this, Jane. The texture. It is entirely too bumpy for a throat as delicate as yours."
Jane, who was radiant enough to illuminate a small cathedral, merely laughed. "It is a strawberry, Robert. That is its nature."
"It is a blunder," he insisted. He popped the fruit into his mouth, chewed decisively, and swallowed. "I shall not have it. Tomorrow, I am hiring a man. A specialist. His sole duty shall be to remove the seeds from your fruit with a very tiny pair of tweezers. You shall have smooth strawberries, my love, or I shall charge nature with a dereliction of duty."
Mary turned a page of her book, though she had not read a word of it. It was nauseating. It was adorable. It made her want to throw a paperweight through a window.
She shifted her gaze to said window, hoping for relief, but found none. Standing there were Darcy and Elizabeth. They were not speaking. They were engaging in that most irritating of Darcy habits: The Silent Communion.
Darcy stood with one hand resting on the white marble of the windowsill, his posture rigid to the world but leaning, almost imperceptibly, towards his wife. Elizabeth stood close enough that she could have elbowed him if fancy took her—romantically, of course—and was looking up at him with a half-smile that saidI know exactly what your brooding means and I find it endearing.
Darcy's eyebrow twitched upward—a microscopic movement that apparently contained a paragraph of information, for Elizabeth's smile widened. It was witchcraft. It was the smuggling of affection across a crowded room. It was revolting.
Mary felt less like a sister and more like a piece of upholstery. A dun fabric in a room of velvet and silk. Sheconsidered sinking lower in her chair, wondering if she could physically merge with the cushions and simply cease to exist, leaving behind only a pair of spectacles and a vague sense of disapproval.
"But wait!" Robert's voice sliced through the air, causing Darcy to blink and the silent communion to snap. The Viscount sat up, looking around the room with the frantic energy of a dog who has just remembered where he buried a bone. "Mary! We have forgotten the scholar!"
Mary froze. Being invisible was painful, but being perceived by Robert was worse.
"Mary," Robert beamed, waving a strawberry full of seeds in her direction. "You have been as quiet as a church mouse, if the mouse were reading philosophy. Tell us—how was the lecture? Coleridge on the drama, was it? Did he explain the meaning of life, or merely the meaning of boredom?"
"I found it... illuminating." Mary selected the word carefully. "Mr Coleridge abandoned the stage entirely and spoke at length on the distinction between Fancy and Imagination."
"Coleridge speaks at length on the distinction between breakfast and luncheon," Robert noted, popping the strawberry into his mouth. "Usually while under the influence of an excess of laudanum drops. I trust you kept a safe distance from his podium, Mary? We cannot have you returning in a fever-dream, convinced that the footmen are ancient mariners."
Elizabeth, having detached herself from the silent eyebrow conversation with her husband, glided over to the chair Mary was occupying. She sat on the ottoman with a rustle of expensive silk and placed a hand on her sister's arm. It was agesture of affection, which Mary tolerated with the stoicism of a martyr facing the lions.
"We only wish for you to find some levity, dearest." Elizabeth's voice was dripping with that infuriating benevolence of the happily married. "You have been to twelve balls since arriving, and at every one of them, you looked as though you were attending a funeral for a distant relative you did not actually like."
"I danced," Mary defended herself. "Four times."
"You danced with Robert and Fitzwilliam," Elizabeth countered. "It is not enough. Perhaps an exhibition? Something with pictures? I am determined to see you smile, Mary. It is my current project."
I am not a project,Mary thought.I am a person. A person who would very much like to be back in the library reading about the fall of Rome, which seems increasingly relevant to this family.
"I am quite content," Mary said stiffly. "I do not require exhibitions."
A shadow fell over her. It was Darcy, looming. He did not mean to loom, Mary supposed—he simply suffered from an excess of height and a deficit of smiling—but the effect was largely the same as a thundercloud parking itself in the living room.
"Do not hide, Mary," Darcy rumbled. His voice was deep, serious. "I speak from experience. I spent years standing in corners, shielding myself with hauteur. I believed I was superior, but in truth, I was merely hiding. It does not make one mysterious. It only makes one unpleasant. Trust me."
The room went silent. Elizabeth beamed at her husband as if he had just recited a sonnet. Jane looked misty-eyed at his vulnerability. Robert gave him a nod of approval.
Mary felt the weight of four pairs of eyes pressing down on her. She knew, intellectually, that they meant well. They were trying to pry her out of her shell like a stubborn oyster. But they did not understand that the oyster liked the shell. The shell was quiet. The shell did not ask about Coleridge or demand levity.
"I am sure you are right, brother." Mary rose to her feet. She smoothed her skirts with hands that did not tremble, though her stomach was turning somersaults. "However, I find I must retire. I shall go and change for dinner."
Jane blinked, her beautiful face scrunching in confusion. "But Mary, it is only four o'clock."
"Complexions like mine," Mary said, lifting her chin in a posture she hoped conveyed dignity rather than flight, "require preparation."
