CHAPTER SEVEN #2
"They will. Half will wonder whether their feathers are taller. The other half will be searching for someone more important."
"Mr Bennet," Lady Bennet protested, though she smiled.
He kissed Mary's forehead without disturbing her carefully arranged hair. "I shall be proud of you if you walk three steps and flee."
"Mama will not."
Lady Bennet's eyes filled. "I shall be proud after I recover."
At St James's, carriages crowded the approach. Trains, feathers, jewels, and uniforms filled the chambers before the Queen's drawing room. Elizabeth felt Mary's hand shake against hers.
"Breathe," she murmured.
"I am trying."
Across the gathering, Georgiana Darcy stood beside Lady Matlock.
She wore white and had already been presented the previous year, but she had come at her aunt's request. When she saw Mary, she smiled and touched two fingers lightly to her own wrist—the signal they had invented during practice to mean slow the measure.
Mary's breathing eased.
Darcy stood behind his sister.
He had returned from Pemberley the night before. He bowed to Sir Thomas, Lady Bennet, and Jane, who attended in support. His gaze reached Elizabeth and paused.
She saw admiration before he controlled it. Unlike at the assembly, he did not measure and dismiss. He looked as if the sight had struck him somewhere unguarded.
"Miss Elizabeth," he said.
"Mr Darcy."
"Miss Mary. Georgiana has spoken of little else this week."
Mary found a smile. "She promised not to tell you how often I stepped upon my train."
"She told me only that she did so more often."
Georgiana looked betrayed. "William."
Their laughter drew several glances, but it also restored Mary to herself.
Caroline Bingley approached in orange silk bright enough to challenge the chandeliers. Her curtsy to Lady Bennet was correct. Her apology had been offered in private two days earlier at Bingley's insistence and accepted by Jane with cautious grace.
"How lovely you both look," she said. "The family diamonds are especially charming, considering they are so newly bestowed."
Lady Matlock's brows rose.
Elizabeth understood the barb: borrowed royal jewels, borrowed consequence, an estate received rather than inherited.
Lady Bennet opened her fan. "The ornament belongs to the Queen. We return it after each presentation. I find that a borrowed diamond shines exactly like an inherited one, but carries less responsibility when the clasp appears weak."
Lady Matlock laughed aloud.
Caroline colored. "How practical."
"The last ten years with Mr Bennet have taught me something."
The line began to move. Conversation ceased. Mary gripped Elizabeth's fingers once, then released them as etiquette required.
Elizabeth entered first.
The room appeared both grand and strangely human: candlelight warming gilded walls, ladies shifting beneath heavy trains, an attendant discreetly retrieving a fallen feather. Queen Charlotte sat at the far end, small, composed, and observant.
Elizabeth approached, made her curtsy, and moved backward as she had practiced. The Queen looked at the diamond in her hair and smiled.
"Another Bennet daughter."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Your father still reads agricultural reports on Sundays?"
Elizabeth's surprise nearly disturbed her balance. "He claims they encourage humility, ma'am."
The Queen's smile deepened. "Tell him the King asks after his drainage."
"I shall, ma'am."
Elizabeth withdrew. At the edge of the room, she turned enough to see Mary enter.
Mary took three steps.
Her train caught beneath one heel.
She stopped.
No one gasped. No disaster occurred. Yet terror emptied her face.
Elizabeth could not move toward her. Protocol held everyone in place.
Mary looked past the Queen, toward the cluster where Georgiana stood. Georgiana touched her wrist.
Slow the measure.
Mary breathed, freed the silk with a minute movement, and continued.
Her curtsy faltered slightly and recovered with grace.
Queen Charlotte leaned forward. "You are the musician."
Mary raised her eyes. "I study music, Your Majesty."
"Miss Darcy tells me you play with feeling. That is rarer than speed."
Georgiana turned scarlet. Mary looked toward her friend and then back to the Queen.
"Miss Darcy is generous."
"So is your sister, I understand. She waited for you."
Mary's eyes filled. "Yes, ma'am."
"Then neither of you shall wait any longer. Welcome to Court, Miss Mary Bennet."
Mary withdrew without stumbling.
In the antechamber, Elizabeth caught her before tears could fall upon the silk.
"You did it."
"I caught my train."
"And recovered. That is the doing."
Georgiana joined them. Mary embraced her before remembering where they stood. Georgiana embraced her back.
Darcy watched Elizabeth hold both young women, her own feathers tilting dangerously.
Love rose in him without permission and without the old catalogue of objections.
It was no longer admiration he might abandon at a prudent distance.
It had become a future imagined in pieces: Elizabeth at Pemberley's piano beside Georgiana, Elizabeth arguing with his steward, Elizabeth laughing in rooms grown too quiet since his father's death.
Then he saw Sir Thomas watching him.
The older man's expression was not hostile. It was attentive.
Darcy understood that if he approached Elizabeth, he would not encounter a negligent father easily persuaded by fortune. He would face a man who had once crossed drawn swords and had spent ten years learning not to retreat again.
Strangely, Darcy respected her more for the obstacle.
That evening, at a private supper, Queen Charlotte spoke with Sir Thomas.
"Your daughters did well."
"They did better than I expected, ma'am, and exactly as I hoped."
"The second one was frightened."
"Very."
"Courage is not the absence of it. You know that."
Sir Thomas glanced across the room. Mary sat with Georgiana. Elizabeth spoke to Darcy, her face animated and guarded in equal parts.
"I am still learning, Your Majesty, how many forms courage takes."
The Queen followed his gaze. "Then continue to pay attention."