Chapter 3

3

E lizabeth glanced out of the window and jumped to her feet. Charlotte was walking up the drive, and Elizabeth ran through to collect her coat. She looked back round the door. "I'm hoping Charlotte is prepared for a long walk, Mama, and I will see you later." She smiled at Jane, who nodded at her and bent back over her needlework.

Elizabeth hurried out of the door, still tying the bonnet ribbon under her chin. "Oh, Charlotte, it is good of you to come so we can walk together."

Her friend smiled. "I have plenty to do while you're working, so it is no hardship."

"That's not the point, is it?" Elizabeth took her place beside the other, and checked the footman was ready to follow them, and far enough behind that their conversation would be in private. "There are only four people in the whole world who know my secret — and neither Papa nor Aunt and Uncle Gardiner can help me in my everyday life as you do."

Charlotte shivered a little. "I would not like to see you in trouble and compromised, Eliza. And you know what men can be like. Even those we know well. And they only know part of your gift. Not this part."

Elizabeth's shoulders sagged. "It's terrible, Charlotte, and I don't know what to do about it. Uncle Gardiner is concerned, too, but Papa doesn't take it as seriously as he ought."

"I think he is rather more concerned since Robert Goulding tried to persuade you outside with him at the last gathering."

Elizabeth grimaced. "That was dreadful. I hated having to raise my voice to him, but he would not let me go, and I refuse to be compromised."

"You have a uniquely beautiful voice, and I think Mr. Goulding lost his head rather. Most men seem to want to possess it." Charlotte rolled her eyes. "And you hadn't given him any encouragement or cause for hope."

Elizabeth huffed and kicked at a tuft of grass as they strode up the path into the woods. She wondered what it might have been like to be able to walk out at all hours of the day, able to be alone to let the music filling her head take over and let her sing.

But she was not safe. She knew that now. It was only a few months ago that the new master at Haye Park had said she had come to his manor and was compromised. When he arrived in Papa's library, Elizabeth had utterly refused to have anything to do with him.

Of course, she had been at home at the time Mr. Haye had said she'd been with him, and Papa would always have believed her even if she had not been there. But she'd stood up to that man in Papa's library and said that even if he was able to force her to the altar, she would refuse to say her vows and thus publicly humiliate him.

He had laughed at her. "You would not, my dear. I know you would not. And just think, I could protect you better as a married woman, so you would be free."

She'd looked at him scornfully. "And who would protect me from you?" Her lip curled. "If you will not take no for an answer, then I will have to take this into my own hands." And she had.

By the time every single family in Meryton had given Mr. Haye the cut direct for his actions, the man had fled back to wherever he had come from, and Haye Park now stood empty once again.

Elizabeth had gone to her uncle and aunt Gardiner for six weeks and had gradually calmed down.

Now Charlotte had appointed herself Elizabeth's protector. She, at least, took her friend's security seriously, even though Papa also insisted a footman escorted Elizabeth everywhere.

After half an hour's brisk walk, they arrived at the tiny, isolated, former farmworker's home. Elizabeth unlocked the door and nodded at the footman. "Thank you, Stephens. Please come back to escort us home at four of the clock."

As the man bowed and turned away, Charlotte had hurried in and began to set the fire. Elizabeth turned to the stove. Even had they not had her music to hide, it was still enjoyable to pretend they were not young ladies and to make-believe they were just ordinary people, doing ordinary tasks.

Charlotte placed her basket on the small table by the stove. "You carry on with your music, Eliza, and I'll give you all the news when we're eating later."

"You have news?" Elizabeth went to the cupboard by the piano and took out some of her stave paper. Music was already thrumming through her head so she wasn't really listening, and she crossed to her reticule and removed the sheets she'd been working on at home after she'd retired to her chamber the previous night.

"Mmm." Charlotte took some mending from her basket. "Netherfield Park is let at last."

"That's nice," Elizabeth said absently as she drew out the piano stool and looked at last night's melody. She knew exactly what accompaniment she needed to create to make this one of her better pieces. It was time to stop writing sad music; Mr. Haye must be cast out of her mind as she had done for young Robert Goulding — and the other men who may not have importuned her so openly, but clustered around her whenever they could.

Of course, she could not hide her voice and her playing. Mama, at least, expected her to make an exceedingly good marriage to save the family from being cast into the hedgerows when Papa died and the entail to their distant cousin came into effect.

Elizabeth didn't like to think of that. She wouldn't believe it; Papa was fit and well, and he had secretly arranged this instrument here, where they were unlikely to be heard or seen. No tenant was allowed to coppice this woodland and no one ever came here, except she and Charlotte.

And here, once or twice each week, she could work on writing her music; capture the harmonies that poured into her head and ease the pressure of losing it all before she could write it down.

After an hour or so of writing the music, and trying out various alternative arrangements, she looked up. "Charlotte?"

"Mmm?" Her friend glanced over at her.

"Have you been listening to this piece?"

"It's lovely, isn't it? But then, you know that."

"I think it needs words. A song to draw out the meaning."

Charlotte smiled. "I was thinking that. Let me make tea, and we can work on it."

Elizabeth cradled the cup in her hands and frowned, dissatisfied, at the music. "I don't even know what the song should be about."

Charlotte laughed. "It's a love song, Eliza. I told you that Netherfield Park has been let, and your mind took you to a new young man who may be the love of your life."

Elizabeth joined in the laughter. "You mistake me completely. I didn't hear you tell me about Netherfield."

"Oh, you heard me — but you had stopped listening . And now I'm going to tell you that it has been let to a young, single man of large fortune. And he will take possession of the place at Michaelmas, and so will be here in less than two weeks, just in time for the assembly."

Suddenly, she was serious. Reaching over to put her cup down, she met Elizabeth's eyes as she spoke. "I tell you, Elizabeth, it is not you who will be at risk so much as Jane is. If we meet this young man, whose name, I understand, is Bingley, it will be at the assembly. He will see Jane, and immediately fall for her beauty." She took Elizabeth's hand. "Now, she may like him, and he may be amiable. What if she likes him, but all he can see is her beauty?"

She drew back slightly, and hummed the tune that Elizabeth had been working on. "Don't you see? It is a haunting tune, and we need to find the words that make it a love song by a young woman who wants to be seen properly, not just as a beauty — or even a talent …" Charlotte cast a sly look at Elizabeth. "Like you."

Elizabeth closed her eyes and hummed the main melody line. "Not me; it is for Jane." She jumped up. "Yes, you're right. We need … what do we need first?"

Charlotte reached for the pencil. "We need her singing of how kind and attentive he is." She began to scribble. "And then when the tune goes like this;" she hummed, "she needs to sing of how he gazes at her but doesn't see her, only her beauty."

Elizabeth kept her eyes shut. "Yes, and then how he sees only what he wants to see. And he desires only to possess her." She dropped into the chair beside Charlotte. "That's exactly what the music says. Thank you. Now we need to get the words right."