“Her Grace and I were just about to take a turn about the room. Would anyone care to join us?” Elinor said, looking at Amelia, who shook her head.
The two friends walked a bit and then decided to go into the smaller parlour.
“Are you all right?” Lizzie asked Elinor once they were alone.
Elinor threw herself into an armchair. “I don’t know.”
They were silent for a while, all the while being able to hear, with perfect clarity, what was happening in the Blue Room.
Mr Pratt came in, accompanied by Sir William Stone. Pratt sounded sullen when, after greeting everyone, he announced to the group, “Guess what happened? Stone has just finished negotiating his marriage contract with Lady Ella’s father. Another one of my friends lost to the parson’s noose.”
Murmurs of congratulations followed, and then they heard Talbot laugh.
“I used to think like you, Pratt. But tell me, am I not here with you now? Have you not been my second at a duel just two months ago?”
Lizzie and Elinor exchanged a glance.
“Perhaps you’re the exception,” Pratt replied petulantly.
“He has been like this all day,” Stone complained.
“I don’t think so. Change is an inevitable part of life, but marriage is no reason for your friendships to stop.”
“We shall see,” Pratt grumbled.
“Engagements don’t have to change a thing,” Lizzie’s cousin Andrew added. “Just look at me, I haven’t seen my fiancée in four years,” he laughed.
“Do you think you’d recognise her in the street?” Lady Louisa asked curiously.
“I don’t think so,” Andrew admitted, and Lizzie found it sad somehow.
“Do you think they can hear us?” Elinor whispered.
“I have no idea,” Lizzie replied in an equally low tone. “Are you all right?” She repeated her question from earlier.
“I will be, in time. I think it was just misguided feelings on my part due to how paternal and kind and protective Powell has always been with me,” Elinor admitted, still whispering. “My own father was never like that, quite the opposite. His gambling ways have exposed our entire family to hardship, and my grandmother once said he has killed my mother with all the pregnancies, although I don’t see how that’s possible.”
“I got the sense that Powell was always watching you from afar with some sort of… yearning,” Lizzie said, but Elinor shook her head.
“Believe me, Lizzie. He most likely viewed me as a daughter, you’ve seen how he is with Miss Caroline.”
Elizabeth sighed. “I understand having an awful father very well. But it is so unfair that fathers get to shape their daughters so much, even through their absence and the things they don’t do! Their failures influence how we view men, love, and worst of all, ourselves.”
Elinor nodded sadly. “I don’t know what to do. I have to get married, but I hate the thought of being a mother. I’ve been raising my father’s children since I was a child myself. The thought of now having to raise some more,” she shuddered. “I think that is why I haven’t managed to secure a match yet; I’m very bad at pretending I want a husband.”
“I’ve told you repeatedly, there is no rush. Colin’s home is your home for as long as you want it to be. You never have to get married if you don’t want to.”
“Try telling my father that,” Elinor started saying, then stopped because the door to the Blue Room opened.
The two friends exchanged worried glances because, in the course of their conversation, they’d unthinkingly stopped whispering.
“Hello,” Amelia said shyly, and they both relaxed.
“Could you hear us talking out there?” Elinor asked anxiously.
Amelia frowned. “No. Why?”
“Listen,” Lizzie urged her, and when Amelia heard the conversation from the other room, understanding dawned on her face.
