He watched her for the rest of the evening.
She never once looked as though she was being watched.
Lydia had built an idea of what this reunion would be, in the past three years of waiting. Not a fantasy; she was not sixteen anymore and had long since lost the habit of building fantasies. But a hope, reasonable and moderate, something shehad allowed herself because it seemed harmless: that when he came home there would be some moment of recognition. Not dramatic. Just real. Some acknowledgement that they were not truly strangers, that the years of letters and the understanding they had reached before he sailed counted for something. She had imagined a moment of quietness, just the two of them, having a chance to speak alone. To get to know each other again, or anew.
But he had not come in the afternoon, when it would only have been family and Elizabeth would have made absolutely sure Lydia and her husband had a chance to speak privately. Instead, he had appeared in the doorway of the ballroom, and she had seen him before she was ready, and she had schooled her face and crossed the room and curtsied, and she had saidColonel Fitzwilliamand he had saidMrs Fitzwilliamand they were strangers. Complete and courteous strangers.
There had been one moment, a fraction of a second when he appeared in the doorway, when something unguarded moved through her. Quick and bright and wholly inconvenient. She had closed it down before it could amount to anything, because in the middle of a crowded ballroom was definitely not the place or time for such feelings, especially when she herself did not know quite what they meant yet. She rather hoped he had not seen any of it in her expression. Things one did not yet understand were better kept close until one did.
A young man was bowing before her. She accepted his hand and allowed herself to be led into the set, and they danced, and she smiled at him at the appropriate moments, and whatever his name was she could not have said.
Patient, thorough, making no effort at discretion; that was how he had been watching her all evening. She had seen him assess a room like that in Brighton, cataloguing everything without appearing to, and she had thought then that it was a military habit, the sort of attention one learned when survival might depend on it. She had spent three years learning her own version of it, and she knew precisely what it looked like and what it meant. He had come home to take the measure of her. This was not a criticism; it was the reasonable action of a man who had arranged a situation, left it in other people’s hands, and returned to discover whether the arrangement had succeeded.
She executed a turn, came back to her partner’s hand, smiled.
The Matlocks had formed her. The Darcys had welcomed her, and given her greater access to Society, which had tested her. He would want to know the result, and she had spent the evening giving him a clear answer. Nothing wanting. Everything correct. Mrs Fitzwilliam, equal to every room she was placed in.
The music resolved. The young man bowed, pleased with himself. She curtsied and thanked him warmly and did not watch him go.
Richard was still watching her, though he was ostensibly conversing with Darcy and two other gentlemen. She could almost feel his eyes on her like a weight she did not know how to carry. She turned, and accepted the next glass of champagne that came her way, and went to find Georgiana.
Tomorrow she would see him again, and she would be gracious and impenetrable, and she would do it for as long as was necessary, and eventually she would have enough evidence toknow what, if anything, she was permitted to want. She was very good at waiting. Three years had taught her well.
