She turned from the fluttering fans, passing the last table—then Anne de Bourgh coughed. At first, a small, stifled sound, then deeper, her breath ragged. Lady Catherine was too busy scolding Darcy about soup to notice. Elizabeth nearly kept walking, but Anne’s hand clutched her chest, her face going from pale to grey, and she doubled over, sputtering.
Elizabeth crossed back into the supper room and knelt beside Anne’s chair. “Miss de Bourgh. You are overheated. May I help you to the retiring room? The air is cooler there.”
Anne looked at her with surprise in her eyes. “The stays are… too tight. Mother had them laced for the journey. I can barely breathe.”
“I know. Come with me. We will loosen them.”
Elizabeth helped Anne to her feet, supporting her with the gentle, steady hand one might offer a wounded bird.
The retiring room was mercifully empty. Elizabeth unfastened the gown’s hooks and eased the stays by three inches. Anne drew a long, greedy breath—the sound of a body remembering how to live—and the grey terror began to recede from her eyes.
“Thank you.” Anne’s voice was stronger already, but her eyes held distress. “Mother does not understand that I cannot breathe. She believes my constitution is a matter of will. She says if I would simply decide to be well, that I am sick to spite her.”
“My mother believes that nerves are a matter of character,” Elizabeth replied. “That if one simply chose not to be anxious,the anxiety would obey. We are sisters in maternal delusion, Miss de Bourgh.”
Anne laughed—a small, surprised sound. “I can see why Darcy would choose you. I would choose you as a friend, too, if I could.”
Elizabeth paused, her hands stilling on the silk. “Why would you choose me? We are strangers, and the gulf between us is vast.”
“Perhaps,” Anne said, a faint, wry smile touching her lips, “it is because I recognize an affinity. We are both women who have learned to navigate rooms where we are not wanted.”
She folded her hands in her lap, the composure returning—the look of a woman delivering an unpleasant truth she lacked the power to soften.
“Do you understand what you have done out there, Miss Bennet? Not merely to your own name, but to Darcy’s?”
“No, but I am beginning to understand. I only meant to show he was not a fool, that he had not supplanted his cousin, but that I had made the choice to undo the damage.”
“You have magnified it immeasurably.” Anne’s pale eyes met hers with uncomfortable directness. “When the ton believed Darcy had chosen you, they whispered about his judgment but respected his agency. A man of his fortune may marry poorly and still command a room. But now they know that you claimed him, and the story transforms. He is no longer a man of questionable judgment. He is a man who was maneuvered by a scheming country miss. In the eyes of theton, Darcy has been made to look weak, and that, Miss Bennet, is considerably worse.”
“I did not scheme. Darcy gave me the choice, he?—”
Anne held up a weak hand. “No one will believe that. No one will care whether it is true. They will believe what makes the better story, and the better story is always the one wherethe upstart is punished for her presumption.” Anne paused, and something flickered in her expression that might have been genuine sympathy. “I am not saying this to wound you. I am saying it because you deserve to understand the situation you have created.”
“Then tell me. Tell me everything.”
Anne drew a breath. “Do you know what Darcy loses if he aligns himself with you publicly after tonight’s display? Not merely the disapproval of my mother and Lady Matlock, though that disapproval will be substantial. He loses his path to Parliament.”
“How?”
“The nomination for the county seat. The one his family has held for three generations. It requires the sponsorship of the great houses—the Devonshires, the Portlands, the network of Whig lords who control the pocket boroughs. That sponsorship depends on family connections, on marriages that strengthen the alliance, on wives whose names carry weight in the drawing rooms where political decisions are actually made.” Anne’s voice was relentless, even as she took great gulping breaths between the words. “My mother has been cultivating those connections for twenty years. Lady Matlock has been positioning her sons accordingly. Darcy was meant to marry a woman who would advance the family’s political interests.”
“But I wasn’t aware he wanted a position in Parliament.”
“No. You did not. Because Darcy does not speak of his ambitions. He considers it vulgar to discuss one’s aspirations before they are achieved.” Anne’s mouth curved in something that was not quite a smile. “He has been practicing speeches since he was a boy—reads the Parliamentary proceedings with his coffee, marking the debates he would have contributed to, annotating the bills he would have supported or opposed. Hisfather was elected to the House of Commons by his connections to the Matlocks through marrying my aunt.”
Elizabeth stared at her. The image of Darcy, young and earnest, practicing speeches in his father’s library, preparing for a future he might never claim, was almost unbearably poignant.
“How can I fix this?”
“The damage is done, Miss Bennet. You cannot unsay what you said in the supper room, but the memory of thetonis fickle. If Darcy marries well, then all would be forgotten and forgiven.”
“Meaning he marries you?”
Here, Anne smiled wanly, shaking her head. “Despite my mother’s wishes, our family does not exert enough pull for Parliamentary ambitions. Darcy requires a lady like Miss Amelia Elveden, daughter of a Marquis. My aunt, Lady Matlock, is the true power broker, not my mother, who rules only over Rosings Park and that hapless parson of hers.”
Elizabeth found herself speechless. She had never, in her entire life, wished for the destruction of Darcy—not even when he had belittled her.
Anne stood, smoothing the silk of her skirts. “I have perhaps said too much. I shall leave you to your reflections. But I suggest you consider whether your happiness is worth the destruction of his.”
