Chapter 25 – Elise
Chapter Twenty-Five
Elise
The lights rose on the Collins’ drawing room, soft golden tones warming the stage like a memory.
Elise stepped into it.
Into Elizabeth’s shoes. Elizabeth’s dress. Elizabeth’s posture.
For one suspended second, the theatre seemed to hold its breath with her. Then the orchestra shifted beneath the silence, and the world narrowed to the boards beneath her feet, the heat of lights on her skin, and the first line waiting in her mouth.
She spoke.
The sound of her own voice surprised her. Clear. Steady. Not hers, not exactly—Elizabeth’s. It echoed through the theatre like it belonged there.
She moved to the settee, unfolding the letter with trembling fingers. Across the stage, Graham stepped into a soft, focused pool of light and began to sing.
His voice carried like wind through an open window.
Mr. Darcy’s voice, yes, rich with apology, urgency, and restrained longing—but Elise could hear Graham underneath it.
The careful control. The aching sincerity.
The man who had spent the last few weeks letting her come closer without ever once demanding that she hurry.
As he sang of Wickham’s betrayal, of Georgiana’s near ruin, Elise kept her eyes on the letter in her hands and willed her breathing to match the tempo of the music instead of the panic ricocheting through her chest.
She had never felt stage lights like this before. Not so hot and so absolute. The spotlight pinned her in place, sweat beginning to bead beneath the wig cap and trickle down the back of her neck.
Then—
“Breathing helps, you know. Preferably in and out, in that order.”
Kevin’s voice slid through the orchestra’s well, dry and amused and achingly familiar.
It was faint. But it was him.
Elise didn’t dare respond. The mic taped to her ribs would pick up even a murmur, and the audience did not need to hear her tell an invisible dead dramaturg that she was trying, thank you very much.
She couldn’t see him anymore, and that should have terrified her. Later, it probably would. But right now, she just held on to the sound of his voice like a hand in the dark.
He was still here.
For now.
She folded the letter, hands moving with careful grace. Darcy’s song reached its crescendo, and her next cue crept, one breath away.
Her back straightened. Her fingers stilled. She lifted her gaze toward the stage lights—toward the audience she could not see but somehow had to hold in the palm of her hand.
If they all left before the finale, everything they had planned would fall apart.
Graham’s final notes echoed through the theatre and dissolved.
The lights began to dim.
Panic clawed up her throat.
For one awful second, she had no idea where to go.
“Left! Stage left!” Kevin’s voice snapped in her ear, all crisp and urgent now. “Go!”
Of course.
Elise exhaled, gave the smallest instinctive nod toward the empty air beside her, and hurried toward her next entrance.
Devon and Avery, as Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, greeted her with practiced familiarity, guiding her with ease that the Pemberley estate might truly have sprawled before them on stage. Their song opened gently, a warm welcome to the beauty around them. Elise followed their lead.
The ensemble joined them, transforming the stage into a dreamy tour of Darcy’s estate.
Bodies moved around her in graceful patterns she only half remembered, and every time she hesitated, someone was there—a hand angled the right way, a glance held half a beat too long, a shoulder turning to create space for her.
She had a few sung lines in this piece. Nothing too taxing, thank goodness, but enough to remind her that she had not warmed up properly and would be writing a formal apology to her vocal cords if she survived the evening.
Still, the blended ensemble number helped her find her footing.
It wasn’t perfect, but it worked.
Her breath steadied. Her shoulders dropped. She could feel her pulse again—not racing, just alive.
She was here. She was doing this.
When the Gardiners exited, Devon squeezed her hand in silent encouragement before vanishing into the wings.
And then it was just her.
Alone.
Her first solo moment onstage.
The music began soft and searching. Changed. Elizabeth’s turning point.
The lights settled on her alone, and time narrowed to the space between her breath and the first note.
This, she realized, she could do.
She opened her mouth and sang.
Her voice rose into the rafters.
Not perfect. Not polished in the way Lark’s would have been. But honest. Lived-in. Bright at the edges and raw underneath.
She leaned into the emotion—the heartbreak, the hope, the terrible tenderness of realizing the story you believed about someone might not be the whole truth. She sang it like someone who had lived it.
Because she had.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught movement in the wings. Faces watching her.
Nick, one hand pressed to his mouth, eyes shining. Jen, arms crossed so tightly Elise could practically hear her trying not to cry. Graham, still as a statue, his expression open and unguarded in a way that made her chest ache.
The Bennet sisters clumped together in a soft knot of chiffon and worry and pride. All of them still, eyes locked on her. Bex wiped at their eyes with the heel of one hand.
And there—Lark, seated with her leg propped up, Cici’s face glowing from the phone balanced in her lap. Lark looked pale and exhausted, but her gaze was fixed on Elise, fierce with something like apology and faith.
The climax of the song built.
Elise planted her feet.
For most of her life, she had survived by making herself smaller. By keeping her strange little life folded neatly behind locked doors and long sleeves. By stepping out of the way before anyone could look too closely.
Now everyone was looking. And no one looked away.
The final note burst out of her—clear, bright, and impossible to ignore.
For half a second, there was silence.
The audience erupted first.
Applause crashed over the footlights. Gasps. Cheers. Even a whistle or two that definitely would have scandalized several fictional members of the British gentry.
Then from the wings came her people—hoots, cheers, muffled cheers, cast and crew alike trying very hard not to ruin the show while making it abundantly clear that they were losing their minds.
Elise stood in the center of it all, breathless, stunned, beaming.
The applause faded. The energy settled just enough for Elise to take a breath and remember that, unfortunately, she was not allowed to bask forever. There was still a musical to finish and one extremely persistent supernatural stalker to summon and banish in front of a paying audience.
The next scene rolled in smoothly. She was back onstage with the Gardiners when Darcy rejoined them. Graham’s eyes met hers, and the look nearly knocked the wind from her lungs.
Pride. Awe. A quiet promise that wasn’t in the script.
It was Darcy. It was Graham. It was theatre. It was truth.
Their moment was short-lived. The Gardiners broke the news: Lydia and Wickham had run away together.
The tone shifted. She and the Gardiners exited stage left, the weight of the scandal already gathering behind them.
She lingered in the wings just long enough to catch the first dark chords of “Reputation,” a haunting overture of disgrace and consequence. Graham remained center stage, commanding the scene with the kind of stillness that made the entire theatre lean toward him.
A tap landed on her shoulder.
“Costume change,” Gina murmured in her ear like a reminder from a different world.
Elise nodded, caught one last glimpse of Graham in the stage lights, and rushed down the stairs. By the time she returned to the wings, Darcy’s final confession floated into the darkened theatre.
“No One Will Know” flickered through the theatre like candlelight. Soft. Steady. Sacrificial. It was a song that asked for silence, and the theatre granted it.
Elise watched from the shadows, her hands clenched at her sides. Joy bloomed in her chest, sharp and unexpected, because Graham was everything Darcy should be.
But beneath that joy there was ache.
The ticking clock.
The spell waiting for them in the final scene.
When the lights dimmed and the scene faded, Elise was already in motion, crossing to her mark as the set changed for the Bennet’s drawing room.
Graham stepped off stage right as she stepped on. Their paths crossed in the narrow half-light of the wings. Their hands brushed—just long enough for her to feel it: I see you. I’m with you.
His smile wasn’t just dazzling. It was unwavering. Safe. She tucked it in her chest like a secret and stepped into the light.
The scene burst open like an over-wound music box, spinning too fast and slightly off-kilter.
Elise entered the Bennet drawing room with her sisters, already caught mid-whirl. Pillows flew. Ribbons were straightened. Someone shrieked about cold tea. Elise’s hands hovered, unsure.
Kevin’s voice coiled into her ear like a ribbon of smoke:
“Toss that pillow. No, no, not the floral one—ugh, the velvet. Stack those books. In order? Who cares, just make it look intentional. Sit. That chair. Now.”
Elise moved on instinct, buoyed by her sisters’ subtle cues and Kevin’s disembodied direction. A nudge here. A shared glance there. A book shoved delicately into her hands by Romy, who smiled with all the aggressive calm of someone saying, We are absolutely not panicking in public.
She was not moving alone. She was carried by her sisters’ rhythm, Kevin’s guidance, and a web of invisible trust.
Then the door opened.
Darcy and Bingley arrived.
The chaos exhaled.
Postures straightened. Voices softened. The air shifted.
Elise, along with the other girls, exited smoothly as Jane and Bingley began their love duet, “Yes.”
The music was warm, a sigh through the wings. Elise pressed her hands to her chest. Her pulse was slowing.
She hadn’t ruined anything.
The show was still standing.
And for the first time that night, she believed they might actually pull this off.