“Miss Bennet. What a charming evening you must be having.” Lady Matlock’s smile showed a surplus of teeth.
“Lady Matlock.” Elizabeth inclined her head, keeping her expression pleasant despite the invasion. “The evening has been delightful. Lady Harewood’s hospitality is exceptional.”
“Lady Harewood’s hospitality extends to a great many people this Season. The question, Miss Bennet, is whether one deserves the extension.” Lady Matlock’s gaze traveled over Elizabeth’s ivory gown with the assessing attention of a jeweler examining a stone of questionable provenance. “That is a lovely gown. The gold thread catches the candlelight beautifully. One might almost mistake you for someone of genuine consequence.”
“Almost,” Elizabeth agreed. “But not quite, I suspect you mean to say.”
“I mean to say nothing that would give offense.” The lie was delivered with perfect grace. “I merely observe that certain gowns, however lovely, do not transform their wearers into something they are not. A country gentleman’s daughter remains a country gentleman’s daughter, regardless of the thread at her collarbone.”
“And a countess remains a countess, regardless of how many seasons she spends attempting to arrange other people’s lives to her specifications. We are, it seems, both prisoners of our origins.”
Lady Matlock’s poisonous smile flickered, and around them, Elizabeth heard the subtle intake of breath that indicated their exchange had acquired an audience.
“You have a sharp tongue, Miss Bennet. I wonder if you understand how little such sharpness serves a woman in your position.”
“My position seems rather comfortable at present. I have a chair, quail, and wine, and the company of Lady Harewood’s charming society. What more could a country gentleman’s daughter require?”
“Perhaps the wisdom to understand what she risks by presuming upon connections she has not earned.” Lady Matlock leaned closer, her voice dropping to a murmur. “Darcy is not for you, Miss Bennet. He never was, and the supper waltz, however publicly performed, changes nothing of substance. He is destined for a woman whose family can advance his interests, whose connections can open doors, whose name carries weight beyond the boundaries of a single county.”
Elizabeth took a deliberate sip of her wine, her expression as blandly pleasant as if she were discussing the quality of the oysters and quail. “If he required a door-opener of great weight, Lady Matlock, I am certain he could have hired a parish beadle to stand in the hall and rattle a collection plate. They are remarkably efficient at clearing a path, and they possess names that carry weight in every vestry in England. But since he asked me to dance, I suspect he was looking for a partner who could keep pace without succumbing to vapors or treading on his toes.”
Lady Matlock’s face hardened into something that looked very like genuine anger.
“You think yourself clever, Miss Bennet. You believe your wit will carry you through situations that require diplomacy rather than impudence. But let me tell you what your wit has accomplished tonight: you have waltzed with a man who has spent a decade building a reputation for careful judgment, and you have made him appear foolish. You have drawn the attention of every gossip in this room, and by breakfast, the story of the country heiress who trapped Fitzwilliam Darcy into a supper dance will be discussed in every drawing room in Mayfair.”
“How Darcy and I came to dance the supper waltz is quite a mystery, is it not? I can assure you it was not a trap.”
“You and I both know that my son, the viscount, is the highest-ranking gentleman to apply for the supper dance.” Lady Matlock’s voice had lowered to a hiss. “That Mr. Darcy has compromised himself and his good name by supplanting a viscount is what makes him a fool. When Lady Sophia gave him the authority to act as her deputy over your dance card, she did not expect him to abandon his careful judgment, his vaunted propriety, his good sense, his reason, and his very conscience by placing his own name on the dance card of a woman whose family is a joke in five counties.”
“I beg your pardon.” Elizabeth’s spine stiffened, and if she had feathers, they would have ruffled in Lady Matlock’s face. “Mr. Darcy did not write his own name on the dance card. I did.”
The silence that followed was absolute.
Lady Matlock stared at her with something approaching horror. Around them, fans had stopped moving. Conversations at neighboring tables had died entirely. Elizabeth heard, with the peculiar clarity that accompanies social catastrophe, the distant strains of the orchestra beginning the next set.
“You wrote his name,” Lady Matlock repeated. “You claimed a gentleman’s supper dance without being asked for it.”
“I was given the opportunity to choose, and I chose. If that is a crime against propriety, I confess it freely.”
“Miss Bennet.” Mrs. Drummond-Burrell, one of the Patronesses of Almack’s, had leaned forward from the adjacent table with an expression of scandalized fascination. “Do you mean to say that you solicited Mr. Darcy’s company?”
“I mean to say that when given a blank space and permission to fill it, I selected the companion whose company I preferred. I was not aware that preference was a violation of social law.”
“Preference expressed by a lady toward a gentleman is always a violation of social law.” Lady Sefton’s voice held thegentle correction of a woman who genuinely wished to help. “A lady receives attentions. She does not initiate them.”
“Then I have violated social law and must bear the consequences.” Elizabeth lifted her chin, meeting the assembled gazes with as much composure as she could muster. “But I will not have it said that Mr. Darcy compromised himself through foolishness. Whatever foolishness occurred tonight was mine, and I claim it entirely.”
Across the room, she saw Allegra’s face go pale. The younger woman was signaling something, a small gesture that might have beenretreator might have beenfor God’s sake, stop talking, and Elizabeth realized, with the sinking sensation of a woman who has just noticed the cliff’s edge, that she had fallen and the ground was rushing up to meet her.
She had tried to protect Darcy, and she had destroyed herself instead.
“If you will excuse me.” She rose from her chair with what dignity remained. “I find I require some air.”
Elizabeth Bennet rose in her ivory gown, the gold thread catching everything, and walked toward the doors without looking back. She would not give them the satisfaction of seeing her retreat. The supper dance that had felt like flying now felt like evidence. The giddiness, the abandon, the open mouth, the smile she could not control—all of it had been interpreted not as Miss Bennet in love, but as the country girl being forward. She gazes at a gentleman and presumes on a gentleman above her station. She has compromised her own reputation.
As she approached the doorway, she looked toward Jane, and Jane’s eyes found hers, steady, warm, and anchoring, although Jane had not yet heard. Elizabeth nodded, that silent communication that she was well. Mary sat with new friends, Georgiana’s pin bright in her dark hair, and Mary watched her with a fierce, protective alertness, but Elizabeth would not ruinher evening, so she smiled and nodded as if she needed only a repose.
Her sisters—her anchors. The Bennets of Longbourn, who tramped through mud, played pianos badly, and named kittens after horses. Worth more than every titled whisper in this stifling room.
