24. Falling after Flying #2
“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 the gentle 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 been retreat or might have been for 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 ruin her 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.
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 the ton , 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 where the 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?”