Chapter Text
It started in Town. As these things always do. The whirl and swirl of Town often changed the way people see each other. The dancefloors, the gossip, the strain of sociability and finances changed people. And Elinor was tired of it, honestly, tired. But Mrs. Jennings would attend every party, every tea, even every blasted drive in the park. And dragged her proteges with her. So, Elinor found herself at yet another ball.
Elinor’s feet stung, her smile tight as she nodded to her sister-in-law, Fanny, as she passed her on the stairs. The necklace she was wearing made her neck itch, painful and sharp. And the new lace trim on her sleeves that she added to freshen the gown was irritating, scratching ever so slightly. And the violinist was not in tune with the rest of the orchestra and his every e flat rang in her ears in such a way that the tendons in her neck ached and her tongue swelled. All she wanted in this moment was to go home. Not to Mrs. Jennings’ town house. Not to Barton Cottage. Not even to Norland. But to some metaphysical place that she had not yet known.
The first curtained alcove she found was clearly already occupied, a heady giggle erupted from behind the heavy velvet drapery. There was no hope of finding respite there. The candles flickered, guttering a little in their sconces as she walked further down the hallway. But this dark, shadowed corridor with an obviously amorous couple in the window seat was better than the ballroom.
She’d seen Edward Ferrars tonight. Glimpsed him with Fanny through the breathless swirl of the dance. He would never be allowed near her and Fanny would do her very best to make sure Elinor was simultaneously ignored by him and every other eligible bachelor in London. It would all come to naught in any case because Edward was engaged to Lucy Steele.
Not that Fanny knew that, of course. Elinor nearly scoffed and just barely muffled it, lest the couple suddenly surface from their passions and hear her in what should have been a quiet hallway.
Her heart shouldn’t still ache when she saw Edward. It shouldn’t feel as though it was in a jar that was far too small. But it did. And it drove her from every ballroom and drawing room. She refused invitations to every tea table and supper table where he might be. At least she wasn’t driven to tears any longer. But she was starting to wonder if it was him at all, or if it was the idea of him and the escape he presented. The ability to belong, just as she was right now, to this group of the wealthy and fashionable. Her inclusion revoked the moment they became poor relations.
She stepped to an open window. Leaning against the frame, she crossed her arms and sighed. The necklace now a new irritant as the chain caught at her wrist. And that was when she saw him, Colonel Brandon, strolling to the house on foot.
“At least he has not changed from the country,” she whispered, taking in the surety of his step. The man walked everywhere. He never took a carriage when he could take himself there under his own power.
Their every interaction had been amiable. Even when Marianne couldn’t be bothered to stay in the room for longer than a quarter of an hour. He had been attentive and kind. Unerringly so. Just yesterday, he’d pretended that the flowers he brought for Marianne were for her when her sister failed to appear for tea.
She found herself smiling. At nothing. At the night. At him.
Sighing again, lighter this time, she turned from the window and started to wend her way back to the ballroom. Her step a little easier now. And the irritations of the evening minor with time and better consideration. But that didn’t prevent her from wincing when she stepped on the marble stairs.
“Miss Dashwood,” the Colonel said, the soft report of his boot heels on the polished stone even and easy. Certainly, easier than her own steps. “I am fortunate to find you here.” She could hear the smile in his deep voice. “Now, I shall not have to enter alone.” He offered his arm to her so naturally, as though they had been performing just these courtesies for months. And she took it without a second thought.
“You will readily find acquaintances within,” she said, her smile less strained than the one she gave Fanny not a few moments before. “At the very least the Palmers are here. And Mrs. Jennings, I am certain, would love to claim your attention in the card room. I cannot partner her as well as you do at whist.”
“I cannot keep up with her wagers,” he said on the light, slightly more than polite laugh, tapping her hand where it lay on his arm. He was in brighter spirits than a few weeks past. When he’d asked if her sister was finally engaged to Willoughby. If matters had finally and fully be settled between them. And when she’d given her opinion that they did indeed hold each other in mutual affection he’d left, stricken and struck down. “Have you a partner for the next?” His voice was pitched perfectly to undercut the din of voices filling the ballroom, the clink of glass and porcelain, the off-key orchestra.
“No, I do not,” she said, a little breathless and her cheeks tingling with new warmth. She hadn’t felt this way in months, close to a year. Not since before her father's death.
“Will you do me the honour?”
“Thank you,” she said, biting back some of the width of her smile. She hadn’t danced since that muddled affair with Robert Ferrars at the assembly rooms. No one had asked and, truthfully, she wouldn’t have felt up to it. Too much had pressed upon her heart. Until this very minute. Secret engagements, a lover’s quarrel, a sister-in-law who loathed the very sight of her, and every single scrap of gossip and teasing news about the elusive Mr. F. that Mrs. Jennings could supply. But now, just this evening, she felt light enough to dance.
And with that, the Colonel swept them into the fray of dancers. A disorganized quadrille or maybe it was the cotillion. She didn’t know. And laughed with him when they both turned the wrong direction in the pattern. And for just a moment, they were not the sensible, reliable people everyone counted on them to be.
He looked different when he smiled. Not some cliché of a younger man but one with fewer cares, less responsibility, and an incomplete knowledge of the world. And that made her smile wider and her laugh just a little more joyous to see it. For all the serious conversations and confidences that they’d shared over the last year, she’d realized that she’d never seen him smile quite like this. Sadly, knowingly, fondly, politely but never brightly.
It made her breath stutter for just a moment and her eyes widened as they stopped, just at the end of the line of dancers, her hand still in his. And in that moment, Elinor found she didn’t care that Lucy Steele’s laughter carried down the line of dancers or that Edward would never be hers.
“My apologies,” the Colonel said on a laugh. “I am not as much of a dancer as I remember being.”
“We might both be out of practice,” she said, her answering laugh bordering on a giggle. Nearly girlish. She brought her hand up to hide her surprise at herself.
“There is only one remedy but one I would not dare to employ here,” he said, taking a step away from the lines of dancers that were reforming behind them.
“No,” Elinor said, her smile turning rueful as she looked over her shoulder as he led her from the floor. “That would do neither of us any credit.”
“Ah, Colonel, I see you found my dear Miss Dashwood.” Mrs. Jennings voice carried over every other sound – the music, the stamp of feet, the rise of inebriated laughter. “And I fear I must end our evening early; I have some news I must simply take home to Miss Marianne. The dear girl did not feel up to the merriment of the evening.” The older woman had the temerity to wink at the Colonel, despite knowing and encouraging the man’s hopes not even a few months past.
Elinor’s cheeks flushed nearly aching as she looked down at her hems. The Colonel squeezed her fingers lightly, before offering his arm. “Shall I call for your carriage to be brought around?” He’d already started moving with Elinor to the stairs, leaving Mrs. Jennings to scurry in their wake.
“She really must know right away, my dear Miss Dashwood. It is imperative we return to her as quickly as we possibly can.” Mrs. Jennings opened and closed her ivory handled fan in time with her rushed words.
Elinor’s heart fell back into that too small jar. The one just between where her heart should be and her stomach. Whatever gossip excited Mrs. Jennings was sure to devastate Marianne. The Colonel’s hand came up to cover hers on his arm. Just a light brush of his gloved fingers over hers. What a friend might offer another when there was no other way to communicate the desire to offer some form of comfort.
The crush of carriages, horses, waiting footmen, grooms on the streets was almost as great as that inside the ballroom. And it was just as loud. They laughed raucously as one stumbled into a pile of manure, played at cards and dice wherever there was enough light to see, and called to each other over the baying of the dogs, the rattle of carriage wheels on the cobbles, and the sharp report of hooves on stone. Elinor picked up her skirts, keeping her hems from the muck as Colonel Brandon manoeuvred them through the crowd. “I do not know, madam, that you will see your carriage for above an hour,” the Colonel said, stopping on the periphery of the milling servants.
“I will take a hack, then.” Mrs. Jennings’ nod was decisive sending the feathers in her hair quivering. “If you would be so kind as to escort our dear Miss Dashwood, I know she will be safe in your care Colonel.” And with all the fanfare the woman could accord herself, she signalled a hack chaise and took herself off.
“Shall we?” He gestured them forward with a wide sweep of his hand and they walked on.
She should have dropped his arm. She should have folded her hands behind her back and strolled on without touching him. But she didn’t. And he did not seem to mind. Silences between Elinor and the Colonel had never been awkward, they had been in enough rooms together, in enough awkward stillness when Marianne had just vacated a room, in enough of the quiet in the wake of ridiculous pronouncements that they had learned to navigate the quiet together. To very nearly enjoy it when it was just the two of them. To look forward to those moments when it seemed like conversation might spring up between them as one of them read a letter, a phrase from a book, or stumbled across something mundane that still needed to be shared. They’d talked of things of great import, like his ward’s indiscretions and things of no import, like whether beef was cheaper in Exeter as Elinor’s mother firmly claimed.
“I do hope that your sister does not find Mrs. Jennings’ news very distressing,” the Colonel said after clearing his throat. He sounded almost dispassionate. As though he hadn’t spent the better part of the last few months competing for Marianne’s attention. As though his heart wasn’t already taken.
Elinor was hesitant to make a reply. Mrs. Jennings would only have left that ball if it had been news about Willoughby. And that jar her heart sat in seemed to get a little smaller as she thought about the pain her answer might cause him.
“I know what you are thinking, Miss Dashwood,” he said, as they turned a corner onto a quieter, tree-lined street. The houses were dark, everyone having dressed for the ball. The only people still in the houses were sleeping servants and children still in the school room, all long-since having sought their beds. “I can assure you; it will not affect me as you suppose.”
“It has to be about Willoughby,” she whispered, not because she wanted to keep her voice low. There was no one to hear it. But because it was the only way she could say the words. She had no wish to draw attention to his disappointed hopes. To draw attention back to Marianne. And away from herself.
And that was a heart-stuttering thought. That she wanted his attention. His attentions.
“That much is obvious.” He didn’t sound hurt or distressed. While he sounded resigned, a happier emotion ran beneath it. But not one she could name. And all too soon, it seemed they reached Mrs. Jennings house in the quiet square. “I will take my leave of you Miss Dashwood.”
She nodded, letting her hand fall from his arm as she walked up the few stairs to the front door. “I thank you for your escort, sir,” she said, softly as she turned to face him. He took her hand as she offered it, bowing over it. A courtesy he’d only ever paid to Marianne before now.