“Mrs. Darcy has been safely delivered of another son,” John said, coming into the breakfast room on the morning of Lady Clive’s ball.
Mrs. Fitzwilliam fixed a smile in place. “How wonderful. Have they chosen a name?”
John glanced down at the missive he held. “George,” he said. “After my uncle Darcy.”
“I shall send them a note for today,” Mrs. Fitzwilliam said after a moment. “And of course we will call as soon as Mrs. Darcy is accepting visitors.”
John rested his eyes upon her with such weight it looked like a caress; and then Mrs. Fitzwilliam swallowed and looked away.
The book room door sat partly ajar, and I had already raised my hand to tap on it when I was checked by a strange noise coming from within; a gasping, choking noise that could be distress or smothered laughter. I did not think at all, just peered around the edge of the door; and then the sight before me was so startling that I did not remember to look away.
Mrs. Fitzwilliam stood before John, her face pressed to his shoulder. He cupped her head as gingerly as if she were made of eggshells. The sounds I heard were her sobs, raw as weals but muffled by the blue wool of his coat front.
“Hush now,” he murmured, searching with his free hand in his pocket. He drew out a handkerchief and held it up to her; she took it, drew back from him a little, and buried her face in it, scrubbing like a child.
“Forgive me,” she said after a moment. “I should not begrudge them their happiness. It is only . . .”
“I know,” John said.
Almost, I betrayed my presence with a sound, but I swallowed it before it emerged. I curled my fingers around the edge of the doorframe, bracing myself against understanding that did not quite come.
But now she tilted her face up to his. “We have not tried in far too long,” she said, very softly. “There can be no reward without endeavor.”
I could not see her expression, but I could see John’s, the lines of his face blurred and softened. When he cupped her head again, it was with purpose.
I stepped away, my heartbeat so thunderous to my own ears that I feared they must hear it as well.
When my new gown was delivered from the modiste’s shop the day before the ball, Spinner touched the fabric with the greatest care imaginable.
“This color suits you, ma’am! And it will be lovely with your amethysts,” she said. “And perhaps the silver bandeau for your hair?” Then she took the gown away to press it, before I could say that I’d had exactly the same thought about my jewelry the moment Miss Amherst showed me the pale muslin with its print of deep purple flowers.
Now, as Spinner helped me into the gown, smoothing the skirt so it hung properly, I stared at myself in the glass—raised my hands to the gown’s wide, low neckline, brushing over the miles of exposed skin.
Despite the thrumming changes I’d lately experienced, it was still my face in the glass; my face, but subtly altered, so that I actually looked a little more like my own portrait in Rosings’s drawing room. I would never be tall like Mamma or robustly sturdy like Mrs. Darcy; but the shadows were gone from my cheeks, and with my cheeks’ new fullness, my dipping Fitzwilliam nose no longer seemed quite so overwhelming.
“Do I look . . . changed to you?” I said to Spinner, avoiding her eyes in the glass.
She paused, pins in one hand, long locks of my hair in the other, and she did not answer for so long that I began to feel ridiculous, as if the faint alchemy I’d felt working upon my form and features were entirely imagined.
Then Spinner raised her brows and the corners of her mouth all at once. “As changed as if a fairy came to rescue you, ma’am,” she said, and I smiled.
A moment later, she added, “Mr. Watters will be pleased to see you in such fine looks,” and my smile dropped away.
I could scarcely look at my cousin and his wife when we gathered in the entranceway to await our carriage. My embarrassment at having witnessed such unexpected intimacy between them persisted in the hours since I had spied on them in the book room. Watching from the edges of my vision as John helped Mrs. Fitzwilliam into her wrap, all I could see was two pairs of touching lips, two pairs of desperately grasping hands, two bodies bending toward one another like saplings in a high wind.
The carriage ride itself was short. Mr. Watters, seated beside me, complimented my gown, but I scarcely heard him, my heart tapping against my breastbone as frantically and arrhythmically as a woodpecker on a tree. “The Amhersts are going to be here?” I said to Mrs. Fitzwilliam, and she blinked.
“They said so,” she said, and then raised one brow, as narrow and golden as her brother’s. “You would know better than I, Miss de Bourgh, surely—you have been so much in Eliza’s company of late.”
I lowered my eyes, grateful when, a few moments later, the coachman guided the horses to a stop outside a handsome town house. Lady Clive was another of Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s acquaintances from school, a wealthy young woman who married an even wealthier old man. Their house rose taller than John’s, and extended farther back, and as we handed our wraps to a footman and followed the flow of guests toward the ballroom, I had to stop myself from fidgeting with my long gloves. At the swell of music coming through the ballroom’s double doors, my stays felt suddenly uncomfortable, and the toes of my slippers seemed to pinch.
The ballroom was smaller than ours at Rosings Park, which put me a little at ease. Our host and hostess greeted us as we passed through; Lady Clive grasped Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s hands in her own, and they bared their teeth at one another, and it was nothing like watching my cousin’s wife with the Amherst ladies; this was more like two peacocks exhibiting their plumage before a peahen, but in this case the peacocks were socially conscious young women, the peahen all the rest of society. It was with relief that I saw John take his wife’s elbow, his eyes merry, and steer her away from the receiving line.
The room was already crowded and hot, yet still more people came through the doors. I had thought a private ball would be less intimidatingly bursting with guests than a public one, but it seemed Lady Clive had many acquaintances who simply could not be excluded. I was too short to see over the heads of the taller guests, all of whom seemed to know one another already, crying out glad greetings. John and Mrs. Fitzwilliam were swallowed up by the crowd like fish down the gullet of a great seabird, and Mr. Watters was waylaid by another gentleman; though I was happy enough to be free of him for a moment, I almost wished for his arm to lean on, his laughing guidance. I stood on my toes, seeking one particular face in the throng.
But I could not find her. Disappointment made my eyes sting; I was a fool. I looked down at my fine new gown, which was entirely of Miss Amherst’s design, from the fabric to the sleeves, and brushed my hands over the skirt, and upward to where my necklace—a glimmering circlet of purple stones—lay against my collarbones. My body burned; I’d wanted her to see it. To see me, in all my imagined splendor. To see her handiwork.
It was a simple gown, as far as evening dresses went; but, as Miss Amherst regretfully said as we made our way down a crowded pavement to the draper’s, there would not be time to order anything elaborate before the ball. She was entirely at home among the bolts of cloth when we entered the shop, and was not shy about asking to see this bolt or that one. She showed me the sheen on a striped pink silk, and then held this printed muslin up to my cheek, that I might feel its softness and she might see how well it suited my complexion.
“I like the ivory against your skin,” she said, “and the purple print makes your hair and eyes all the more wondrously dark. And,” with an earnest look, “it is fine enough as it is to do without embroidery or netting, so the seamstresses should just about be able to finish the gown in time.” She raised her eyebrows in question, as if I might have some objection to her choice.
“I yield to your superior knowledge,” I said, and she clapped her hands.
“Mind you, if you intend to remain in London very long, I would like to see you in a truly magnificent evening gown. I saw just the thing in Ackermann’s.” And she was off, choosing fabrics for not only a future evening gown but also a new morning gown, two walking gowns, and a pelisse in green that made me think of moss and cool, shaded places.
I thought of her hands, nudging me forward, encouraging me to make my own tastes known to the modiste. Her head, bent to mine, smiling in gentle amusement when my tongue stumbled. The brush of her fingers against the insides of my arms.
I shook my head, stepping back out of the way of the guests still coming into the ballroom. The dancing had already begun, couples lining up for the first set, the opening notes rushing out over the crowd. I pressed my back to the wall and caught glimpses between the people standing in front of me.
“There you are,” said a voice beside me, and I looked up to find Mr. Watters standing, hand extended. “I am terribly sorry, my friend Rogers caught hold of me and I quite lost sight of you. Do you forgive me?”
“There is nothing to forgive,” I said unthinkingly.
“Then will you honor me with this dance?” And when I stared at him, frozen, he wheedled, “You know these steps—it is but a simple country dance.” A smile, and he leaned closer, lips almost brushing my ear. “I would do nothing to embarrass you.”
My hand was in his without my quite understanding how it happened, and we were taking our place at the bottom of the set, which was long enough that the dance had not yet moved along its entire length. As if I had succumbed to the desire for oblivion and taken a dose of medicine, everything felt suddenly very removed; I heard the music only faintly over the rushing of my own blood and the rasp of my breath, and stared down the set, watching like one doomed as the dance moved inexorably nearer. The elaborate chalk arabesques that covered the dance floor were already disturbed, smudged and smeared by so many pairs of feet. Distantly, I saw John dancing with a woman to whom I was introduced at a card party some weeks ago, and a little nearer the top of the set Mrs. Fitzwilliam was partnered with a rather dashing young man. I watched the steps of the dance and heard Miss Amherst’s voice in my ear, low and patient, counting them off.
Still, I was caught off guard when my turn came, and was a beat off from the music when I recalled myself and stepped forward, my feet self-conscious in their execution of the steps. But I took Mr. Watters’s gloved hands firmly when he reached for me.
“Thank you,” Mr. Watters said. He took my hand again in his to lead me from the floor. “You honored me. And you acquitted yourself well! One would hardly have known it was your first time dancing in company.”
I shook my head, shifting out of the way of other couples as they moved past us. “You flatter me. I still have much to learn.”
“There is no better place than at a ball among friends.”
These were not my friends, not even the ladies and gentlemen whom I had previously met. I felt their curious glances like thorn pricks, and the heat suffusing my body had little to do with the crowded room. I shook my head again, glancing around us. A number of young ladies eyed Mr. Watters, his calves in their white stockings, the fine cut of his coat, the curl of his hair; but Mr. Watters appeared entirely unaware that he was the object of so much female attention.
He licked his lips. “Miss de Bourgh,” he began, but John interrupted him, appearing beside us flushed and grinning.
“Anne!” he said. “I never thought to see you out there.” He smiled between myself and Mr. Watters, radiating good cheer. “I am . . . I hope you will forgive the implied condescension, but I am just very . . . glad for you.” He bounced a little in place. “I don’t suppose you would honor me with a dance?”
“Oh—no,” I said. “I am sorry but—one dance was enough for me this evening.”
John looked as if he might protest, but finally nodded. “Very well.”
“Miss de Bourgh,” Mr. Watters said again when John had gone; but this time his tone was less serious than before. “May I fetch you some refreshment?”
I did not particularly want any refreshment, but I did want a moment to myself, and so I nodded and thanked him and watched gratefully as he disappeared, then opened my fan and attempted to cool my heated face, looking around at the milling, chattering crowd. On the dance floor the next set had begun, and I watched it disinterestedly until a flash of orange hair caught my attention.
It was Miss Julia Amherst. She danced as well as her sister, smiling and carrying on a conversation with her partner with apparent effortlessness. The hand moving my fan dropped to my side, and I stretched my neck to see the rest of the dance floor, searching for another glimpse of orange. A moment later, I was rewarded: Miss Amherst stood near the top of the set, laughing with her partner. At the sight of her, something inside of me squeezed.
I was looking so intently that perhaps she felt my gaze, for her own eyes darted suddenly toward me, starling-quick; when she saw me, her mouth twitched up briefly before she returned her attention to her partner and the dance. But even as Mr. Watters returned, bearing two cups of ratafia, and remained beside me, making occasional comments and observations about the dance and the general company, my eyes strayed to Miss Amherst. The drink was sweet and fruity, coating my teeth and tongue.
“I greatly enjoyed my visit to Rosings Park when my sister and your cousin became engaged,” Mr. Watters said. He stood very close to me, the better to be heard above the music and drone of other voices. I smiled vaguely and took another sip from my glass. When Mr. Watters and his sister came to Rosings, neither one paid me more than passing attention.
“I only wish I had the opportunity to see more of your lovely estate,” he said. “Lady Catherine said you have more than twelve thousand acres?”
His voice rose at the end of this, as if he were asking a question; and to my relief, I knew the answer. “Yes,” I said. “Just a little more.”
A flash of white teeth. “How marvelous. And you’ve a steward to oversee it all, I think?”
“Yes,” I said again. Miss Amherst and her partner, a short, balding gentleman who was surprisingly light on his feet, performed a graceful allemande; and then she turned her head ever so slightly, meeting my eyes over her shoulder for an instant.
“But you’ve no house in Town?” Mr. Watters said, and when I looked at him, a little startled, he added, “I was surprised that you had no house of your own to which to come when you arrived. Not,” he said hastily, with a disarming smile, “that your presence at your cousin’s has been anything but a pleasure. I just assumed that your father would have kept a place here.”
“He stayed at his club, I think,” I said.
“How very odd.”
I gave another vapid smile and took another sip from my drink, and listened to the last notes of the song as they lingered around us like perfume. Miss Amherst and her partner bowed, and he led her off the floor. She said something, nodding in our direction, and he bowed over her hand before releasing her. And then she wound her way through the crush, edging between people, stopping to greet one or two on her way.
“Miss de Bourgh, Mr. Watters,” she said when she reached us.
“Miss Amherst,” he said. “A pleasure.”
She nodded, smiled, looked back and forth between us. “Are you enjoying yourselves?” she said at last.
“Very much indeed,” Mr. Watters said. Another pause, lengthier, and I wondered whether Miss Amherst felt as awkward as I did; whether Mr. Watters was aware of how very much I wished he would go elsewhere.
“I was just asking Miss de Bourgh about her estate,” he said.
“Oh?” Miss Amherst folded her hands before her, all polite interest.
“Yes. I hope to visit there again someday; it is a beautiful place.”
“I am sure it is. Though I am so accustomed to the city; I must confess wilderness and farm life hold little allure. The squirrels in Hyde Park are beasts enough for me.”
Her words hit me like stones.
“I had hoped,” he said after another pause, “to convince your friend to stand up with me again.”
“You danced?” Miss Amherst turned to me, and now she was all delight. “Oh, I wish we had not been late. Julia”—a roll of her eyes—“lost one of her gloves, and refused to borrow any of mine.”
“Yes, I danced,” I said. I angled my body a little more toward her, though not enough to shut Mr. Watters entirely out of the conversation. “But as I told Mr. Watters, I have exposed myself quite enough for tonight, I think.”
“But we’ve still the whole evening ahead of us!” Miss Amherst said. The drawing of bows across strings signaled the start of the next set. “Oh,” she said, and looked around. “Ah—Julia is dancing again with Mr. King. Good; anyone observing can see how he singles her out, so it will not be gossip to say I expect him to offer for her very soon.”
“Mr. King?” I saw Miss Julia in the row of dancers, opposite the same young man with whom she was partnered in the previous set. “This is sudden! How did they meet?”
“Oh, I’ve so much to tell you. So it is just as well that you are not dancing and that no one has asked me for this one!” She smiled into my face, and I smiled foolishly back.
Mr. Watters coughed a little. “Far be it from me to intrude upon ladies’ confidences,” he said, with a self-deprecating smile that almost made me warm to him. “But Miss de Bourgh, I would be remiss if I did not request the privilege of escorting you in to supper.”
“Thank you,” I said, and he bowed and left us.
Miss Amherst watched him go, then turned to me. “He pays you a great deal of attention,” she said.
“Yes,” I said, quietly; to speak more strongly felt akin to inviting that attention to become something more formal.
She watched me. “He is very handsome,” she said; and she, too, was tentative as a child climbing too high a tree, testing each branch for fear it will not bear weight.
Mr. Watters’s good looks were undeniable. “Yes,” I said again, and then I took her arm and tugged gently; I did not want to speak of Mr. Watters just now. “But come—tell me your news!”
We were together until the supper dance, when a gentleman claimed Miss Amherst’s hand for the set. She followed him to the dance floor, and I followed her with my eyes. Her hair and her gown, which was yellow as cowslips, were easy to keep in sight among the more subdued brown and blond heads and paler fabrics of the other ladies. Mrs. Fitzwilliam and Mr. Watters found me and introduced me to several people, all of whom were perfectly cordial and perfectly forgettable. And yet they all seemed eager to meet me—mistress of Rosings Park, in Kent, and an earl’s niece. These facts about me had not changed; but no one had ever seemed quite so eager to make my acquaintance before, and suddenly I was surrounded by ladies and gentlemen keen on knowing me better. The gentlemen asked me to dance, though I stammeringly refused each invitation; the ladies introduced me to their brothers, or sons, or nephews. I looked into their faces; smiled and nodded in what I hoped were the proper places; and thought of the years I’d spent recumbent and dismissed. Miss Hall had said that I could be so much more than I was then; it seemed that others agreed with her.
When supper was announced, Mr. Watters led me through and helped me to my chair. For the duration of the meal he was solicitous and charming, drawing out stories of my life before coming to London and, in turn, amusing me with tales from his and Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s childhoods. From time to time I saw John, seated at another table, watching us; and Miss Amherst, seated across from me and a few chairs down, smiled at me occasionally, though her dinner partner required most of her attention. I ate a few bites of everything and reeled between enjoying the feeling, as intoxicating as the wine served with each course, that I was fully present and participating in this moment; and wishing I were seated beside my friend.
She found me later, when some of the guests had abandoned the ball for other amusements or succumbed to tiredness and gone home. There were still ten couples dancing in the set, however, and an air of general merriment. Mr. Watters was dancing with another lady, and I had retreated to a chair half-hidden by a large urn of hothouse flowers.
“You are hiding,” Miss Amherst said. She sat on the empty chair beside mine and opened her fan.
I did not deny it. “It is all a little overwhelming for a reclusive country girl.”
She did not laugh, as I intended her to, but gave me a chiding glance. “You are not so lacking in mettle as that.”
“Mmm. Perhaps not. But my hosts are still dancing, and I am very tired.”
She smiled lazily and tapped me on the wrist with her open fan. “Poor dear.” Her eyes slid sideways, toward the dance. “You would not stand up with a friend, I suppose? No one else will have me.” Though her tone was mild, I found myself sitting up straighter at the sound.
“With you?”
“It is not unheard of for ladies to stand up together,” she said. “Though I suppose it is more usual when there are fewer gentlemen present.”
“I cannot,” I said. I felt slow and stupid, but I looked at the dancers and could think only how dancing with Miss Amherst would show an utter lack of propriety after having told not only Mr. Watters but three other gentlemen over the course of the evening that I was not dancing. Even I was conscious enough of social mores to know that a lady could not politely refuse to dance unless she meant to refuse all dances for the rest of the ball.
Miss Amherst seemed to follow my thoughts perfectly. “It is quite something, is it not,” she said, apparently without bitterness, “how deeply concerned we are with men’s tender feelings?”
My smile felt limp as the flowers in the urn before us, petals wilting in the warmth of the room.
“You look splendid,” she said after a moment. She reached out and adjusted my necklace so the clasp sat properly at the nape of my neck. Then she drew back.
“Your gown is by far the more splendid,” I said. Yellow, which made me so sallow, brought out the shine of her hair.
“Mmm. Thank you.” Idly, she caught my hand, studying the scrolling embroidery that ran all down my gloves’ length.
“You’ve such an eye,” I said. “You should have been a modiste.”
“Ah, no,” she said. “I am far too idle for such a life. And modistes are too busy making other ladies’ clothes to have the best gowns for themselves.” Her lips compressed. “In truth,” she said after a moment, “I love fashion. But—sometimes I cannot tell whether my desire to always look well is for myself, or . . . if it has always been expected of me. Of all of us, as females.” She frowned down at my glove.
I cocked my head. “From the perspective of a—friend . . . it seems to give you genuine pleasure. Fabrics and bonnets and—and keeping up with fashions.”
“Yes.” Miss Amherst offered me a half-smile. “But it just—does it never bother you?” Her fingers clasped mine a little more tightly. “It seemed to bother you, earlier—I’m sorry if I misread things. But I saw you, surrounded by all those men, all of them wanting something.” She shook her head, the curls at her neck dancing. “I suppose I am just—well, as I said before. It sometimes seems that men’s tender feelings are always to be foremost in our minds. And that includes decorating ourselves for their enjoyment.”
I thought of all the hours Mamma spent trying to keep me in looks for my cousin Darcy’s approval, resentment, like spoiled milk, curdling in my belly. “Yes,” I said.
Miss Amherst was silent a moment. Then she moved her thumb, just a fraction; yet it felt like a caress against my palm, sending a sudden rush right through the core of me. “I did not mean to distress you,” she said, and turned her eyes upon my face for so long that I finally returned her look. “And I know how impractical my query was. I know that we cannot dance.” A lifting of her shoulders and the corners of her mouth. “I only wished we might.”