Chapter Fourteen #2
He had ensured she received an invitation to the ball, and now he ignored her. Perhaps her aunt was right, and he was simply toying with her.
“We must share the news with others,” Miss Bingley said airily. “I beg you to excuse us.” She led Mr. Darcy and Mr. Hurst toward another group of guests.
“Will you take a turn about the room with me?” Aunt Gardiner asked Elizabeth immediately. She nodded dumbly, too dazed to speak.
“He cannot have been serious in his feelings for you,” her aunt said once they were walking. “His affection for his fiancée appears genuine. He was playing some game with you.”
“It is possible,” Elizabeth allowed, blinking against the wetness in her eyes. Her conviction that Mr. Darcy was not that type of man warred with the evidence of recent events.
“It would be best for you to put him out of your mind.”
Her aunt was correct. No matter what lay behind Mr. Darcy’s erratic behavior, for Elizabeth’s protection she should be far removed from the man.
“Yes, indeed,” she responded. There was clearly no point in trying to speak with him about anything—even the goblin attacks—at the ball.
If he were no longer pursuing the matter, then Elizabeth was the only person who knew about Mr. Hurst’s possible involvement.
But what could she do? She had no proof, and nobody in the Convocation would listen to her.
She quickly swiped away a few tears; she could not allow anyone to guess her sorrow. She kept pace with her aunt as they navigated the perimeter of the ballroom. They had only just arrived at this glittering ball, and yet she could not wait to depart.
***
Elizabeth and the Gardiners left the ball at the earliest opportunity.
Nobody had invited her to dance or paid her much attention at all.
When they returned to Gracechurch Street, Elizabeth claimed a headache and hurried to her room, eager to avoid further conversation with her aunt and uncle.
How she wished she never revealed what he said in the dragon coach! Now she just wanted to be alone.
She quickly donned her nightclothes and slipped into bed. The guestroom at Gracechurch Street was small, tucked up under the eaves, but at least she did not need to share it with anyone. Making conversation with her small cousins would be intolerable.
She took deep breaths, trying to calm herself. But the humiliating scene in the Emerys’ ballroom was too fresh in her mind. And then she was sobbing, muffling the noise with her hand and dripping tears onto her pillow.
Eventually Elizabeth had cried herself out, but sleep would not come. The rest of the household had bedded down for the night, but her mind was racing. What was behind Mr. Darcy’s strange behavior? Why had he agreed to an immediate wedding? What—if anything—could she do about the goblin attacks?
Eventually, Elizabeth slid out of bed, donned a pair of slippers and her dressing gown, and tiptoed down the stairs as quietly as possible.
Having been trapped mostly indoors for two days, she was eager to feel the wind on her face.
Fortunately, the weather was mild, and she only required a shawl around her shoulders as she stepped into the small garden behind the Gardiners’ house.
A nearly full moon, high in the sky, shed radiance on the surrounding greenery. Buds of leaves had started to create a smattering of green on otherwise bare branches. A few daring daffodils had poked their heads out from the ground near the fence, a heartening sign that spring was coming.
Elizabeth perched on a small wooden bench and tried to understand her own feelings.
Why do I feel that I have lost Mr. Darcy?
He was never mine. Mr. Darcy’s words in the dragon coach had forced her to acknowledge her feelings for him, but now he seemed ready to ignore her existence.
He is engaged to another woman—planning to wed her in a week, she reminded herself.
He should not dance attendance on me, nor should I expect it.
He had been engaged for the entirety of their acquaintance; news of his impending marriage should not come as a surprise.
The problem was that the discussion in the carriage had bestowed something like hope on Elizabeth.
He had spoken of deep feelings for her and described the engagement as an undesirable obligation.
Although he had declared their relationship to be impossible, the tender way he spoke with her had made her hope for a better outcome. Perhaps she was simply a fool.
Her regard for him had crept up on Elizabeth unaware.
She had not set out to fall in love with an engaged man, but there was little point in denying that had happened.
She sighed, a soft exhalation. Even if she never told another soul, she should at least be honest with herself: she was in love with Mr. Darcy.
Nothing else would explain why the news of his impending nuptials was so hard to bear.
Tears rolled down her cheeks. Fate was so cruel, throwing them into each other’s paths when there was no hope for a match. In the carriage, Elizabeth had only begun to recognize her feelings, but now she fully experienced the devastating loss that Mr. Darcy had described.
He had not appeared devastated—or even disturbed—at the ball.
If his feelings were so shallow, then he was a different person than she understood him to be.
But surely even a shallow man would be uncomfortable in her presence—or concerned about what she might reveal to his fiancée.
He had been indifferent. It made no sense.
Had she been deceived in his character as Aunt Gardiner suggested? She had spent long hours with him every day for nearly a week; surely she would have glimpsed some hints of inconstancy of character.
He had seemed almost like another man at the ball. He had been unusually attentive to Miss Bingley—wearing an uncharacteristically silly smile. Elizabeth had witnessed him in his fiancée’s company before, and he had never behaved thus.
Certainly Mr. Darcy was capable of loving with terrifying intensity, but he was not the sort of man to speak of it so openly. And his words of love about Miss Bingley had been rather… stilted…mechanical. His tone had belied those declarations of ardor.
It was all so strange.
Elizabeth stopped breathing as she recalled Mr. Darcy’s account about Mr. Bingley unexpectedly favoring Mr. Hurst for archmage. Mr. Darcy had likewise seemed unusually friendly with Mr. Hurst.
Had the man used suasion to turn Mr. Darcy’s opinion in his favor?
She knew little about the illegal spell.
Mr. Darcy had not indicated that suasion was capable of producing such enormous changes in behavior, but he could have been mistaken.
Nobody practiced suasion today; even the Convocation was not likely to possess complete knowledge of it.
Feeling lightheaded, Elizabeth forced herself to start breathing again.
Would Mr. Hurst have used some of his carefully hoarded power to bother changing Mr. Darcy’s sentiments about his fiancée?
It hardly seemed worth the trouble. Mr. Darcy had suspected that Mr. Hurst had grander ambitions; it was possible that Miss Bingley was part of the man’s machinations.
Certainly control of Mr. Darcy’s wealth would be beneficial to any plans.
Or perhaps Miss Bingley herself used suasion.
She claimed not to practice magic, but certainly women were capable of more magic than was commonly believed.
Mr. Darcy’s conduct had been nearly the opposite of how he had treated Miss Bingley previously.
Indeed if Elizabeth had been Miss Bingley, she would have wished for him to behave in just that way: besotted and eager to lead his bride to the altar.
Perhaps Mr. Hurst had taught her the suasion spell; he might even share power with her if she was part of his schemes.
When they had discussed Mr. Hurst’s nefarious deeds, she and Mr. Darcy had assumed that he acted alone because they—like so many others—had discounted the possibility of a woman wielding power. The irony was not lost on Elizabeth.
Still, her theory seemed too fantastical. Could suasion even produce such results? And even if she was correct, nobody would believe such a baroque plot was possible. Elizabeth stared into the night sky, tears pricking her eyes.
The tasks before her seemed insurmountable.
In addition to stopping the goblin attacks and Mr. Hurst’s schemes, she now needed to rescue Mr. Darcy as well.
Perhaps she should return to Longbourn and forget she was ever acquainted with these people.
Nobody knew about the plot. Nobody would expect her to confront such unimaginable odds.
No. Elizabeth expected more from herself.
She could not allow Mr. Darcy to remain under the influence of suasion, and she could not allow that man to take over the Convocation.
There was a chance she was wrong in all her suppositions and would make herself into a laughingstock—and her family as well.
But Elizabeth had to be willing to take that chance.
Still, dread pooled in her stomach. How could suasion be countered? Her research had uncovered little written about the subject except a few untried theories. Mr. Hurst’s control of Mr. Darcy was so complete she could not imagine how to free him.
But, surely there was a way to counteract a suasion spell. If not, mages capable of suasion would control everyone. However, I cannot do this alone. She had reached the limits of her experience, but who could she turn to for help? Who could she trust?
As she sat on the bench, staring at the moon, the first glimmerings of a plan came to her.