Chapter Fourteen
Such a party we were, we needed two carriages to take us to the assembly rooms in Meryton, and those two carriages wouldn’t have fit one body more. I found myself packed in beside Kitty, opposite Lydia and Mrs. Bennet.
Lydia and I had not spoken since the day before. She didn’t seem inclined to apologise, and I wasn’t keen on sharing my time with her until she did. It was easy to see why Mary detested the presence of all her sisters at once when they could be so cruel.
Mrs. Bennet seemed oblivious to the frosty atmosphere that hung over us, chatting to Kitty at speed about the men she expected to be at the ball.
She recited endless lists of names of suitors and how many dances she thought Kitty should offer them—one was simple courtesy, two indicated interest. She conveniently ignored the fact it was not Kitty who would get to do the asking.
Ladies were allowed only to accept or decline, and even the latter came with caveats and rules.
Through the entirety of her mother’s speech, Kitty kept her foot pressed against mine under our skirts.
I wanted to take her hand and hold it tight, to distract her from thoughts of an endless parade of men.
She had been the one to offer up the notion of a future together, but we still had yet to discuss the idea properly.
I tried to ignore the inevitability of our position.
The town ball at Meryton was far louder than the intimate affairs thrown at Pemberley. Anyone could attend, so there was an air of competition that was absent from groupings of friends. This was about matchmaking and networking and displays of power. I hated it.
Far more familiar with Meryton than I was, the rest of the party quickly melted into the congregation.
Jane, Lizzy, and Lydia no doubt had friends to catch up with, sharing gossip and updates of their lives.
Mrs. Bennet headed directly for the chaperones and spinsters gathered on chairs in the corner.
Usually that would be my first and only destination, too, but a gentle hand caught around my wrist and pleading eyes begged for my company.
Had Kitty not been at my side, I would have turned around and immediately returned to wait in the carriage.
But when she linked her arm with mine, pulling me into the fray, I was powerless to protest. The music was lively, a dance already in motion as couples paired up opposite one another, waiting to go down the line.
Rather than throw herself into the prescribed list of activities her mother had detailed, Kitty stayed with me.
She fetched drinks and kept up a constant, animated monologue in my ear as we traversed the edges of the ballroom.
She was so in her element that I forgot I was not in mine, happy to be swept up in her enthusiasm.
I could ignore everything I hated with her to distract me from it—I did not even lament my lack of reading material.
It was only after two laps of the room that I realised Kitty’s tactic was to keep moving so no man could stop either of us to ask to dance.
It would have been rude to interrupt us while we were not seeking the attention of anyone else.
If we kept walking and avoided any interference from her mother, I would not have to lose Kitty to the hand of a suitor, nor endure one myself.
So I was surprised when, as the current dance came to an end, she pulled me to a stop.
“Dance with me,” she requested simply.
The intensity with which I wanted to was overwhelming, but it was still out of the question.
It had been tempting enough in Pemberley, when all that had passed between us were brief brushes of fingers and hands.
I had not then let myself imagine a future.
Now that I had, I very much wanted to treat her like every other young woman got to treat her suitor. Her beloved.
“We shouldn’t,” I said.
Kitty was not so easily dissuaded. She squared her chin and took a step back, holding out her hand like a man formally asking a lady to dance.
“In Meryton we have a custom that, should a woman not be asked to dance by a man, she is free to pair up with a friend. We’ve been here ten minutes, and if no man is sensible enough to see how astounding you are in that time, none of them deserve you,” she declared.
I could not help but laugh. “We’ve been practically running away from anyone who might ask.”
“Please,” Kitty insisted.
I had no idea what I was thinking, or if I was even thinking at all, when I took her hand.
This was a place where no one knew me. They could gossip all they wished, but eventually I was going to leave Meryton, and no rumours we started were likely to follow me.
Kitty had plenty more to lose than I did.
If she was willing to risk it, I ought to be, too.
We took our places for the dance alongside the other couples.
There was no shortage of curious or confused looks, but none of anger.
It made sense, I supposed, that no one would see us stood up together and automatically assume we were abnormal.
If Kitty had been right about Meryton’s customs, then onlookers were more likely to pity us as spurned debutantes than abhor us as heathens.
I minded not what they thought, so long as they left us be.
The one smile we were granted came from right beside us, where Elizabeth had paired herself with Darcy.
That alone was uncouth—married couples rarely took to the dance floor, in what was deemed an activity for the courted and courting.
If you weren’t dancing with a potential suitor, you were at least expected to be displaying your vitality and grace.
But no one would deny a young married couple, clearly very much in love, a place in a dance.
“You look lovely, Georgiana,” Elizabeth said. “It’s good to see you at another ball. I was afraid your experiences at Pemberley might have put you off them forever.”
I looked almost plain, my dress unadorned and my hair so simple Emma had begged me to allow her to add more curls. If there was anything noticeable about me at all, it was the girl standing opposite me. I risked a fond smile in Kitty’s direction.
“It turns out I can be convinced to attend under the right circumstances.”
Elizabeth laughed, a mischievous glint in her eye. “So I see.”
“Is your leg strong enough to dance on?” Darcy asked, thankfully more preoccupied with my health than my choice of partner.
“I will be fine,” I assured him. “It is hardly the most strenuous of activities.”
Before he had time to argue, the musicians once again struck up their instruments and the dance began.
I already knew Kitty loved to dance, but I had never seen her smile quite so widely as when our hands met midway through a step.
It felt everything and nothing like when I held her hand behind closed doors.
It was just as intimate, even through gloves, but seemed almost monumental.
Daring. As if we were challenging the whole room to find fault and brushing any potential protests aside.
The rest of the guests might not have understood the significance of what we were doing, but we both felt it.
I was no stranger to the dance’s steps, having been taught them all in precise detail, but they were buried further down in my memory than in Kitty’s. I found myself relying on her knowledge of the steps to stop me making a fool of myself.
Kitty shone when she danced, beaming wildly and moving with a kind of ethereal grace that lifted her skirts as she turned. It was a privilege to dance opposite her. Despite likely bringing her shame with my lack of coordination and thoroughly mundane motions, Kitty directed every smile at me.
When the dance drew to a close, Kitty squeezed my fingers quickly.
“Another?” she asked, eyes hopeful.
“People will talk,” I warned her, but it was teasing more than genuinely cautionary.
Kitty grinned. “Let them.”
We were both being reckless, and that should have been what persuaded me to stop, but instead it was a twinge in my knee that forced me to take a break.
“I think I better rest my leg, at least for one dance,” I said.
“I can sit with you?” Kitty offered, but I knew the dance floor was where she truly wanted to be, and I was in no hurry to begrudge her that.
Before I could insist she not let me get in the way of her fun, my brother stepped forwards with a rare and unexpected suggestion.
“If you are in need of a dance partner, Miss Bennet, it would be my honour.”
Darcy rarely danced with anyone but Elizabeth.
Even with only one of their balls at Pemberley for reference, it was clear to me that he preferred not to dance with people he did not know.
I knew he was offering largely for Elizabeth’s sake, familiarising himself with a family he had once judged.
He did not need to know how much of a favour it was for me to see Kitty paired with my older brother rather than with a potential suitor.
Kitty gave me a panicked look, but I shook my head with a soft smile.
She didn’t need saving from this. Darcy could be intimidating, but she had no reason to fear him.
I liked the idea of him warming to her, accepting her.
It allowed me to entertain the fantasy of one day telling him where my heart lay.
“He would kill me if he knew,” Kitty whispered in my ear.
“Best to find other topics of conversation, then,” I replied, giggling.
I had no idea what was coming over me.
Kitty’s fondness for dancing outweighed her apprehensions regarding my brother, and she took his proffered hand and let him lead her to join the assembling couples.
“Let’s find you somewhere to rest your leg,” Elizabeth said, holding out her arm.
She escorted me towards a row of chairs lined up along the wall, awaiting anyone who had worn ill-fitting shoes or danced one too many Scotch reels. This early in the night, most of them were empty.
With Darcy preoccupied, there was no clear obstacle between me and any man wishing to ask me to dance.
I saw one or two heads turn my way, working out who I was and how much money I represented to them.
I thought back to Mr. Honeyfield and knew these men would similarly not be above the finding of loopholes and bending of rules.
If they asked me to dance, I could always refuse on the grounds of my injured leg, but I’d be expected to sit out for the rest of the night and I had hoped to dance with Kitty once more.
She had offered, after all. As much as I wanted to sit and watch her dance, I’d rather be able to stand up with her again myself, after a little rest.
“Can we go outside?” I asked Elizabeth. “I’d like some air.”
Whether she saw my true intentions or not, she happily changed course, and we found our way outside the assembly hall, tucked around the side of the building.
“You make an attractive couple,” Elizabeth said, the context absent but still clear.
I couldn’t help my blush. “Thank you.”
“Is it something you feel ready to tell your brother about?”
“No!” I yelped, my immediate reaction one of panic. “He would never understand. And unless I marry, he is in charge of my life.”
“You are in charge of your life,” Elizabeth insisted. “He would not punish you. He’d be mad to think I’d ever let him.”
She was unspecific, but I heard the potential scenarios all the same. Sent to a hospital for the insane, kept locked up at Pemberley, denied access to my own money. Denied access to Kitty. I didn’t want to believe my brother capable of any of it, but I’d seen him send Frances away.
“Please, you cannot tell him,” I begged.
“Of course not,” she assured me, squeezing my arm. “Not without your consent. Now you wait here. I’ll liberate us some wine.”
She returned back inside with a wink, leaving me to my own spiralling thoughts. No matter how I imagined telling Darcy anything of how I felt for Kitty, I could not envisage a happy ending without feeling like I was lying to myself. The risk was too great.
Sighing, I leant back against the side of the building to take some weight off my knee. When I took in the figure walking towards me, I thought it a hallucination at first. Some kind of twisted mirage born from the speculation of a wandering mind.
George Wickham, in a scarlet jacket and freshly shined boots, was here in Meryton.