Page 167 of A Debt Inherited

Alexander Kerr.

He did not strike a line through it. Not yet.

“Before the uncertainty invites a claimant less bashful than the truth,” Ballantyne said.

Outside, the wind moved over Glenbride’s stones.

Inside, a Kerr had become the last Ashby.

The Quarterly Assembly

Meryton, October 1812

The hum of voices struck Elizabeth the instant she entered, warm and unavoidable.

Candles flared from the chandeliers; the floor shone like dark water beneath the dancers’ feet; neighbours turned with smiles already prepared upon their lips. For one breath Elizabeth stood upon the threshold and felt Longbourn fall away behind her—the shrubbery path, the orchard, the boundaries she had kept since summer as though a gate stood where none did.

No one cried out. No one stared too long.

That alone steadied her.

Her mother moved forward with unhurried grace, her fan resting lightly in one hand, her turban set at an angle of consequence, her spirits held in admirable command. Her father followed at her side, patient, dry-eyed, and dangerously attentive. Jane walked before Elizabeth in pale blue silk, so lovely that half the room softened at sight of her.

Elizabeth kept near Jane’s shoulder.

Jane’s hand found hers beneath the fold of their gowns and pressed once.

“You are here,” Jane whispered.

“The room appears persuaded of it.”

Jane’s smile trembled. “I have wished for this all week.”

“To see me crushed in a public room?”

“To see you out of doors and not looking back towards the house.”

Elizabeth turned her eyes towards the company before Jane could read too much in them. “Then I shall endeavour to look only at our neighbours and endure the consequences.”

Jane’s fingers tightened again, then released her.

Lady Lucas approached with both hands extended and all the consequence of a woman first in possession of excellent intelligence.

“My dear Mrs Bennet! An age since we have had the pleasure. Maria sends her compliments to Kitty, and Charlotte charged me particularly to say that Miss Eliza must not hide herself behind her sister all evening.”

Elizabeth exchanged a glance with Jane.

“Charlotte is impertinent,” Elizabeth said. “I shall thank her when I see her.”

Lady Lucas chuckled. “Then she shall be rewarded twice over. But you have heard, of course, of Netherfield Park?”

“What of Netherfield Park?”

“My dear Miss Elizabeth, it is let at last! To a wealthy young man from the North. Five or six thousand a year, they say—perhaps more.”

Mrs Bennet smiled as though fortune had offered Hertfordshire a pleasing improvement in roads. “Then we may congratulate ourselves upon a new neighbour.”

Lady Lucas lowered her voice by the exact degree needed to be heard by every mother within three yards. “And unmarried.”