The music began, and Arthur danced with more enthusiasm than skill, which Elizabeth preferred wholeheartedly. But then, he trod on her right foot during the first figure while apologizing with such mortification that his face went the color of a strawberry.
“I am so dreadfully—Mother warned me about the—it is these new shoes, they are?—”
“Arthur, the fault is mine. I placed my foot directly in your path. I have a genius for inconvenient placement.”
As she swung through the promenade, her eyes darted toward the center of the set where Darcy was guiding Allegra flawlessly. Even though Allegra spoke to him, his gaze remained fixed on Elizabeth and the bumbling Arthur, who was struggling to deliver his second rehearsed compliment.
“Mother said I should remark upon the gold thread. It catches.” He waved vaguely at the four hundred candles, the chandeliers, and the entirety of light everywhere. “The everything.”
“Why yes, I do suppose it does.” Elizabeth’s laugh escaped as she peeked at Darcy, who pretended not to notice, solemnly spinning Allegra as if he hadn’t been watching her all along.
By the third compliment, Elizabeth finally relaxed. The ballroom felt less like a gauntlet and more like a game.
“Why, I do believe, Miss Bennet, that my mother wished to me to say that your family is—” Arthur glanced desperately toward his mother, who was mouthing words across the ballroom that proved her son was clearly not a lip reader, ending with, “Very nice.”
“Yes, Mr. Craster, I do believe we Bennets have niceness sewn up in our silk slippers.”
Arthur beamed, clearly convinced he’d just delivered a triumph. Then, in the final turn, his foot landed squarely on Elizabeth’s left toes.
Elizabeth swallowed a yelp, and Arthur’s face went crimson. “Oh, Miss Bennet, I am so sorry—my feet have minds of their own. Are your toes intact?”
“I do believe these little piggies are still able to go to market, Mr. Craster. But I suppose one of them wishes to stay home.”
At that, Arthur let out a great, booming laugh, and Elizabeth laughed with him, throwing up her hands with an unguarded delight that would have shocked the assemblies of Hertfordshire. In the periphery of her vision, she noted the sudden, dark scowl of Lady Matlock watching from the raised sofas. The sight of that aristocratic displeasure only made Elizabeth skip and hop even more enthusiastically around the final turns.
The dance ended, Arthur bowed, and Elizabeth realized she’d made a friend. His mother swooped in, all feathers and fuss. Watching them go, Elizabeth felt something fizzy and bright bubbling up inside her. The night was young, the ballroom golden, and her feet itched to dance again.
Mr. Langley had the second country dance, and his conversation consisted of agreeing with everything Elizabeth said, which was flattering for two minutes and excruciating for eighteen, and Elizabeth thought of Darcy’s assessment—the romantic ambition of a footstool—and had to disguise a snort of laughter as a cough, badly, because the couple beside them glared and Elizabeth’s composure was in ruins. But she hardly minded, because the joke was Darcy’s and the laughter was his gift, another small kindness left inside her evening like a coin hidden in a cake.
Lord Coke appeared for the cotillion, and suddenly the evening felt different. He wasn’t ridiculous or forgettable—just solid, courtly, and eligible enough to make Mrs. Bennet, if she were present, faint with joy. But he was also Darcy’s cousin, and if he was here for the cotillion, did that mean he would claim the supper waltz as well?
“Miss Bennet. How are you faring tonight?” Lord Coke offered his hand.
“I have survived the Arthur and the Langley. My feet are bruised, my patience is tested, and my spirits are higher than they have any right to be.”
“That is the mark of a successful ball—spirits rising in inverse proportion to the condition of one’s feet.” Lord Coke took his position in the cotillion square with the relaxed ease of a man who approached each dance as a conversation. “I should warn you, my mother is watching from the third row with an expression that suggests she considers this cotillion the opening salvo of a campaign. I apologize in advance.”
“Your mother’s campaigns are legendary. I am told she once secured a dinner invitation for you at a house where you had not been introduced by arriving with three courses of food and the announcement that you were expected.”
Coke laughed—a genuine, full-bodied sound that turned heads. “She brought the syllabub; they could not refuse. It is Mother’s secret weapon.”
“Your mother and mine would get along famously. Mrs. Bennet once trapped Mr. Bingley into extending a dinner invitation by sending Jane to Netherfield on horseback in the rain, ensuring she caught a cold and had to stay the week.”
“Diabolical. I admire the strategy.”
“I admire the commitment. Jane nearly contracted pneumonia, but she did secure an additional four dinners.”
The cotillion’s figures brought them together and apart with a rhythmic intimacy that the dance demanded, and Elizabeth found herself enjoying Coke’s company with a warmth that went beyond politeness. He was intelligent without being showy, self-aware without being self-pitying. He spoke easily of his brother Richard’s letters from the Continent—the Colonel was well, had survived a skirmish near Bayonne, and had written demanding better biscuits because the French ones were insipid. Elizabeth felt the fond, warm recognition of a man she had liked at Rosings, a man who had been kind when kindness was scarce, who had walked her back to Hunsford in the rain.
“Richard mentioned you in a letter,” Coke said, reading her face with the frank directness she had come to respect. “He said you were the most engaging woman he encountered in Kent, and that he wished his circumstances had permitted him to know you better.”
Elizabeth’s throat tightened briefly. The road not taken. The moon without the sun. “The Colonel was very kind.”
“The Colonel was smitten, but second sons must marry practically, which is the great injustice of the system.” Coke paused, and his voice warmed. “He would want you to enjoy tonight, Miss Bennet. Richard always said that women who laugh should be made to laugh as often as possible.”
When the cotillion ended, Elizabeth tucked Lord Coke’s conversation away like a pressed flower—lovely, but from another season. In another world, he might have mattered. In this one, someone else already did.
Two more sets: Mr. Fairfax, who recited poetry as if he’d painted the Sistine Chapel, left Elizabeth mildly irritated—like a crooked painting. Lord Selwyn talked only of horses, which was oddly soothing after Fairfax’s dramatics. When she mentioned naming a kitten after a horse, Selwyn was so delighted he spun the wrong way.
