17. In which Colonel Pascal and Lady Catherine corr...

Elizabeth returned from her usual weekly visit to the hospital in a state of considerable perplexity.

“Georgiana,” she called, spotting her in the front hallway, “I do not mean to interfere but did you need any help for this ball you are planning? I think in the excitement of Mrs. Elliot’s wedding, and coming back to Pemberley, I forgot your telling me of it.”

“A ball?” Georgiana asked blankly.

“Yes, Colonel Dunne asked me to save him the Irish reel—he was feeling nationalistic— and I am afraid I stared at him in utter confusion.”

“I am not planning a ball.”

“Was it supposed to be a surprise?”

Intentionally or not, it was a surprise to Georgiana.

Elizabeth hesitated and said, “You did not... perhaps forget that you had mentioned wanting to plan a ball to an over efficient servant?”

“No,” said Georgiana, considerably bewildered.

The footmen in the front hall replied with bewilderment to Elizabeth’s inquiries on that head. Mrs. Reynolds was sent for, and she was aghast at the idea she would ever issue invitations herself. Then she paused and said, “Although, madam— Lady Catherine is come. She is in the library with the master now.”

“Lady Catherine is come!” Elizabeth and Georgiana both exclaimed.

“Yes, Mrs. Fitzwilliam, and Miss de Bourgh and her companion too. I have put them in the blue and the yellow guest rooms, as they were the ones most recently cleaned. We are preparing the best guest bedroom for Lady Catherine. Colonel Pascal will not mind he will not be in it?”

“No, he has experienced Lady Catherine himself enough times at Matlock House to understand— but why is Lady Catherine here? I had no notion of her coming, and I do not think Mr. Darcy would spring guests upon us unannounced— it does play merry hell with the dinners Georgiana and I have ordered this week. Could you lay thrrr more places at table, and let me know if Monsieur Bayard is utterly or merely dreadfully upset at having three additional guests for dinner this close to the dressing hour?”

“I shall talk to Monsieur Bayard, ma’am, but permit me to say that it seemed the master was also very surprised to see Lady Catherine.”

“Shall we stage a rescue, Georgiana?” Elizabeth asked, when all the servants had gone downstairs. “If we combine forces, we may yet rout the invader.” The ribbon about her wrist had been a little deranged as she took off her fawn-colored spencer, and she pulled it straight with the same air as an army officer adjusting his gloves before battle.

“Must I?” asked Georgiana, gesturing at her dusty riding habit covered in horsehair and sweat.

Elizabeth laughed. “No, you needn’t. Go up and wash. I will make your excuses if Lady Catherine asks.” She rapped on the door. “Mr. Darcy? It is Mrs. Fitzwilliam.”

The sound of hasty footsteps soon followed, and the door swung open.

“Mrs. Fitzwilliam,” said Darcy, with patent relief. “Will you please come in?”

Elizabeth did so, and went so far as to add, “Lady Catherine! This is such a surprise! We had no notion of your coming to Pemberley.”

Lady Catherine, regally enthroned in the Duke of Wellington’s wingback chair before the fire, her hands resting on the ivory top of her beribboned walking stick, looked suspiciously at Elizabeth. “I flatter myself that I carried off the surprise perfectly. Not a soul knew of my plan to visit my dear nephew on his birthday. Were you not surprised, Darcy?”

“Extremely,” replied he, seating himself behind his desk.

Lady Catherine said, “ I am surprised, Mrs. Fitzwilliam, you are still at Pemberley. I was given to understand that you would be spending the rest of the summer with your sister, Mrs. Bingley.”

“I will, when she and her husband return from Sanditon,” said Elizabeth, smilingly, and sitting in her usual chair, by the chessboard. “But that is not for another month or two.”

Lady Catherine was extremely displeased to hear this. Only rearranging the fall of her gold-trimmed purple brocade traveling gown restored her to equanimity. “If you had known that you were staying on longer at Pemberley, I wonder then, why you did not organize a ball for my nephew’s birthday.”

“For Mr. Darcy’s birthday?”

Darcy looked as if he could conceive of no birthday present more horrible than a ball in his honor.

Lady Catherine of course ignored this. “Indeed, yes. The master of Pemberley ought to have some celebration of his birth. But I suppose you are still in half-mourning—” with an approving nod to Elizabeth’s lavender walking gown (she had not yet lost enough weight to fit into any of her walking gowns from Paris) “—so you did not think it proper to plan a ball.” Lady Catherine was inclined to be pleased with this news. “That is very proper in you; I well understand your scruples. However, I am not in mourning and tomorrow week shall be a full moon. We shall have a ball then. A local affair, nothing too grand. It is all that can be done in so short a span of time.”

Darcy was speechless.

“Your Ladyship is much too kind,” Elizabeth began to protest.

“You need not do anything,” Lady Catherine assured her. “I have already sent the invitations; indeed, all the neighbors ought to have received them today. My own chef has brought everything necessary for the white soup. I daresay he is in the kitchen, making it already. We shall need access to your succession houses before we can plan the rest of the menu, but I assured them that would be arranged tomorrow.”

Elizabeth and Darcy exchanged dumbstruck looks.

“Monsieur Bayard knows someone else will be cooking in his kitchen?” Elizabeth managed.

“Who?”

“Mr. Darcy’s chef. Monsieur Bayard.”

Lady Catherine waved away this detail. “Now, I will go wash and dress for dinner. I will tell you of all the plans I made in your behalf then.” She rose, managing to imbue the act with more ceremony than Louis XIV at Versailles, admonished Darcy to think on what she had told him, and swept out of the room.

“Well!” exclaimed Elizabeth, when the door swung shut. “I wish Lady Catherine had been given a pair of colors. We would have been across the Pyrenees without Napoleon’s knowing of it back in ‘09. She is thorough  master of the surprise attack. I suppose she has brought you a hugely inconvenient birthday present?”

“Of a kind.”

“That sounds ominous. Dare I ask...?”

“As I am now thirty-three and have not found a wife, Lady Catherine has found one for me.”

Elizabeth felt unpleasantly jolted. “In— indeed? Is it anyone I know?”

“She suggested I ought to marry Anne.”

“Your cousin Anne?” asked Elizabeth.

“Yes.”

Then understanding dawned. ‘Ah!’ thought Elizabeth, ‘Lady Catherine has reached the same conclusion I have— but she is not so clever as she thinks! She picked up that Darcy’s soulmate was Anne Elliot Wentworth, but she did not correctly guess his mark!’ “That is... kind of her, I suppose, but I thought....” She absently picked up one of the chess pieces and turned it over in her hand, before flushing at the half-smile Darcy gave her in response and hastily setting it back down. “That is— the two of you have known each other your whole lives. Surely if you were a match, you would have known by now.”

“We are not a match.”

“Then...?”

“As I am fast approaching death,” replied Darcy, dryly, “clearly all that is left to me is the very common society arrangement whereby I marry someone my social equal and pretend we are a match, for the purpose of keeping both Rosings and Pemberley in the family, and having children.”

“Anne have children?” Elizabeth said, in some alarm.

“Yes, that seemed... inadvisable.”

“That is to say,” Elizabeth backtracked, feeling her shock had been a bit excessive, “I suppose it is not... impossible, but she is in such poor health I cannot think how she could be comfortable carrying a child to term. And....” She hesitated. “I do not mean to project my own wishes on you Darcy, but I always thought you would wish for at least three children, at the very least.”

He looked at her with a soft, amused expression, the sunlight behind him fading into the tumbled strands of his dark hair. Unless his valet was particularly attentive in the morning, there was a single lock of hair that tended to fall out of order and over his forehead; it had done so now and Darcy looked unfairly charming because of it. “I suppose you think me rather traditional then.”

“An heir, a spare, and a little girl to keep her mother company,” said Elizabeth flippantly. She stood and stretched. “But no, that was not my reasoning. I chose three because it has for some years been my own preference, and because is more than two and less than five. Five children, in my experience, is an unmanageable amount; and from what you and Georgiana have let fall, I think you would have wished for more children your own age about you, when growing up— with the Fitzwilliams at the other end of the country, and so few members of your father’s family in general.”

“That is true,” he said, “but Pemberley is not entailed; and I would find it no evil to have a large family of girls.”

She walked over to Darcy and affectionately flicked the lock of hair off of his forehead. “So you think, but as one who grew up in a large family of girls, let me assure you, you would change your mind as soon as they all have language enough to argue with each other.”

Her fingers lingered in his hair; it was thick and nicely textured, with enough natural curl to be fashionable without being unmanageable. And Darcy was smiling up at her in a way that meant he was amused by her, and searching for the right way to match her tone and spirits; her heart swelled with sudden affection.

“Mrs. Fitzwilliam,” said Lady Catherine grandly, from the doorway. Elizabeth whirled around in confusion, pulled her hand back as if scalded. How long had her ladyship been at the door, eavesdropping on their conversation? Elizabeth had not heard the door open.

“Lady Catherine,” said Elizabeth, trying to recover with a curtsey. “Will Anne and Mrs. Jenkins be joining us for dinner? I have asked Mrs. Reynolds to lay places for them—”

“You have done so?”

“Yes.”

“Not Miss Darcy?”

Elizabeth, wondering just what Lady Catherine found offensive in this, said, “I beg your pardon if I have gone against the prevailing custom, and Miss de Bourgh requires calf’s foot jelly and gruel in her room after every journey. I shall see to it at once, if that is the case.”

“And Miss Darcy cannot?”

What was she getting at? “She is not presently in the room, Lady Catherine. If you particularly wish Miss Darcy to attend upon her cousin, I can fetch her for you, but she is washing after her usual ride—”

“No,” said Lady Catherine. “That is not necessary. Tell me, Mrs. Fitzwilliam, how is it precisely that you fill your time at Pemberley?”

Elizabeth answered confusedly. Darcy was in a mood and went to stare out the window, as if stationed as the watch at an encampment. Lady Catherine kept up this line of inquiry, demanding to know who ordered the dinners, who Mrs. Reynolds went to with questions, who issued invitations, and who visited the tenants. After five minutes of this, Darcy turned abruptly from the window and asked, “Lady Catherine, may I ask to what these questions tend?”

“You may,” said Lady Catherine graciously.

Darcy looked at her with mixed impatience and expectation.

“I merely wish to assure myself that my dear niece is ready to run her own household. I feared that that might be the reason she did not marry this season, but I am glad to hear it is not. I do wonder what keeps her.”

“Georgiana will marry whenever she feels ready,” said Darcy, in a deliberately even tone of voice. Darcy was about two minutes away from really losing his temper; Elizabeth was shocked that Lady Catherine could not see this.

“Shall we go dress for dinner?” Elizabeth asked brightly, and instead raced belowstairs, to keep Monsieur Bayard from from attacking the Kentish invaders with his carving knives.

“Can nothing be done, Mrs. Fitzwilliam?” Mrs. Reynolds whispered.

“I fear not,” replied Elizabeth. “The invitations are already sent.”

Monsieur Bayard let out the bellow of bull about to be put to death in a Spanish arena. “Eight days! You give me but eight days for a ball, and do not even give me the management of my own kitchen! This is intolerable.”

“Believe me,” said Elizabeth, in French. “This was not my idea. I am not happy about it. Neither is Mr. Darcy. He would cancel the ball if he could. He does not like large parties like this. And for his birthday, too!”

The knowledge that someone was suffering more than him appeased Monsieur Bayard, somewhat; Elizabeth’s ranting in French about Lady Catherine did still more, and in the end, he was appeased enough to say, “Well! If the master suffers more than the rest of us— perhaps I may do one good thing for him. Tomorrow I make you a picnic. Lady Catherine will think it undignified to go; the master may have one afternoon free from her, on his birthday."

Elizabeth somewhat mistrusted this, and was sure she would return to the house tomorrow to discover Darcy’s chef had baked Lady Catherine’s into a pie, or carved him up as a roast, but Mrs. Reynolds assured her that she would not let anyone be murdered, and dinner that evening was so intolerable, Elizabeth agreed.

When she saw Darcy come out of his rooms the next morning, Elizabeth grabbed him by the hand and said, “Oh Darcy, you must come at once to the east meadow!”

“What is wrong?” he asked, rather bewildered.

“I am not fully informed of all the facts, but it is something that requires your immediate attention.” She shooed Boatswain down the stairs. “Do come, you are needed at once.”

“But for what specifically? I cannot be of any help if I do not know the particulars.”

Elizabeth felt exasperated. She had relied on his immediate acquiescence to her saying, ‘I need you.’ For God’s sake, he had traveled to an active war zone because she mentioned in passing that his cousin was a little feverish, why could he not just go to the east meadow because she wished it?

“The— the cows from the home farm are got into the meadow.”

“How could that be?” Darcy asked, baffled. “The home farm is nowhere near there.”

Elizabeth tried to tug him along. “I have no idea.”

“But—”

“Oh Darcy do come; all I can get are conflicting reports. And whatever the case, Boatswain will be useful.”

Darcy remained confused; it was only when she lead him to the base of the hill where Georgiana and Kitty were sitting with a picnic, that comprehension dawned.

“The cows were a diversionary tactic.”

“It took you that long to figure it out?” She laughed. “Ridiculous man. I know disguise of any sort is your abhorrence, but it was in the service of the greater good. This is a better birthday than the one you envisioned when Lady Catherine descended like a wolf on the fold, gleaming all in purple and gold, is it not?”

“Considerably.”

“And after you have eaten, you may read the new books we have all gotten you, and speak to no one all the rest of the afternoon. Or we can debate about The Giaour and I can promise in advance to lose."

Darcy glanced up the hill to make sure they could not be seen, and raised their linked hands to his lips. “I am not sure what gift is best.”

She tugged him up to the top of the hill. When they finished eating, Kitty and Elizabeth presented Darcy with a joint present of a new translation of de Vega’s most popular plays, as Kitty hadn't enough pocket money left for a full gift (Elizabeth slipped her more personal gift, The Corsair, and the rather sentimental inscription she had put in it, into the pile of other books). Georgianna had showered her brother with new novels and histories, and with craftwork, but did not stop with what could be manufactured out of wool and silk thread. The meadow was full of wildflowers, and she set herself to the production of daisy chains. This was a more complicated endeavor than she had anticipated and soon enlisted the rest of the party.

Elizabeth thought at first Georgiana had gone a step too far, but the august Master of Pemberley did not find it beneath his dignity to assist his sister in this new endeavor, and even smiled when Georgiana (through Kitty and Elizabeth's instruction) turned his crooked string of daisies into a flower crown.

“Lizzy can wear it,” suggested Kitty, taking Elizabeth’s bonnet.

Elizabeth was not entirely sure she wished to. She was already covered in vegetation, and rather occupied in trying to brush off all the dirt and bits of grass and daisy stems from her skirts. She stifled a sigh; she was in one of the off-white morning gowns of hers that still fit, and oddly missed her blacks— not because she wished still to mourn, but because she could get her hems hideously dirty without anyone noticing.

“The flower crown would look a bit odd with your cap,” Georgiana said.

“Do not make Mrs. Fitzwilliam wear my handiwork,” said Darcy. “It is not of a caliber to be displayed.”

Elizabeth took the flower crown and said, “Nonsense, Darcy, you are an excellent haberdasher. I literally take my cap off to you.”

Georgiana and Kitty scampered off to a promising clump of wildflowers, declaring their intent to decorate Boatswain with full garlands. Boatswain was entirely ignorant of this plan, but was happy that two people were fussing over him. He thumped his tail and turned his drooling head from Kitty to Georgiana with looks of utmost adoration.

Elizabeth watched them, smiling, as she tried to take off her cap without deranging the rest of her hair. She met with limited success; a couple of curls straggled down her neck by the time she had replaced cap with daisy crown.

“You look like a wood nymph,” said Darcy.

“I cannot tell if that is a compliment or not,” said Elizabeth, smoothing down the draping off-white muslin of her gown, “but I promise I shall not turn into a laurel tree if you try to kiss me.”

He was by now comfortable enough to smile at her, and reply, “I should not like to test it.”

“A pity, sir,” she replied, with a flirtatious look. “The risk of transformation is very slender indeed. You would obtain your object.”

“To crown myself in laurels would not be worth the cost.”

She laughed at him. “Well! I cannot imagine how Kitty and Georgiana would react to it; perhaps we had better not indulge now.”

They did later that evening, however, after Lady Catherine had finished presiding over another agonizing dinner. Her complaints were endless: though it had been lovely that morning, it was now raining; the sudden rain had given Anne a cough; her chef had quit, insisting that Pemberley was haunted (Elizabeth made a point of sending her compliments to Monsieur Bayard that evening); there were not sufficient pineapples to her purpose; etc.

Elizabeth observed, once the servant had left the tea things in the library, “You know, Lady Catherine reminds me of a Major-General I used to know. I was so very tempted to raise my napkin from my lap and wave it as a white flag.”

Darcy poured himself a snifter of brandy and then, after a moment’s hesitation, poured another for Elizabeth. “I think tea is insufficient this evening.”

She took the crystal tumbler with a smile; the brandy de Jerez was sweet to her tongue, to her memory. It was still the taste, to her, of surviving a close-won battle. The habits of campaign were on her mind; she went poking about for the traveling chess set she had bought in Oporto and laid it out on the rug before the fire.

“Is there any reason you have chosen to sit in the cinders?” Darcy asked.

“I hate being cold,” she replied. “It does not feel in the least like summer and the rain has not helped that feeling at all. Come sit with me.”

Elizabeth played to lose within ten moves, and gave him a kiss that lasted minutes and included a far more roaming caress than any previous. Darcy responded with eager affection. She could not call it a particularly skilled response, but he learned quickly, and if she showed him something she liked, he took care to remember and replicate it later. This was so delightful a course of study, she could not quite bear to put a halt to it. Within a few days this had progressed to a point Elizabeth knew ventured far too close to impropriety. How, one evening three days before the ball, Darcy should come to be in his shirtsleeves, laying fully on top of her as he kissed her, right hand possessively tangled in her hair, was a question Elizabeth did not care to ask herself, for it would not reflect well on her powers of self-control or her sense of propriety. She felt guilt enough to remark, a little at random, that it was finally beginning to feel like summer and no doubt Darcy would have taken off his coat himself if she had not relieved him of it.

Darcy agreed, but he would have agreed to anything she said at that point. He would have given a hazy “oh yes, of course,” to an assertion that Boatswain had been summoned to the Vatican to become the next pope. He shifted weight to his elbows, so that he might gently touch her face with his left hand. Darcy said nothing, but his look was eloquent. There was so much of love in his expression, Elizabeth did not know how to act. Her pulse felt as if it would leap out of her neck; she was filled with a confused tenderness that nearly paralyzed her. She turned her face, as if to press her cheek more firmly in his hand, and cast her gaze down.

The cuff of Darcy’s left shirtsleeve was slightly pulled up from when she had pushed off his coat. Elizabeth really meant not to look, to preserve his privacy, but she could not help but glimpse the top of a capital ‘E’ and part of what seemed to be the loop of an ‘l.’ Elizabeth felt a fresh stir of sympathy for Darcy, forever parted from Mrs. Wentworth, née Elliot, and pressed her lips to the base of his thumb and whispered a soft, “oh my dear Darcy.” She did not know how to end this; but the phrase itself was enough. It seemed to undo him, and things progressed to a point where he pressed so wonderfully, so maddeningly against her, Elizabeth said, “It’s alright— if you'd like to— that is, I wouldn't object if you—”

He was trembling.

She touched his hair, gently, hesitantly. “Darcy? Do you not want to? I do not mean to press you into anything that you do not want.”

“Elizabeth,” he said, hoarsely, “I can think of very few things I want more in life but I— not— not like this.”

She continued to pet his hair in reassurance. “True. The floor is not my favorite place for this, nor is it particularly comfortable; though this rug is easily more comfortable than a camp bed in the mud— or do you mean...?” Elizabeth did not know exactly how to phrase it and felt rather awkward when she asked, plain soldier: “Do you think this wrong when we are not married or soulmates?”

Darcy had buried his face against the side of her neck and pressed closer a moment. Elizabeth wondered if he was too embarrassed to answer or if he was merely gathering courage. He drew breath and got out a broken, “Elizabeth—”

There came a knock at the door.

They sprang apart as if from an incoming cannonball, hurriedly straightening clothing and hair.

“Yes, what is it?” Darcy called out, diving for his coat.

The butler said, “There is a curricle coming up the drive, sir. I believe Colonel Pascal is arrived.”

Elizabeth’s panic turned instantly to delight. “Oh, I didn't expect him until morning!” She smoothed her disordered locks as best she could, tugged straight her red gown and more-or-less tumbled down the hall and into the entranceway as Colonel Pascal came in. Their familiarity and ease with each other had only increased through the exchange of increasingly cheeky letters; her sarcasm and spirit amused him, and his sometimes catty fastidiousness amused her. They greeted each other with the warmth of old friends.

Darcy made efforts to match their spirit and tone, but he did not meet with much success.

Colonel Pascal noted this, and apologized for the late hour of his arrival. He smilingly cited the enthusiasm of the horses Darcy had so kindly sent from the Pemberley stables to the last posting inn as the cause of his breezing past Lambton, where he had been intending to spend the evening, and into Pemberley. This compliment to his stables made Darcy smile awkwardly rather than say anything; Colonel Pascal delicately offered the hope that he had not interrupted anything.

Elizabeth, thinking of just how close to terrible impropriety they had come, colored a little and said, “Oh, Darcy and I can resolve it another time. The game was getting a little too heated to be honest— Mrs. Reynolds, is Colonel Pascal's room ready yet? I have spoken to the cook about avoiding pork and shellfish but I am not sure I could make him perfectly understand about meat and milk—”

“Oh pray do not put yourself out over that,” said Colonel Pascal, smilingly. “Monsieur Bayard was always very accommodating in London, and I must confess that I can survive without being kosher. I did, and often too, while on campaign. I only insist on avoiding traif meals in England, for fear of it getting back to my mother. She would have a great deal to say on my daring to eat ham.”

“Oh!” Elizabeth exclaimed, reminded by the mention of officious and loquacious relations, “I ought to warn you Lady Catherine is here. I shall tell you more about it tomorrow.” She directed Colonel Pascal up the stairs and made up some excuse about dinner the next day that required her to hang back with Darcy. She pressed his hand and said, quietly, hoping the servants would not hear her, “I am sorry Darcy— I hope I did not cross the Rubicon.”

“Your willingness to oblige my own—”

“Do not speak so,” said Elizabeth, in the tone of quiet authority she had developed on campaign. “I will not have you blame yourself for something we both want a little too much to be sensible. We will talk again when our... tempers are a little cooler.” She thought this cover effective, especially since Mrs. Pattinson said, as she was helping Elizabeth undress for bed, “I heard talk that you and Mr. Darcy was quarreling this evening, ma’am— did you try and ask to be rid of Lady Catherine as a forfeit?”

Elizabeth laughed, a little relieved. “No, not exactly— I know he wouldn't accept such terms. But I do admit to being a little frustrated with Lady Catherine’s being here. She pursued me into the stillroom today! I thought she'd never deign to step foot in there.”

“Lady Catherine is wearing on everyone's tempers, ma’am,” said Mrs. Pattinson. “Her Ladyship weren't too pleased her chef thought the kitchen was haunted and refused to stay.”

Elizabeth hadn't heard all the details of Monsieur Bayard’s attempt to drive out invaders, and Mrs. Pattinson was pleased to give them. The next morning Elizabeth felt a little worried that Monsieur Bayard would fly into a passion about the restrictions of diet upon which Colonel Pascal was unwilling to compromise, but Chef Bayard was magnanimous in victory, and so glad to have another Frenchman in the house (or rather, one that would not take over his kitchen), he did not appear to mind.

“I am glad not to be troublesome,” said Colonel Pascal, as they were driving to the hospital, in his curricle, “especially as my batman said that the household is a little....” He coughed, as delicately as a communion wafer breaking, “Disordered at present.”

Elizabeth took some pleasure in reporting that the staff at Pemberley had organized rather marvelously— not in the pursuit of their duties, but against Lady Catherine. Odd little protests had begun to happen, starting with Monsieur Bayard’s fiendishly clever opening salvo against Lady Catherine’s chef. Kitty and Georgianna seemed to be a part of this guerilla campaign, and though Elizabeth often thought she ought to speak with them about it, she conveniently forgot whenever the opportunity presented itself. She really did think she ought to have done when she and Mr. Darcy found themselves locked in the stillroom for an entire afternoon. But they passed the time pleasantly enough, drinking orange wine and discussing whether or not Much Ado About Nothing or As You Like It was the better comedy, until Elizabeth recalled the time she and her friends Mrs. Kirke, Mrs. Kearney, and Mrs. MacDougal had been taken prisoner by the French and had pulled the rods from the hinges of the locked door. It had been much easier to achieve this in Pemberley, with Mr. Darcy’s strength, than it had been in Spain. Then she and Mr. Darcy  were locked in the library, which they honestly did not notice, until Georgiana unlocked it some hours later. Then they were locked in the woods, which neither much minded, either. When they tired of the outdoors, Elizabeth was able to essay the lock on the gate with a hairpin and the gold wire of her earring, which cruelly mortified Darcy’s gardener, and amused Darcy considerably.

It was unclear to both Darcy and Elizabeth why they kept being locked places they could quite easily escape, but she supposed— given the example Monsieur Bayard had set with the picnic— it was for plausible deniability. When Lady Catherine ranted at dinner over something or other going wrong, or being denied her, Darcy and Elizabeth could look honestly puzzled, and have excuses as to why they were not responsible. But, as Lady Catherine never stopped talking long enough to demand answers from anybody, this had not yet come up.

“My word,” said Colonel Pascal, lips twitching. “This is quite a fascinating guerilla campaign.”

“Yes, rather! I feel very at home at Pemberley now that it is at war.”

“Even when you and Mr. Darcy are the victims of friendly fire?”

“Ha! I hardly mind it. We are good enough friends that it is no particular hardship to be forced to remain together in one spot, until I display my more unladylike accomplishments.”

“You and Mr. Darcy seem... closer, even, than you were in January.”

Elizabeth opened her mouth to say joke about this, but then blushed suddenly, and said more seriously, “I suppose we are— but it is... complicated.”

Colonel Pascal looked askance at her, but said, “You needn’t tell me about it until you feel easier about talking of it.”

Elizabeth was grateful for this, and they were so long in military gossip and talk of the hospital instead, both with each other and with Colonel Dunne, Colonel Dunne offered to host the two of them for an informal dinner. Elizabeth hesitated at first, but agreed. She sent a rather playful note to Darcy— she hoped not inappropriately so— begging pardon for their absence and asking him if he would still take tea with her that evening. She hoped rather than believed she would know what to say by then; her own feelings were in such confusion she would only blush and immediately start talking at random of something else. It would have relieved her very much to see any footman in Darcy livery stop by Colonel Dunne’s house, with a note in Darcy's painfully correct penmanship. However, the only message was a note from Kitty and Georgiana conveying their envy that they could not dine informally with Colonel Dunne as well.

Elizabeth thought that this was probably the reason she was ambushed as soon as she arrived home; but then Kitty and Georgiana waved cards of lace at her and bombarded her with questions of everything she would wear the next day.

“I plan to wear my pearl gray satin,” Elizabeth began.

Georgiana and Kitty exchanged mute looks of horror, and at once marched out of the room and up the stairs.

“I think war has been declared against my wardrobe,” said Elizabeth to Colonel Pascal.

“You had best go defend it,” he agreed.

As Darcy had not replied to her note— and she had made enough noise coming in that if he wished to see her he would have come out— Elizabeth resisted the temptation to go look into the library. She went quickly up the stairs, instead, but not quickly enough to keep Kitty and Georgiana from throwing open closets and trunks and attempting to enlist Mrs. Pattinson in their campaign against the pearl gray satin ball gown.

“Mrs. Fitzwilliam can finally dance again!” Kitty exclaimed. “But no one will ask her if she goes about in gray!”

“Mrs. Pattinson, you are under no obligation to listen to my sister,” said Elizabeth. “We agreed on the gray satin.”

“Mrs. Pattinson,” said Kitty, wheedlingly, “surely my sister has at least one ballgown that is not black or gray or purple?”

Mrs. Pattinson hesitated and said, “There is one gown I think might suit.”

Elizabeth was quite surprised to hear this. Though she had been making more of an effort to exercise and indulge less at table, progress was slow and most of the gowns she had bought in Paris in the spring of ‘15 still did not fit. “Really?”

“Since Lady Catherine is come, madame, I found it best to be out of the servants’ hall and have been working on something of a project— though you aren't obliged to wear it if you do not wish, Mrs. Fitzwilliam....”

Elizabeth's mind misgave her. Mrs. Pattinson’s strength as a lady’s maid had been her ability to arrange hair and headdresses; her sewing was generally limited to repairs or picking apart clothes to be dyed, and then sewing them back together. “Mrs. Pattinson, really, you needn't have gone through the extra work—”

“Well, Maudie the parlor maid wants to be a lady’s maid, ma’am,” said Mrs. Pattinson, a little guilty. “She's my daughter's age, and I thought— she needs some experience with fine gowns, and the care and mending of them— and I wouldn't have presumed if Miss Darcy hadn't mentioned Maudie was wishing it, last week. And her mentioning it to me again after that, that it was her own wish Maudie be trained.”

“My brother always says we must do what we can to help the staff at Pemberley succeed,” said Georgiana, blushing. “Surely...?”

Elizabeth knew when she had been outmaneuvered. She threw up her hands. “Humbugged, by God! Bring in your project, Mrs. Pattinson, and your protege.”

Maudie entered not ten minutes later, very carefully carrying in one of the ball dresses Elizabeth had commissioned in Paris— indeed, the very one that Mrs. Pattinson had been most insistent upon saving from getting dyed black with the rest of Elizabeth's wardrobe. It was a pretty concoction of ivory silk batiste and embroidered white net, glittering here and there with silver thread and crystal beading arranged to look like flowering branches. The long train of the net skirt cascaded over Maudie’s arm, catching the light beautifully.

“We let out the gown a little,” Mrs. Pattinson murmured, as Maudie carefully and nervously laid out the dress on the bed, “at the waist, ma’am— the bodice used to be gathered, so there was enough fabric— we steamed out any wrinkles, and then cut the net. Truth be told, ma’am, I thought just having it attached at the waist looked too French to me, too much like them trained overrobes the Empress Josephine and her ladies used to wear. So when we cut the waist and saw we couldn't expand the net, Maudie suggested we open it to show the batiste under and used what we cut over the sleeves and bodice— and added a ribbon, ma’am.”

Silver ribbon pinned down the embroidered net where it appeared to cross itself, just under the bust, exposing triangles of the creamy batiste above and below. Elizabeth suddenly recalled Darcy in the library, the smile he had given her as he passed over “She walks in beauty,” with its talk of dark and bright, and his preference for her black spangled muslin. He seemed rather to like it when she sparkled.

“You have put such work into it,” said Elizabeth, wavering. “And I suppose the diamond parure with it?”

“Yes, ma’am; it would look right elegant.”

“I suppose it cannot hurt to try it on,” said Elizabeth. She was relieved to discover that even in the flexible short-stays she wore during the day she fit into the gown; and further, that Maudie was a good enough seamstress to know what curves of Elizabeth’s figure to emphasize and which to try and lessen, while still keeping the whole comfortable. Elizabeth twirled experimentally. She rather liked the way the net now floated, half-a-second behind the heavier batiste, and how it sparkled as she moved, as if it was winking to her in encouragement.

“Oh Lizzy, please ,” begged Kitty. “You must wear it, you must! You look so very elegant.”

“It seems boorish not to, after Mrs. Pattinson and Maudie have been at such pains to alter the gown,” said Elizabeth, knowing she had been beaten. “Georgiana, will you speak to Mrs. Reynolds about having someone else pick up Maudie's usual duties? At least until September? Maudie, you are really an exceptional seamstress— I should be glad to see you trained as a lady’s maid, if Mrs. Pattinson is still agreeable.”

This was an answer to suit everyone.

And the next day, after she had washed, put on the appropriate undergarments, and had her hair more elaborately dressed, Elizabeth admitted to being rather pleased Kitty and Georgiana had opened a secondary front against her half-mourning gowns. It had not distracted them from their campaign against Lady Catherine— for Lady Catherine had been heard muttering at breakfast that she would be glad to go back to Rosings Park— and it had been rather a long time since Elizabeth had put on anything quite so pretty. Indeed, Elizabeth felt rather light-hearted as Mrs. Pattinson fastened the diamond bracelet about her gloved wrist.

“I suppose I do not discredit you, Mrs. Pattinson?”

“I should be very surprised if you sit out any dance at all, Mrs. Fitzwilliam, and that’s a fact,” said Mrs. Pattinson, with great satisfaction. “I do flatter myself, but I do not think anyone in the parish has dressed their lady better.”

Elizabeth laughed and went into the hall. Darcy had just exited his own room and froze in the doorway, staring at her. His gaze was openly admiring— though when he saw she saw him looking at her, Darcy blushed. She felt herself starting to blush as well. It was difficult not to recall how achingly wonderful it had felt to have him pressing against her the last time she had seen or spoke to him in relative privacy. He had missed breakfast yesterday (no doubt out of embarrassment), and that morning, he and Colonel Pascal had talked of the hospital and vinegar trials to the exclusion of all else, and immediately gone off to the library afterwards to consult some architectural drawings of the hospital. Darcy had asked if she would like to come along, making a clear effort to pretend that they had never engaged in blatant improprieties in the aforementioned library; but Mrs. Reynolds had come in, with French insufficient to the challenge of keeping Chef Bayard from throttling the assistant gamekeeper with a cheesecloth, as recompense for being given an insufficient number of partridges.

“Um,” said Elizabeth, at the height of eloquence. “Darcy! You look well. Ball dress suits you.” Most dress suited him, in point of fact; but in formal attire it was difficult to tear one’s eyes away. Or at least it was for Elizabeth that evening.

“It is a great pleasure to see you out of mourning,” said Darcy, managing to shut the door to his room, after a couple of tries. “I, ah. I hope you have not— you have not a partner for the first?”

“No— but Darcy really! You haven't asked anyone to dance yet?”

He offered her his arm. “No.”

She laughed and declared she would save him from his own folly, especially as she had only promised the reel to Colonel Dunne and the supper set to Colonel Pascal. When they got to the bottom of the staircase, she cleared her throat, but could not think of anything to say, let alone how to ask what she wanted to; there were servants walking about, and guests arriving within the quarter hour, and the other members of the household expected down any moment. Elizabeth turned to look at Darcy.

Why did he have to be the handsomest man of her acquaintance? Even just standing in the entrance hall, looking down at her curiously, he looked like something Sir Thomas Lawrence had just unveiled at the Royal Academy as the Romantic ideal of an English gentleman. She gave herself a mental shake but all that came rattling out of her brain was, “I hope you will forgive me for missing our tea yesterday; but as soon as I returned from the hospital I was ambushed. Both my sister and yours were so shocked when I said I would wear the same gown I wore to Lady Metcalfe’s, they rearranged the household staff, somehow convinced my maid to remake one of my old ball gowns, and sprung the change on me last evening, pretending it was not a fait accompli . One must admire their skill; though I do feel a little odd to be wearing white once again.”

“I have never seen you look lovelier,” he said, his gloved fingertips gentle at her cheek.

‘This is how I got in trouble last time,’ Elizabeth thought and though she blushed, she was too amazed that Darcy was not mentally castigating himself to step away. She smiled up at him and said, “Such gallantry, sir! But I was not fishing for a compliment.”

“I know,” he said, smiling down at her. “But I wished to give you one.”

“Well! If it was said for your own pleasure, then I really cannot protest.”

She was sure he might have kissed her then, so nearly in public, but there was a loud noise from the ballroom, followed by what was unmistakably Lady Catherine’s voice. Darcy looked heavenward and dropped his hand back to his side, saying, “It is no matter, about the tea; I had to ride out to the lead mine by Barmote—” this being a village between Pemblery and the High Peak “— just before breakfast and was not back until well after dark. They have reached the water table and are considering what is to be done, since the other shaft there has killed every canary they had sent down it.”

“Oh good! That is— it is not good, I am very sorry for the people of Barmote and the mineworkers, and especially the poor canaries, but I— I would not have you think I was avoiding you, and I had hoped you were not avoiding me. You did not answer my note!”

“I did not get it until this morning,” he replied, then said, looking down at her with something of a pained expression. “I do not know how to begin what I must say. I started half-a-dozen notes to you yesterday, and then again this afternoon, in reply to your own, but I could not....”

“If they are notes of apology,” Elizabeth warned him, “I shall pretend to sprain my ankle on the way into the ballroom, and spend the rest of the ball finding you partners for every single dance.”

Darcy looked both exasperated and amused. “Explanation, merely. There is—there are matters we must discuss—”

Lady Catherine began to berate one of the footmen, loudly enough for it to echo along the hallway.

“It shall keep, Darcy,” said Elizabeth. “I think we are needed. But do reassure me that you are neither full of self-recrimination, nor full of contempt for the wanton creature you admitted to your home as a chaperone for your sister.”

Darcy reassured her on both counts, though he looked unhappy their conversation would be further delayed. Lady Catherine was talked down from her rage at the simplicity of the decorations, though Elizabeth was not sure if this was because Elizabeth had brought up the fact that too many flowers might make Anne unwell, or if it was because the butler announced the appearance of the first coach of the evening.

Elizabeth felt very well contented, despite everything. Matters were... complicated, but Darcy was not upset, and indeed, seemed to admire her as much as ever; Colonel Pascal was visiting; she had her hand solicited for three more dances while receiving everyone; and though she had at first felt uncertain about her gown, she had received so many compliments on it, and Darcy’s gaze lingered on her so admiringly, she began to regain her confidence.

Darcy was quiet during their dance. Elizabeth kept up a steady stream of conversation to which he could respond to if he wished, but made it clear he did not have to if he was feeling overwhelmed, as he often was by large crowds. Occasionally he replied to something she said, but was only roused to coherent conversation when she suggested Colonel Dunne or Colonel Pascal might have some friends in the royal engineering corps that could be invited in to take a look at the Barmote mine. She knew several engineers herself, but as their specialities tended to be the construction and demolition of Spanish bridges, she doubted they would be of much help.

To Elizabeth’s delight, she was not in want of a partner for the first half of the evening until some debutants tried their luck and attempted to bribe the orchestra into playing a waltz. With an anxious spurt of panic, she went over to stop the musicians before they had gotten through four bars.

“Why not let them bring in a touch of continental elegance?” asked Colonel Pascal, who was near her, talking to Darcy’s neighbor, Mr. Totley. “I am sure you danced the waltz abroad— in Brussels, if not in Paris. Your neighbors could stand to be a bit more cosmopolitan.”

“Well, Colonel Hussy!” she exclaimed in mock outrage, hands to her hips. “If you wish to spend the rest of the ball having my aunt Catherine and all the more respectable chaperones in a thirty mile radius come up to you demanding to know why you have allowed unmarried men and women to embrace each other in the middle of a crowded room, I shall certainly rescind my order.”

“Point, set, and match to Mrs. Fitzwilliam.” He shuddered and turned back to Mr. Totley.

The dance had begun; it was too late to find a partner and join the set. Elizabeth was a little sorry not to dance again, but she was truthfully feeling rather tired. She had not danced quite so much in so very long— not since the Duchess of Richmond’s ball. In fact, the waltz at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball had been the last time she had danced with her husband—

The memory pounced upon her, suddenly, like a tiger springing out of the darkness.

The nearest empty chair was by Miss de Bourgh. Elizabeth surreptitiously wiped her tears away with her fingertips, went to sit, and made a comment about the heat of the room.

Miss de Bourgh applied herself to her glass of champagne, instead of saying anything, or even acknowledging that anything had been said. Miss de Bourgh was expensively attired in a blossom-colored silk evening gown, the skirt hanging down in triangles, almost like a medieval jester’s tunic, over a Turkey red petticoat, stiffened into a bell shape with gold frogging and lace about the hem. Miss de Bough had added to this a wrap of white chinchilla fur, and a set of huge, gaudy rubies as hideous as the ones Elizabeth had inherited from a Fitzwilliam great-aunt, and seldom took out of her jewellery box. She was somewhat horrified to think the Fitzwilliams had been so fond of the tasteless, Elizabethan settings that someone had seen either her necklace or Miss de Bourgh’s and been so impressed as to have it copied— or could not bear to have only one such hideous piece within the family and had to commission two.

It was an amusing enough thought to make grief loosen its clawed grip, and she managed to smile and ask, “Are you enjoying yourself this evening, Miss de Bourgh?”

Miss de Bourgh inclined her head about a centimeter.

“Have you danced much?”

Miss de Bourgh looked witheringly at her and then, directed her gaze to the male half of the set, all neatly lined up, and in the middle of a more ridiculous figure in the dance. She then raised an eyebrow and sneered faintly, as if to say, ‘why would I waste my time standing up with such silly creatures?’

“Ah,” said Elizabeth. She always found it difficult being alone with Miss de Bourgh. “I... ah, I have not seen you very much this visit. I believe I have seen you only at dinners, in fact. I trust you are not in ill-health?”

Miss de Bourgh looked at Elizabeth with yet more withering scorn. Of course she was in ill-health.

“I am very sorry you are still feeling unwell,” said Elizabeth.

Miss de Bourgh waved this away with a faint flicker of gloved fingertips, to signify that she always felt unwell, but she was accustomed to it.

“I... hope you will let me know if there is anything that can be done for you?”

Miss de Bourgh looked skeptical.

A very awkward silence descended.

After a moment Elizabeth said, “Do you and your mother intend to stay long at Pemberley?”

Miss de Bourgh sighed and gestured at a passing servant for another glass of champagne.

“I hope Pemberley itself has been to your liking?”

Miss de Bourgh halted the footman and, placing down her empty glass, took a third.

Then, for the first time in Elizabeth’s memory, Miss de Bourgh said something: “No.”

“Beg pardon?”

“You are insisting upon conversation,” said Miss de Bourgh, in a thin, sour tone, “so you shall get it. No, I do not like Pemberley. It is so plainly decorated a place, and the comforts here are Spartan to the extreme. One can always tell Pemberley began life as a hunting lodge.”

To call Pemberley in its current, stately, and tasteful form anything like a hunting lodge would be akin to going up to one of the patrons of Almack’s and exclaiming that they looked like the dirty toddlers they once had been. If the shock of Anne de Bourgh’s speaking with her had not already struck Elizabeth dumb, this certainly would have.

“One puts up with all manner of inconvenience in the name of family, of course,” said Miss de Bourgh, upper lip curling, “but I really wonder if Mama does not go too far. She is always too soft on this generation, too willing to make excuses.”

Astonishment crowded out all other feeling. Elizabeth would never have called Lady Catherine too soft on this generation of Fitzwilliams. She would sooner have called Pemberley a hunting lodge.

“You, for example— Mama is always talking about how you were not born into the circles in which you move, to excuse your wallowing in the mud of every country in Europe, and spends far too much time advising you on matters you should have learnt to manage yourself at this point. How you did not know you are only supposed to wear black a six-month, before moving to half-mourning, I do not know!”

“It was out of a very deep grief, not out of ignorance or an overactive sense of propriety,” said Elizabeth, through clenched teeth. “Miss de Bourgh, you have no right—”

But Miss de Bourgh had tasted the liberty of speech her mother indulged in, as well as a few too many glasses of champagne; she was not going to stop. She decided to bestow her opinions of the whole family on Elizabeth. Honoria was a heathen who ought to have been released into the wilds of Scotland at a much earlier age to paint herself blue and shriek about the patriarchy where no civilized person could be bothered by her. Sybil was a nonentity and was not missed when she fled to Tahiti. Arabella was a spoilt brat with more hair than wit. The partners of her female cousins were not English and therefore beneath Anne de Bourgh’s notice. It was all to the good Honoria would not have children, and that Sybil and Arabella’s children would live out their days abroad, and therefore would not ruin the Fitzwilliam name in England. Lord Stornoway ought to have been smothered at birth, for the good of the bloodline as a whole, for his children were all noisome brats who inherited his lack of wit and their mother’s conniving nature. Oh how Lady Catherine was so led astray by her one weakness— her overactive love for her family— to claim that Lord Stornoway had been dropped on his head as a child, that Lady Stornoway was a Spencer and could not help that political machination was in her blood!

The Darcy siblings were useless and selfish, caring only for their own comforts. Because they were comfortable with the Spartan conditions at Pemberley, they assumed everyone would be. And oh, how terrible they were with society! As soon as there was anything more than two people in the room with him, Darcy was sure to go glower out a window, or hide in a book, or pretend to have business elsewhere— really, it little better than having a feral cat in the room. Georgiana was so pointlessly shy Anne was sure Georgiana had once gone into a room, seen her shadow, mistaken it for another person, and immediately frozen in terror. It was no wonder neither of them were married. If ever a potential soulmate got up the courage to approach so unwelcoming a pair, the Darcy siblings would hiss and bolt into the night, ears flattened back.

“Metaphorically, one hopes,” said Elizabeth. It occurred to Elizabeth that Anne said next to nothing to her not out of ill-health or reserve, but out of a sense of such heightened superiority that speaking Elizabeth would have been a degradation. “I hope you will spare me your opinion of my dead husband, and my failure to continue on the bloodline, for I find your mother’s kindness on that head to be more than I can bear with equanimity as it is— no doubt yet another shocking proof of my unsuitability for the circles into which I married! If this is truly what you think of all your relations—”

“It is.”

“—I wonder how you could stay silent about your mother’s plans to marry you to Darcy!”

“It is because of this that I have acquiesced to her plan.”

“ What ?”

Miss de Bourgh lifted her chin. “I am the best of my generation. It is a pity all the health should go to my cousins while I alone have all the qualities which animated my mother and my aunt, Lady Anne Darcy, but my Mama has impressed upon me the duty I owe to England, to pass on the good of our bloodline.” She finished off her glass of champagne, and said, with the sigh of a martyr going to the stake, “At least Darcy is reasonably good-looking, for all he is the most disagreeable man in England.”

“Darcy is truly one of the best men I have ever known,” Elizabeth said, unable to keep her temper. “Anyone who had the privilege of being his spouse could rightly be considered one of the happiest creatures in England. How on earth can you speak of marriage to him as some kind of punishment to be endured, rather than a very great pleasure?”

“You asked,” said Miss de Bourgh. “I answered. It is not my fault if you cannot handle the truth.”

Elizabeth jumped to her feet, giving some hasty excuse, and stormed out onto the terrace. It did not surprise her that Darcy followed her and— after a somewhat Anne de Bourgh-like thought that Darcy would of course use any excuse to flee a ball, especially one in his honor— she thought it charmingly, irritatingly typical of him, to drop everything upon seeing her in distress.

“Elizabeth, are you alright?”

“Has Miss de Bourgh ever spoken to you, really spoken?” Elizabeth asked, when they were far enough from the doors to avoid being overheard.

“Not in recent memory. What did she say to you?”

“A great many things that I cannot not repeat without adding in language better suited to a battlefield than a ballroom— and principally that that she is the best of our generation, and it is clearly up to her to carry on the bloodline. You have been enlisted in that cause.”

“She shall have to battle on without my assistance. I am not inclined to let Lady Catherine matchmake. I put it out of my head nearly as soon as it was suggested; pray do the same.” Darcy watched her as she paced and said, “I cannot help but feel there is more to this. She did not say something to you about Richard, or about....” He made a vague gesture to her midriff.

Elizabeth stared at him in absolute incomprehension and then said, confusedly, “Oh! My miscarriage. Good Lord, that was... what, back in ‘12? Yes, I think it was. I recall it being the day after Mr. Wickham paid us his charming social call. Thank God neither she nor Aunt Catherine know about it. I hardly think of it myself these days. It is too painful a thing; and I do not like to dwell on any part of the past that brings pain rather than pleasure. No, no, she said things about you that infuriated me past endurance.”

Darcy looked surprised and oddly pleased.

Elizabeth smiled despite herself, and shook her head, setting her curls swinging. “Ridiculous man, did you think I would sit there and let Cousin Anne abuse you? I love you too dearly for that.”

Darcy’s expression was difficult to decipher; before Elizabeth could really look into it, the supper set was announced. Elizabeth sighed. “No rest for the weary! At least I have promised the next to Colonel Pascal.”

Upon seeing her expression of barely suppressed vexation, Colonel Pascal suggested, “Why do we not take a turn about the gardens? The Chinese lanterns below the terrace seem to me very pretty; I have a great desire to see them.”

Elizabeth agreed to this. When they were still decrously within sight from the house, but sufficiently far to prevent eavesdropping, Colonel Pascal took out a cheroot and said, a little apologetically, “A noxious habit, I know, but I picked up the habit of smoking them in India. The scent of tobacco keeps away the mismas that cause malaria.”

“Oh please smoke as you like,” said Elizabeth. “The smell of tobacco always reminds me of Spain, where I would much rather be than here, right now.”

Colonel Pascal lit a match from one of the hanging strings of lanterns and delicately touched it to the end of his cheroot. “Ah. I saw you talking to Miss de Bourgh earlier, and wondered if she took after her mother.”

“Bravo, sir, you have guessed quite rightly. Her conversation was odious in the extreme. Anne, best of her generation, has nothing good to say about all the rest of us— especially Darcy! I think I told you, did I not, that Lady Catherine wishes Miss de Bourgh and Darcy to marry?”

Colonel Pascal shook out the match as delicately as a viscountess ringing a bell for her servant. “I cannot think they would be happy together.”

“No, nor I, and—” She hesitated. “Oh, Pascal, it’s a stupid tangle at present.”

“How so?”

“Well I—” ‘I think I am in love with Darcy,’ came to her, but this thought jolted her unpleasantly, as if she had miscounted steps on a staircase and put her foot through empty air. “I... I have just met Darcy’s soulmate.”

“You have?”

“Yes, a Mrs. Wentworth. She was a Ms. Elliot— a Ms. Anne Elliot. She was a guest at Caroline Bingley’s wedding. Unfortunately she is married to a Captain Frederick Wentworth—”

“Of the navy?” asked Colonel Pascal, as if searching his memory. “A very good friend of Captain Harville’s?”

“I don’t know a Captain Harville, I’m afraid, but he was of the navy.”

“Was he golden-haired and distractingly attractive?”

Elizabeth blushed.

Colonel Pascal took a rather smug drag on his cheroot. “Then we are speaking of the same Captain Wentworth.”

“But, in any case, Captain Wentworth gave his wife at least two children. And Anne Elliot  appears to have at least been married to Captain Wentworth when she and Darcy first met. Poor Darcy, he has terrible times at weddings. At my sister Jane’s wedding, five years ago, it came out that his soulmate was married with children. And now he has seen her again! Mrs. Wentworth is such a lovely woman I cannot resent her for breaking Darcy’s heart, but she seems entirely ignorant that Darcy was in love with her.”

“Is?”

Elizabeth hesitated. “I... I do not quite know. I have certain reasons to believe he has moved on.”

Colonel Pascal was frowning at the glowing end of his cheroot.

“What?”

“If the Captain Wentworth you mentioned is the one I am thinking of, the math does not quite work out,” said Colonel Pascal, with a sort of well-bred reticence. “It was in 1812 Darcy’s soulmate— or the person he believed to be his soulmate— was married with children?”

“Yes; I have that on fairly good authority.” She briefly explained about Mr. Wickham and his threats— though her memory of those events were somewhat hazy, from the shock and sleeplessness with which she had witnessed it, and four intervening years of life. She did recall that Mr. Wickham had threatened to expose Darcy's soulmark, and had espeically threatened to reveal his mark to Darcy's soulmate, a woman who was happily married with children.

“Captain Wentworth and Miss Anne Elliot were not married until 1815,” he said. “I know this for a fact, for Captain Harville was a groomsman for Captain Wentworth.”

“Who is Captain Harville— wait, no—” Elizabeth sorted through her memories. “Mrs. Harville is Mrs. Kirke’s sister in Lyme, is she not?”

“I was going to say ‘Colonel Robinson’s sister,’ but yes, both are true. Mrs. Harville had to postpone a planned visit to Paris to see her siblings in order to attend the wedding. I remember it particularly, as Colonel Robinson joked to me that this turned out to be a stroke of luck, for Napoleon had nearly arrived in Paris when he received Mrs. Harville’s letter, saying she would not be coming to France.”

“But,” said Elizabeth, a little surprised, “the Wentworths have two children. Two boys— the eldest of which must be at least four.”

“No, they have only the one, if memory serves— Captain Harville was godfather to their first child, who was—”

“Named after his father, Frederick, obviously.” Elizabeth smacked her hand to her forehead.

“Yes, I imagine so.”

“I was forgetting there was a third Miss Elliot— a Miss Mary Elliot, who is now a Mrs. Musgrove. Does she have children, do you know?”

“I know a small child called Walter Musgrove kicked Captain Harville in the leg wound, and I was appealed to in light of an arbitrator, when both Colonel Robinson and Mrs. Kirke had rival receipts of poultices they thought best. That was... let me think... in the fall of ‘14? I recall its being in Paris, and them visiting me in the Marais—” this being the Jewish quarter of Paris “—at the time. It was certainly before the spring of ‘15.”

“But... no, that does not make sense. Mr. Wickham must have been speaking of a hypothetical, for everything else works out. Darcy must have realized Miss Elliot wasn’t his soulmate when he met Miss Anne. ”

“But if Miss Anne were free until last year, what kept him from marrying her? Or her from him, if they were a true match?”

She made a frustrated noise. “Then I am at a total loss. But— it cannot possibly be Mrs. Musgrove, she would suit him even less than Miss Elliot! And there are only the three— Miss... God what was her name. Anne Elliot Wentworth and Mary Elliot Musgrove I recall.”

“Why are you so certain it must be one of the Miss Elliots?”

“I have seen part of Darcy’s soulmark,” Elizabeth admitted, reluctantly. “The start of ‘Elliot’ at least. And Georgiana told me that later that year he met someone he knew to be his soulmate and therefore never renewed his acquaintance with Miss  Elliot, even though everyone expected them to become engaged.”

They heard applause above them. Colonel Pascal dropped the end of his cheroot to the gravel and ground out the ember. “I suppose we must to supper. But— on one point, Mrs. Fitzwilliam, I admit to a somewhat unmannerly curiosity. You and Mr. Darcy are apparently close enough for you to see part of his mark....”

She blushed.

Colonel Pascal said, gently, “You must give yourself permission to move on, my dear. I fancy I knew Richard as well as you did, and he would not have wished you to go about wearing the willow forever. Don’t tell me you believe this English nonsense about there being only one person in the world with whom you can be happy.”

“I find myself in sympathy with the French school,” said Elizabeth, “which will please you, I am sure. I think perhaps....” She wrestled with how best to express an idea that had taken root back in the summer at Matlock House, and whose growth she had been uncomfortably eyeing ever since. “I think the ‘Fitzwilliam’ on my wrist means the people bearing that name are the ones who shall most change my life.”

“Well,” said Colonel Pascal, as they went up the steps, “in the past few years, I have come to the conclusion that a soulmark means only what the person bearing it thinks it means. There is no objective right answer to the question, ‘What is a soulmate?’ or even, ‘What does my mark mean?’ It is really all up to the individual. After all, it is our choices that define us.”

“That’s so dreadfully French of— Lady Catherine?”

Lady Catherine was at the door leading in from the terrace.

“Lady Catherine,” said Elizabeth, through gritted teeth. “How may I be of assistance?”

Lady Catherine drew herself up to her not inconsiderable height, looking extremely imposing in the long-trained gown of expensively over-decorated gold silk she wore. She closed her fan with a snap. “I wonder, Mrs. Fitzwilliam,” said she, “if we might take a turn about the terrace together.”

Colonel Pascal looked askance at Elizabeth, who waved him away. “It’s fine, Colonel Pascal. I think Lady Catherine and I are rather overdue for a talk, truth be told.”

When Lady Catherine finished critiquing the potted rosebushes Elizabeth had had stationed about the terrace, she said, abruptly, “You can be at no loss, Mrs. Fitzwilliam, as to why I have pulled you aside like this.”

“I imagine it has something to do with the fact that your daughter told me she hates Darcy, and my being seen to talk to Darcy immediately after this confession,” she said dryly.

“Anne does not hate him.”

“Oh no, I am very aware she hates everyone of her generation in the family. She was remarkably frank on that point.”

Lady Catherine extended her fan out, as a dueller extending a fencing foil, as Elizabeth tried to walk through the door back into the ballroom. “This was not the matter I wished to discuss with you.”

“Then I am at a loss!”

“I see,” said Lady Catherine, “that when I advised you to stop wearing black, I ought to have been more specific. I did not mean you ought to comport yourself in this shameless manner, and dance all evening.”

“What?”

"At least two gentlemen," said Lady Catherine disapprovingly, "asked if now you were out of mourning, you were thinking of marrying again."

"... and this very natural question offends you... how?"

“We do not marry again in this family,” said Lady Catherine, staring down her nose at Elizabeth. Then she sighed and shook her head. “My brother Matlock warned me of this before he went to Tahiti. ‘Lady Catherine,’ he said, ‘Mrs. Fitzwilliam is young and has no children. She may wish to marry again. It is a natural thing for a woman to want children.’ And to that I must agree, but I cannot countenance your marrying again; not when you and the colonel were a match. I know so, for I made the match myself.”

Elizabeth threw her hands up. “There is no pleasing your ladyship! When I had been a widow a month you told me to quit weeping; when I was not yet a year and a day into mourning you told me to think of quitting it! And yet, when I follow this advice to its natural end, and wish to re-marry and have children, you tell me I must not! What is it I can do that will meet with your approbation? I think it is clear that there is nothing.”

Her carelessly loosed shaft hit its mark. Elizabeth had been good for one thing and one thing alone to the Fitzwilliam family— to be married to the colonel, to smooth over any scandal, and to prove the Fitzwilliam theory of there being One True Match for everyone ever (and the implicit subclause that these matches were supposed to be heterosexual).

“I think you would have me quit the Fitzwilliam family circle altogether, now I have served my purpose,” said Elizabeth, beginning to put it all together, “and go live forever after with my sister and her family, but my doing so will not make Darcy any more likely to marry Anne.”

“He does not look for a wife now because you have been accidentally fulfilling all the duties he would require of a wife,” snapped Lady Catherine.

Elizabeth blushed red as an infantry coat. “Lady Catherine!”

“I do not mean all,” she said, waving this away with her closed fan. “I do not accuse you of being that shameless; merely ignorant of what you ought to have done and what was proper to do. But in your ignorance, you have blundered. Darcy will never look for a wife when you are here.”

‘What if I do not wish him to look elsewhere for a wife?’ she nearly snapped. But it suddenly occurred to her— she didn’t. It was not just the idea of Darcy marrying Anne she found intolerable; it was Darcy marrying anyone but herself. She was not falling in love, as she thought earlier. She had fallen in love. Elizabeth squeezed her eyes shut; she could not catch her breath. When had this happened? Had it been coming on so gradually she simply had not noticed?

“I understand you undertook all the duties you did to prove that Darcy does not need his sister, and that he ought to let her marry. I know very well that part of the reason Miss Darcy is not married is that her brother does not wish her to be. You may have noticed that my sister’s son is not at all like my brother’s sons. Lord Stornoway and Colonel Fitzwilliam have and had their flaws, to be sure, but it was always easy for them to befriend all those about them. That was, oddly enough, their mother’s influence. A very religious woman, Christabel— she had to be, for her father was the Archbishop of London— but gracious and easy in company. But Darcy has not that talent; there are few people he considers his intimates and those he clings to rather tenaciously. Why else would he remain such close friends with the boy who fagged for him at Eton?”

“You refer to Mr. Bingley, madame?” Elizabeth could not keep the ice from her tone. “My sister’s husband, my niece's father, one of the most gentlemanlike, agreeable, generous, and good-natured men who ever lived? I really cannot imagine why Darcy would wish to maintain a friendship with such a person, unless it was by sheer force of habit.”

Lady Catherine was not one for nuance and nor for listening to any point that was not her own. “Precisely. A man who just purchased his house!”

“Lady Catherine,” said Elizabeth, “this is not a profitable conversation. I will quit it now.”

Lady Catherine condescended to explain, “I mean only that as Darcy is reserved, he ought to marry one of his few intimates, someone he has known since childhood.”

“But how well do Darcy and Anne truly know each other? Have they any similarities of taste or feeling? Have they any hobbies or habits in common? When was the last time they truly spoke to each other? Lady Catherine, you cannot be serious about this plan. It would be the ruin of happiness for both of them.”

Lady Catherine looked rather appalled that Elizabeth was so outspoken. “I see you have fallen far too much under the influence of Lady Stornoway. She, too, has a regrettable habit of insisting she knows the characters of the family she married into better than those who were born into it. There is something bordering in impertinence in your manner that is at times quite displeasing. I have often observed it, and wished to tell you of it, as a kind of hint as to how you ought to behave in the circles into which you married. But that is a matter for another day.”

The banked embers of Elizabeth’s temper began to flare. “Aunt Catherine, I think we have no more to say to each other. I realize you think you are acting in Mr. Darcy’s interests, trying to find him even a partial match, but—”

“A partial match?” asked Lady Catherine.

“—yes, but I think that is an over dogmatic approach to finding a spouse. Surely it would be better if he married someone whose wrist did not match his, if there was a commonality of taste, feeling, thought, and habit—”

“What do you mean a partial match?” demanded Lady Catherine. “Darcy surely never showed you his mark?”

“No,” she replied, and felt suddenly flustered. “I mean his— the only woman he appears to have thought of becoming engaged to was a— a Miss Elliot. Miss Anne Elliot. Who is now Mrs. Wentworth.”

“You are only proving my point,” said Lady Catherine. “You do not know the history of the family and blunder on in such ignorance that you reach the wildest conclusions. It was not Miss Anne Elliot. Darcy never looked at her. It was the elder, Miss Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth had a sudden sensation of vertigo, as destabilizing as trying to find one's footing on a frigate during a tempest. But she had seen—

—she had seen only an ‘El’ on his wrist.

“When did you even meet Darcy, Mrs. Fitzwilliam?” asked Lady Catherine, with withering scorn. “I am convinced it was not until the spring of ‘12. You could not have observed his courtship of Miss Elliot. That was the year previous.”

“I met Darcy that same year,” said Elizabeth, feeling as if she was speaking from a great distance away. “The fall of 1811— he had come to Hertfordshire as part of a shooting party.”

‘But,’ she thought, ‘I have no children. Mr. Wickham specifically asked Darcy how he could bear to see his soulmate married to another, happy with another, bearing the child of another—’

But she had been pregnant with Colonel Fitzwilliam’s child at the time of Mr. Wickham’s threat— she had miscarried the next day. But how could Mr. Wickham have known? She had only told her aunt Gardiner—

—but had told her so in London, on the street, just before they had run into Mr. Wickham! It was not inconceivable he had overheard them— and Colonel Fitzwilliam had swerved so suddenly from issuing his challenge when Elizabeth had put a hand to her stomach—

‘Oh God,’ she thought.

Her mind was blank with shock.

Elizabeth was for some moments speechless, then she managed a very distant-sounding, “I—I have been very much mistaken— on more than I ever thought. Will you please give my excuses, Lady Catherine? I will... I will remain out here and think on all this.”

“That is the wisest thing you have ever said,” sniffed Lady Catherine and walked in.

Memories began to crowd in, replacing the blank panic of earlier: Darcy’s habit of staring at her in Hertfordshire and Kent, in the early days of their acquaintance; his insistence that she could not possibly be Colonel Fitzwilliam’s soulmate, that day at Huntsford; the declaration that incensed her more than the rest: “I was myself baptized Fitzwilliam Darcy. I may very well be your soulmate.”