Feeling more and more pressured all the forces assailing her, Elizabeth carefully got up to leave the anteroom that reminded her so much of her discussion with her mother. She went into the much-maligned library and closed the door after making sure it was empty. One of the servants had laid a fire earlier in the night that was burned down, but instead of asking for another to improve it, she just added some wood and poked it back to life. The activity felt like it brought her a bit back to life herself and gave her a few minutes to let her racing thoughts slow down to a speed where they might be useful.

Her thoughts went round and round with her mother's parting words.

'Choose wisely.' 'Choose wisely.' 'Choose wisely.'

Was it possible that her mother was wiser than she seemed, or was it a case of a stopped clock being right twice a day? Elizabeth tried to distance herself from her thoughts for just a moment, and for perhaps the first time, tried to truly understand how her mother felt. Five live births and who knew how many miscarriages and stillbirths would take a toll on anyone, no matter how sensible they were. The measure of a mother's success was in how well she married off her daughters, and she was in fact facing difficulties if she failed. It was not as dire as Mrs. Bennet liked to pretend, unless you considered the dower house to be the exact equivalent of the hedgerows, but it was something that would grate away at you over time, sapping away your vitality one day at a time. It was hardly any wonder her mother acted as she did.

'Choose wisely.'

Were those the most profound words ever spoken, or had her mother touched on just the right words at just the right time by chance.

'Choose wisely.'

Elizabeth reflected on the conundrum as long as she could, and then decided that in the end it did not matter anyway. Her mother had given her life at the exact time when it was required, and her mother had given her wisdom at the exact time it was required. Did it matter if Mrs. Bennet would be wise on the morrow or not? Did it matter if Mrs. Bennet was pushing Elizabeth in a direction she did not want to go? Probably not.

It was time to think… time to plan… time to…

Elizabeth once again distracted herself from her thoughts by casting back to Mr. O'Malley's forge in Harpendon. The gentleman, she had always considered him a gentleman despite him being a blacksmith, had shown her the most fascinating parts of the trade. The first was shaping, heating the iron red‑hot, then bending it into the right shape using hammer and anvil, vice, twisting or whatever else was necessary to get the piece you wanted. The next was quenching, heating the iron up to just the right temperature, and then dousing it into the water or oil to harden it. The last was tempering, heating it up and letting it cool down slowly, which removed some of the hardness and made it less brittle.

All were necessary to gain the piece you needed. You had to use hardening to get a piece of metal tough enough to survive the rigors of the job. Too soft, and it would be rubbed into nothing in no time. However, if you left the material too hard, it was too brittle. Too much strain and it would break, because it could not bend to the need.

An expert blacksmith knew exactly how much hardening something needed to be able to withstand the rigors of the job, and how much flexibility would be needed to survive the inevitable slings and arrows it was to receive. Based on that analogy, Elizabeth needed both hardening and tempering, both of which had to start right there, right then, in that library.

'Choose wisely.'

Her mother's parting words were the key.

The first, 'Choose' was to be the hardening. Elizabeth must choose her fate, and not spend the rest of her life waiting for it to choose her. For six weeks, she had tried to have it both ways. Avoid Mr. Darcy… Stalk Mr. Darcy… Try not to think about Ramsgate… Think about Ramsgate all day long… Go easy on her sisters… Bludgeon her sisters… Be absolutely polite… Be a bit of a harridan… Chastise Miss Bingley… Befriend Lina… on and on and on and on.

Elizabeth had let the winds of fate push her around, with each breeze pushing her unerringly into a corner she could not escape without a choice, just like a sheepdog herding sheep into a pasture. She had to choose. She had to make a choice.

That was where the second word came in. 'Choose wisely.'

What was wisdom? How could a young lady of only twenty years and no real experience claim the mantle of wisdom? Well, Elizabeth reckoned, wisdom was not only the province of the aged, and in fact, she thought she could detect a precipitous decline in wisdom in some of the older people she knew. She would just have to make her own pact with fate.

What was wisdom? The first part seemed like it must revolve around protecting the ones you love. What else in life was truly important? What made the parent begat the child and protect them to the best of their ability? What caused siblings to support each other through difficulties? What was the glue that held everything from families to communities to nations together? At some level, it had to be love of one sort or another. If wisdom was nothing more than protecting the ones you loved, then Elizabeth was content to accept that as a classic definition.

That opened the door to what was involved in protecting the ones you love? One aspect that seemed to reverberate through history was the frequent need for tradeoffs. Many times in life, it was up to the few to protect the many. Why else did soldiers go to battle? It was so a few soldiers could protect their homes, families and countries. Elizabeth was not naïve enough to believe war was always about such high-minded goals. Much of it was nothing but greed and jealousy, but the purest of the soldiers risked their lives for their loved ones. It seemed fitting.

With those thoughts firmly in mind, she had to think about all the pressures that were being brought to bear. In the end, the worst was what it had always been… her secret. No matter how unlikely it would be for her to be brought before the Assize and hanged, it was not impossible. There were dozens or hundreds of people hanged in England every day to prove the point. Elizabeth had even read one account in the newspaper that sounded hauntingly familiar to her case, and the woman was hanged. It was not common, but it did happen.

Who would be affected if the secret were revealed? The answer to that was obvious. Every single person she had ever known would be affected, but the most affected would be the ones she loved the most. Her sisters, her parents, her closest friends… and… well, Elizabeth thought it was high time she just admitted to herself that everyone she loved would be hurt, perhaps irreparably, and the list of people she loved included a gentleman who she had not met six weeks prior.

The next question was who would really be hurt if she protected all those people… if she removed herself from the possibility of English justice. Elizabeth was not stupid. All she had to do to avoid English justice was leave England. She had been thinking and planning for that contingency for six months… so who would really be hurt?

In the end, she thought that everyone who loved her would be hurt, some more than others, but they would recover. They would wonder about her, and perhaps some of them would fret for some time, but they would all mend and go on to lead happy and productive lives. The only one that would truly be hurt was her.

'Choose wisely.'

Elizabeth realized that the time to choose was upon her, but was there really a choice? Really?

Feeling the best that she had for six long months, Elizabeth reveled in the power of a clear and unambiguous decision. No more vacillating… no more obfuscating… no more prevaricating… no more indecision…

The decision was made, and all that remained to be done was clear in the instant of decision.