Wickham inclined his head. “I shall endeavour to conduct myself with due caution, sir.”
“Quite so. Quite so.” Mr Collins smiled, encouraged. “One must always be mindful of propriety, particularly in households blessed with—” his gaze swept the room, lingering a breath too long “—somany young ladies.”
The words might well have been a physical presence. She shifted in her chair, then immediately wished she had not; the room tilted a fraction before righting itself.
“Miss Elizabeth?” Wickham said quietly, his voice pitched so that only she might hear. “You look unwell.”
“Only tired,” she replied. Too quickly. The effort of shaping the words sent another throb through her temples. She dropped her voice to a bare whisper. “I fear Mr Collins has exhausted us all with his… enthusiasm.”
Wickham smiled, but it faltered when she cleared her throat and pinched a furrow of her brow.
Lydia laughed too loudly at something Mr Denny had said. Kitty echoed her, half a sentence later. Wickham glanced between them, then back to Elizabeth.
“You are usually quicker than this,” he said, gently. “I was counting on your wit and merriment to sustain me today, Miss Elizabeth.”
She tried to answer. Something clever. Something easy.
What came instead was a blur of sound—Collins continuing, Mama murmuring approval, the officers laughing—and the sensation of heat gathering at the base of her neck.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, missing the cadence of the room entirely. She pressed her lips together and tried again. “What assistance did you require?”
Wickham’s brows drew together, but he gave a short chuckle. “Only your conversation. I was saying the weather has turned.”
“It has,” she agreed, though she could not have said how. The words twisted wrong, too flat, and she knew it even as she spoke them.
Mr Collins nodded solemnly. “A salutary reminder of the need for moral vigilance. Seasons of change are most instructive.”
The pain spiked—sudden enough that Elizabeth swayed in her chair. Jane’s hand was on her arm at once.
“Lizzy?”
“I… I believe I have a megrim,” Elizabeth said, the excuse tumbling out before she could weigh it. She stood, the movement blurring the edges of the room. “Pray, forgive me. I fear I shall be poor company if I remain.”
Mama made a protesting sound. “Elizabeth, really! You cannot be taken ill now. We have the party from Netherfield coming to dine this evening!”
“I shall be well by this evening,” Elizabeth insisted. “But for now, I should do better lying down.”
Wickham watched her closely now. “You must not exert yourself merely for the pleasure of others.”
“I assure you, I shall recover admirably,” she said, and managed a small, apologetic smile that felt like it belonged to someone else entirely.
Mr Collins turned halfway. “If your constitution is unequal to extended discourse, Miss Elizabeth, rest is certainly advisable.”
She did not trust herself to answer him. Elizabeth inclined her head to the room, took Jane’s offered arm, and let herself be guided away—every step an effort, every sound behind her receding as though she were walking out of a tide.
The candles had beenplaced closer together than usual. Someone must have thought the evening dim. The flames wavered as the door opened again, sending a brief, unwelcome shimmer across her vision. Elizabeth blinked and fixed her attention on the pattern in the rug until the room eased into its proper proportions.
“Mr Bingley!” Mama welcomed. “How very good of you to come, and your sisters as well—Mrs Hurst, I am delighted, quite delighted. Do come in, do come in. Mr Hurst, mind the step.”
Elizabeth did not look up at once. She had already accounted for them—the pause before Mr Bingley crossed the threshold, the way Miss Bingley’s gaze would travel the room before she moved at all, Mrs Hurst’s unhurried step behind her. It was a pattern she knew well enough to picture without seeing.
Only when they stood before her did Elizabeth glance up.
Mr Bingley’s eyes were on Jane. They always were, now. He smiled when Jane met his gaze, a look so open it would have been impossible to mistake. Jane rose, and Elizabeth followed a moment later, slower than she intended but still in time to offer a proper greeting.
“Dinner is quite ready,” Mama announced, clapping her hands. “We shall not keep that splendid roast duck waiting. Jane, my dear, Mr Bingley will escort you. Yes, that will do very well.”
Mr Bingley looked momentarily startled, then pleased, and offered his arm. Jane accepted with what passed for composure, though the faint colour in her cheeks betrayed her.
