London is brittle and beautiful and dangerous. Cutting like a crystal shard.

Julia Fitzwilliam. Darcy's cousin. 28, fashionable, funny, married to the Fitzwilliam heir. Taking Elizabeth shopping.

Noise, busy streets, yelling, strange smells, carriages, expensive teas in expensive establishments. Gorgeous fabrics. Deep, shimmering hues. A new maid, sent by Julia. New dresses, new gloves, new shoes, new shawls, new words. London words. Silks. Satins.

No time to think. Elegant ladies with pearls being introduced to you on the pavement.

Julia is perfect because she is new. She doesn't know about Elizabeth. About the melancholy, about the grey, about the doctor and the screaming in the closet. Julia doesn't know about the Elizabeth of before (in Hertfordshire), she doesn't know about the Elizabeth of after (in Pemberley), she just knows about the Elizabeth of now.

So Elizabeth of now can try a new skin. (Julia won't know it's new.) The new skin is joyful, witty, sophisticated. Almost like the Elizabeth from Hertfordshire, but that Elizabeth (from before) was not a skin. That Elizabeth was real.

...

Elizabeth doesn't see Darcy much during the day. He had a lot of business in the city. And she has Julia.

But at night...

They are always out, together. She and her husband. Theater, dinner, dinner, ball, theater, concert, dinner, repeat.

Elizabeth is drinking life. Sucking it, like a vampire sucks blood.

See, Elizabeth doesn't feed on loneliness. She feeds on people. Like… like her mother, really. (Dreadful thought.) Elizabeth feeds on conversation and laughs, friendships and crowds, connections and humans. On parties and ideas and irony. Her husband, she suspects, feeds on loneliness. Well, maybe on solitude. Nobody really feeds on loneliness.

He is right about London colors – she drinks them too. She is sucking them hungrily. Colors in actors' costumes, hypnotic wallpapers glowing in the candlelight, the infinite gay nuances of the Mascarade's crowd. Colors are intellectual too, Elizabeth finds them in phrases of music, in poetry readings, in political debates, in literary discussions – in colorful insults overheard through a window.

(Hearing them, treasuring them, storing them for grey days to come.)

It is raining a lot. Elizabeth likes it. London is blurry like a modern painting.

So yes, together, she and Darcy, every night. For hours, from seven to midnight, often later.

He never touches her – except when he is taking his arm, of course. Other husbands, they touch their wives on the elbow, the arm, the shoulder, the waist. Her husband almost does it, once – when they enter their theater lodge – his hand moves toward the small of her back – he hesitates – the hand moves away.

Elizabeth has a red dress. Crimson. He bought the fabric for her. ("I thought you might like this," he says. She does.)

He doesn't touch her the evening when she is wearing the dress. But she feels like she is wearing him. Like he's touching her all over. (Unnerving thought.)

She sees Julia a lot. They laugh a lot. Elizabeth tells her about the doctor.

It's still raining. The grey in the streets glimmer. They have tea. She and Julia. Again.

Elizabeth's new skin (joyful, witty, sophisticated) is far from perfect. There are dinners where Elizabeth feels fragile, lost. She falters. She says something – that doesn't fit exactly. That is just a little to the left, or to the right, like a missed throw at cricket.

"I apologize," she says to Darcy, in the carriage, afterwards. "I lack practice. I fear I played a few fake notes in the conversation."

"I don't think anybody notices."

"You do."

"That is because I knew you before – I can see the difference. But even with…" He pauses. (Even with what? Elizabeth wonders.) "Even now," he continues, "you are more charming and clever than any women present."

She is speechless.

...

The Matlock dinner.

Darcy's family. Who elegantly, sharply disapprove of her. Not of her, exactly, her they can't care less about. No, they disapprove of the "circumstances." The incident, the compromise, the marriage. All of them do, except Colonel Fitzwilliam, but Colonel Fitzwilliam is getting slaughtered at Waterloo. So they feel free to slaughter her.

(Julia is present, but she doesn't intervene.)

It is done with needles.

Long, thin, metallic needles (sentences) piercing Elizabeth just where it hurt.

Elizabeth of old would have laughed. Elizabeth of old would have parried the needles with ease. This Elizabeth feels naked.

She parries, though. She smiles. She makes neutral, amiable answers. (Nobody could say that Elizabeth Bennett – Darcy – is not absolutely... you know.)

But she gets paler and paler.

Suddenly her husband's hand is on her shoulder.

She doesn't see him coming. But yes, suddenly, he is at her side, in the drawing room, touching her.

Dinner. Darcy put his hand on her arm often. On her elbow. Or even, once, on her shoulder, around the chair. (Bold move.) He talks. He is very calm. He catches most of the needles in the air and lays them serenely on the table, near Elizabeth's plate.

As a gift.

But he cannot catch them all. At the end of the meal, Elizabeth is getting tired of catching. She's beginning to miss some. Darcy's hand is warm though.

"Of course, Mrs. Darcy, a life in the country – with such a family – may not have prepared you for all the pressures of London," Lady Matlock says.

"You are very right, Lady Matlock, it didn't," Elizabeth answers. "But my father always said that navigating the daily absurdities of a small town would teach me to survive in any society."

Julia smiles. "Of course, you needed a doctor to survive Pemberley's society, Elizabeth. So I wonder if your father was right, and if you will really be able to survive this one."

People laugh. Elizabeth stays petrified. No words come.

"See?" Julia adds. "And here we all thought you had an answer for everything."

Two weeks of shopping and tea and "intimate" conversations. And now, weaving the blade, waiting for Elizabeth to be weary, and... strike.

Then, at the end. Near the drawing room door. "Shall I come tomorrow to fetch you, Elizabeth?" Julia asks. "We still have to go to that fitting - the green silk. It will go perfectly with your complexion."

Elizabeth cannot insult Darcy's cousin. To be honest, she doesn't feel strong enough. "I am so sorry, Mrs. Fitzwilliam," she whispers. "I am not sure I will have time tomorrow."

"Come on," Julia protests. "Is it 'Mrs. Fitzwilliam' now? I am sure…"

"What my wife is too polite to tell you, Mrs. Fitzwilliam," Darcy interrupts, "is that you are not welcome in our house anymore."

Everybody hears.

...

The carriage. The night.

It is still raining.

The carriage gets stuck in the street.

The water has risen somewhere, near the river. Some streets are impracticable. There is a jam, they are stuck. They are sitting side by side, shoulders touching, under the blanket.

Elizabeth should say thank you. She cannot say thank you.

Wait. Why can't she?

"Thank you," she breathes.

He looks at her. She cannot really see him in the dark. She imagines the look. So many possibilities.

Silence. Then she says, "You never told me how your sister died, Mr. Darcy. It seems… Is there... something... I don't know about?"

It is a hunch. Things she overheard in the Matlock drawing room. The ladies' faces when they pronounced the name "Georgiana," or rather, when they didn't.

(It is a hunch, but Elizabeth knows she is right.)

New silence.

"There was a man…" Darcy starts.

"Oh my God." Elizabeth shivers.

(Georgiana was fifteen.)

"He was the son of my father's steward," Darcy explains. "He was raised with us – Georgiana trusted him. He seduced her." Elizabeth is silent. "They spent a few nights on the road together, then the carriage had an accident on the road to Scotland. They both died."

Elizabeth can't speak.

She looks at him. He cannot really see her in the dark. He imagines the look. So many possibilities.

She should take his hand, she thinks. She cannot.

Wait. Why can't she?

She cannot.

Men are talking near the carriage. Coarse voices. Street conversations. Darcy listens. He looks worried. Then he opens the door, gets out. He speaks with the men. Elizabeth can't hear.

It is still raining.

When he comes back, he says, "There has been rainstorms in the north. I am worried."

"For Pemberley?"

"Yes. I think we should go back."

The rain is falling harder.