“How convenient!” Lizzie exclaimed, happy that Mary would have a familiar face helping her, and the doctor smiled at her in that kind way he had. “Thank you, Doctor. I don’t want to deprive Mrs. Cooper of your company any longer.”
“I suspect she was more upset at missing the chance to see you than she was at my absence,” he joked good-naturedly.
“And will you both please stay and join us for dinner on Friday?”
“Thank you for the invitation,” he bowed as he stood up, “it will be our pleasure. Now, if you would please excuse me, I have several books on German philosophy in my carriage that I need to leave with your husband’s valet.”
*
Two days later, Jane brought a stack of cards and invitations into the drawing room where Lizzie was knitting another miniature item for Mary’s baby. The older woman stood and tapped her foot impatiently until Lizzie looked up.
“Why haven’t you been going anywhere lately, Miss Lizzie?” She asked with a frown.
“I’m still recovering,” Lizzie prevaricated, hiding her eyes from Jane.
“I can’t keep telling people you’re not home.”
“Just yesterday I entertained Elinor and Louisa!”
“For half an hour. And I saw their faces when they left.” Jane said, wringing her hands.
“Whatever you think you might have imagined on their faces wasn’t real. Our visit was actually a very good one. We’re moving Elinor into the Duke’s townhouse, seeing as he lives here now, and her cousin no longer wants to support her,” Elizabeth said, putting all her energy into appearing animated.
“Don’t try that false cheer on me,” Jane warned. “You’re not behaving like yourself, my child,” she said a moment later in a dejected voice.
Elizabeth stood up and hugged her. She was getting older and slower, but to Lizzie, she still seemed larger and more capable than life.
“I know, Jane, but I shall again, very soon. I promise,” she whispered into her ear.
Elizabeth’s husband walked in and cleared his throat, causing them to break the hug. Jane curtsied to him.
“Jane, would you please go and call my mother down for tea?” Lizzie said, opting for pre-emption, in case her husband wanted to sit alone with her.
Most days, she managed to fill the spaces they were in with additional people – Lady Burnham was a regular guest atdinner, as was Andrew (who had been offered the Norwich living and had enthusiastically accepted it!), and since Mr and Mrs Brandon were in town during Norwich’s slowest months, they also joined them for dinner twice a week.
The Brandons had invited the Talbots to the opera, dances, and pleasure gardens several times, since they were determined to extract as much enjoyment out of what the city had to offer during their visit, but Lizzie couldn’t bear the thought of being looked at or whispered about, so she’d continuously cited her still recovery as a reason not to join them.
It was a draining way to live life – being in an awful, seemingly unresolvable argument with your husband while wanting to keep up a facade of civility and pretence for the people around you; the same people you needed around you in order to avoid being alone with your husband. These circumstances, coupled with the very real aftermath of her illness, had caused Elizabeth to be perpetually exhausted.
Her husband cleared his throat again, but she refused to look at him.
“I was wondering if you’d like to accompany me to the theatre tonight?” he asked, sounding nervous, which he had good reason to be.
This was perhaps the eighth invitation he’d issued in the last three weeks, separately from the Brandons – he’d asked her to go to the park, for a ride, to an acquaintance’s ball, to the opera – and each time was met with a polite but firmno.
“No, thank you.”
“Elizabeth,” he started saying, and then shedidlook up, but only to glare at him for taking liberties with her name.
He met her eyes calmly. “I worry about you. You never leave the house any more, nor do you want to be among people.”
“Can you truly not understand why? It was bad enough when everyone judged me for seducing you into marrying beneath you, but now you want me to also subject myself to whispers about your cruel games with me? I think I’d rather not.”
“There won’t be any whispers about that,” he said fervently.
“I am sure your beloved Lady Helena is spending every waking moment spreading the news to whoever will listen. What a shame that you were unable to marry her – she’d be your perfect duchess,” Lizzie said, with more jealousy than she’d intended.
“I already have my perfect duchess,” Talbot said with an arrogantly raised eyebrow, as if she were being preposterous.
