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That was almost worse than the insult. She had been hurt, and now even her face was denying it.

She was supposed to tell this story to Charlotte later with "great spirit." She was supposed to make a joke of it, to turn Darcy's rudeness into an amusing anecdote. She was supposed to find him insufferable and proud.

And she did find him insufferable and proud. But she also found him tragically, perfectly written. He was performing his role just as she was performing hers.

The question was: did he know it? Elizabeth watched as Darcy moved away, his tall frame cutting through the crowd. His back was very straight; she could no longer see his face.

She could not decide whether the moment of recognition had meant anything. Until she could ask him, it was only a look. She was tired of being supplied with conclusions about strangers.

"Lizzy?" Jane had appeared at her elbow, her face glowing. "Are you well? You look quite strange."

"I'm quite well," Elizabeth said. "I was considering whether a lady might ever sit down without somebody deciding what it signifies."

Jane laughed, thinking it a joke. "You are so droll, Lizzy. Come, Mr. Bingley wishes to introduce me to his sisters." Elizabeth followed, playing her part because she had no choice.

She was trapped in a story. But Darcy... When their eyes had met, just for that moment, she could have sworn she saw something flicker there. Something that looked almost like recognition. Was it possible she was not alone in this nightmare?

CHAPTER 3

She danced with gentlemen whose names the strange knowledge neglected to supply. This seemed particularly unfair to the young man taking considerable pains not to tread on her hem. He could not be blamed for failing to appear in her private synopsis.

"You dance beautifully, Miss Elizabeth," one of them said.

"Thank you, Mr..." Elizabeth waited for her brain to supply the name.

Nothing.

"Yes," she finished weakly. "Thank you."

He repeated his name patiently. She resolved to remember it, even if the narrative considered him unnecessary. Her mother's voice carried across the room: "Five thousand a year! And so handsome! Oh, Mr. Bennet, is this not wonderful?"

Her mother had returned to the income.

Elizabeth spotted her friend Charlotte by the refreshment table and excused herself from her patient partner.

"You seem distracted tonight, Lizzy," Charlotte observed as Elizabeth approached. "I noticed you watching Mr. Darcy with unusual intensity. I thought he had offended you."

"I find him... puzzling," Elizabeth said carefully. She studied Charlotte's face, searching for any flicker of awareness. Surely her sensible friend had noticed something.

"Puzzling?" Charlotte raised an eyebrow. "He seemed perfectly predictable to me. Proud, reserved, dismissive of anyone beneath his station. The very model of aristocratic disdain."

Charlotte had found him easy to understand. Elizabeth envied that certainty almost as much as she distrusted it.

"Yes, but..." Elizabeth hesitated. How did one ask "Do you know you're fictional?" without sounding completely unhinged? "Do you ever feel, Charlotte, that you know what will happen before it occurs? As if you have done this all before?"

Charlotte laughed. "You mean like knowing that your mother will mention Mr. Bingley's five thousand a year at least twelve times this evening? Or that Lydia will make a spectacle of herself before supper?"

"I had something rather less easily predicted in mind."

"There is no great mystery in that." Charlotte smiled. "People are predictable, Lizzy. They do the same things, say the same things, make the same mistakes. It is the way of the world."

Elizabeth closed her fan. Charlotte had answered kindly and missed her entirely. She had hoped for a fellow sufferer and received an observation on human nature, which was considerably easier to offer at an assembly.

"You are right, of course," Elizabeth said. "I am being fanciful."

"Fanciful is not like you." Charlotte studied her with concern. "Are you quite well?"

"I can't decide whether I chose to come here. I remember meaning very firmly to stay at home."